I have to admit I was initially afraid to use Process Observers to give feedback on meetings. I read about the Process Observer (PO) role in Elena Aguilar’s The Art of Coaching Teams and was intrigued. However I had never participated in a meeting where a person was designated or trained as a PO. Fortunately a colleague modeled the process for me in a meeting we co-facilitated. I immediately saw the benefit for team growth. In today’s post I will summarize some of what I’ve learned and tried with the PO role.

In The Art of Coaching Teams, Elena Aguilar defines a Process Observer as a person designated “to help the group gain more awareness of its group dynamics so that it can accomplish its goals.” The PO can focus on agreements, participation, decision-making, tone, or another focus agreed upon by the participants. Several prompts are included in the Team Member Roles and Responsibilities resource. Typically the PO gathers data during the entire meeting and offers a summary at the end.

The first time I used a Process Observer at a meeting was one where we were studying coaching models and participants were familiar with Aguilar’s books and tools. To support people in learning about the role, the co-facilitator and I shared the role description, in particular the section on what a PO is and is not. Then we asked for two volunteers to observe processes during our two hour meeting. We selected two Co-Process Observers in order to support learning the new role. The meeting participants selected a focus for the PO observations, given our agenda and working agreements. POs took notes on the focus throughout the meeting, in a format they chose. The co-facilitators brought the POs together privately for a few minutes toward the end of the meeting to see what they planned to share as feedback. This provided a time for us to make sure the feedback was objective and based on themes. Then the feedback was shared with the whole group.

Without proper training and guidelines, the role of PO could make participants feel judged. I was in a meeting once where the PO called out names of people when sharing data. Trust was diminished on the team and we needed to take action to both repair trust and reteach the role, focusing on the collection of objective data.

This year, my school has focused on asset-based language about self, students, colleagues, and families. A colleague suggested that we use Process Observers at our Professional Learning Community (PLC) meetings with a specific focus on language. We trained a person on each PLC team to be a PO, and co-created a document with suggested asset-based language. For example, instead of saying “a low reader” we would say “a reader who has a strength in __ and is working on __.” On the document, we listed prompts to use if deficit-based language occurred. For example, “How might we reframe that?” This process has been remarkable! Our trained POs have done an exceptional job summarizing themes and suggesting next steps for their teams. They’ve noted times when we shifted our language with intention. Each of our POs approaches the role with a sense of urgency and leadership. As a result, our meetings have been more action-focused and student-focused.

A next step for us is to ask team members to reflect on the feedback given by the Process Observer. One potential prompt is “How did it feel to know that language was the focus of the Process Observation? Were there times you reframed/revised your thinking/words?”

I highly recommend the use of Process Observers at meetings! POs can increase meeting effectiveness, and change the ways we talk about ourselves and our students which in turn can shape our thoughts and beliefs. The end result is increased student learning.

Resources:
The Art of Coaching Teams, Elena Aguilar
Team Member Roles and Responsibilities