Chairing (or facilitating) meetings – whose turn is it to speak?

A colleague highlighted an important issue when she asked about the order in which the Chair allows people to speak. Normally when you are chairing or facilitating a discussion you note (you can write it down) the order in which people are raising their hands and invite them to speak in that order.

However, what if one person is asking for information and another person is giving that information, but the next person to raise their hand wants to speak about something else? As my colleague rightly pointed out, if the Chair sticks rigidly to the order in which people are raising their hands, the flow of the discussion can be interrupted by questions or comments relating to a totally different issue.

So what’s the answer? Continue reading “Chairing (or facilitating) meetings – whose turn is it to speak?”