How Team-Based Facilitation with CATER Produces Better Results

CATER is a mental model that helps facilitators recall the critical elements for group collaboration.

The CATER framework can be immensely effective in enhancing collaboration and improving team dynamics. This mental model fosters a shared understanding among participants and establishes crucial feedback channels essential for successful collaboration. Team-based facilitation with CATER produces better results.

CATER Overview

CATER represents five foundational elements that facilitate productive teamwork and collaboration:

1. Communicate in Pre-Session Exchanges

2. Ask Powerful Questions 

3. Anticipate Trouble

4. Use Engaging Exercises

5. Manage the Rhythm 

1. Communicate in Pre-Session Exchanges

The groundwork for effective facilitation is laid before the main session begins. A pre-session exchange involves the facilitator gathering participant insights through face-to-face discussions, phone calls, or online surveys. This structured exchange allows facilitators to understand participants' perspectives and needs, enabling them to tailor the session to meet expectations.

2. Ask Powerful Questions

The quality of questions posed during a facilitated session greatly influences its success. Powerful questions encourage critical thinking, inspire debate, and yield meaningful outcomes. These questions are generally categorized as introductory, which sets the stage, and clarifying, which dives deeper into discussions. Thoughtfully crafted questions are key to engaging participants and propelling the session forward.

3. Anticipate Trouble

Recognizing that disruptions are a natural aspect of group interactions is crucial. Exceptional facilitators embrace the reality of challenges and prepare strategies to navigate through them. Facilitators can sustain focus and momentum throughout the session by anticipating potential obstacles. In turn, this ensures disruptions do not derail productive discussions.

4. Use Engaging Exercises

Integrating engaging exercises into the session is essential to capture participants' attention and promote active engagement. These activities, whether brainstorming sessions, role plays, or interactive discussions, should be designed to be appealing and captivating. The likelihood of achieving session goals increases significantly when exercises resonate with participants,

5. Manage the Rhythm

Facilitators must be acutely aware of the natural rhythm of group dynamics. Throughout the session, there will be fluctuations in energy and engagement. Skilled facilitators can identify these shifts and adjust the pacing accordingly, making sure that the session remains dynamic and responsive to the group's needs.

Facilitating with JD Solomon's FINESSE Fishbone Diagram®

The elements of the FINESSE fishbone diagram® are Frame, Illustrate, Noise reduction, Empathy, Structure, Synergy, and Ethics.

The Connection Between FINESSE and CATER

The relationship between JD Solomon's FINESSE Fishbone Diagram and the CATER framework is essential for successful facilitation. FINESSE emphasizes the linear communication necessary to make information with complexity and uncertainty understood. CATER provides a structured approach to managing team dynamics and interactive communication complexities.

Elevate Your Facilitation Skills for Better Team Dynamics and Collaboration

Explore Facilitating with FINESSE: A Guide to Successful Business Solutions for deeper insights. The book applies the CATER framework to ten commonly facilitated business applications, including risk assessments, business cases, failure analysis, and strategic plans. Also, visit the Tackle Shop for the full range of communication and facilitation resources. Transform your facilitation from good to great by CATERing to the needs of your participants!

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Founded by JD Solomon, Communicating with FINESSE is a not-for-profit community of technical professionals dedicated to being highly effective communicators and facilitators. He is the author of Facilitating with FINESSE: A Guide to Successful Business Solutions and Communicating Reliability, Risk & Resiliency to Decision Makers: How to Get Your Boss’s Boss to Understand.  Join Communicating with FINESSE for free.

Work Management: Best Practices in Planning and Scheduling the Work

Mount Pleasant Waterworks is a medium sized utility with a strong work planning focus.

If you’ve ever felt like work is a chaotic mess of last-minute scrambles, constant interruptions, and never-ending to-do lists, you’re not alone. The secret to regaining control? Effective planning and scheduling. These two elements of work management are the backbone of productivity, efficiency, and keeping your sanity intact.

Planning vs. Scheduling: What’s the Difference?

Planning and scheduling often get lumped together, but they’re not the same thing. Think of it like this:

• Planning is figuring out what needs to be done and how it should be done.

• Scheduling is deciding when it needs to happen and who is responsible for making it happen.

Without planning, scheduling is just throwing darts in the dark. Without scheduling, planning is just a bunch of great ideas with no execution. You need both.

Why Bother with Planning?

Some might think planning is just a bureaucratic time waster, but it actually saves you time, money, and frustration in the long run. Here’s why:

• It helps demonstrate the need for more people or resources.

• It ensures you’re covering your bases (aka, CYA – Cover Your Assets).

• It keeps costs under control by preventing last-minute fixes and inefficiencies.

Simply put, planning is like having a roadmap instead of wandering aimlessly and hoping for the best.

How Many Planners Do You Need?

If you think one person can plan for an entire organization, think again. The ideal ratio is one planner per 14 to 18 technicians. That way, you have enough coverage without overwhelming a single person.

Planners Do Not…

Let’s clear up a common misconception: planners do not:

• Schedule the work.

• Order or kit parts.

• Manage subcontracts.

• Perform quality control as their primary role.

30 days Ahead

Planners focus on creating detailed job plans that allow work to happen smoothly. Their job is to think ahead so technicians can spend less time scrambling and more time getting things done.

Normally planners are looking 30 days ahead of when the work needs to get done. They meet with supervisors and schedulers the week preceding the work.  If planners spend more than a fraction of their time in the current week, you are doing it wrong!

Who Should You Hire as a Planner?

This might surprise you, but your best technician is often the best candidate for a planner role. They have the hands-on knowledge and experience to create realistic, effective plans. Ideally, look for someone who is:

• A trained planner.

• An experienced technician.

• CMRP (Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional) or CMRT (Certified Maintenance & Reliability Technician) certified.

The hardest part? Convincing your organization to promote one of its best technicians off the front line. But in the long run, having an experienced planner can make a world of difference in work efficiency.

How to Apply Planning in the Real World

Start small. Take a basic task—like replacing a valve or meter—and create a job plan for it.

This should include:

• The number of steps involved.

• How much procurement is needed.

• The estimated time required.

• The level of cooperation needed between teams.

How Long Does Planning Take?

The “Rule of Five” applies here:

• 1 planner will be excellent.

• 3 planners will be adequate.

• 1 planner will struggle.

In other words, don’t overload your planners and expect miracles. Proper planning takes time and attention to detail. It’s an ongoing process, and as Robert Earl Keen said, “The road goes on forever and the journey never ends.”

Keep the End in Mind

The goal is to spend more time doing and less time figuring out what to do next.

JD Solomon Inc Provides Practical Solutions

Work management isn’t about fancy spreadsheets or overcomplicating things—it’s about making work easier and more efficient. With proper planning and scheduling, you can turn chaos into clarity, reduce stress, and get more done with fewer headaches.

Take a step back, plan ahead, and set yourself up for success. Your future self will thank you!

Steady (and surprising) Asset Management Topics on Google & Our Blog

There are a handful of topics that are steady in overall interest like criticality assessments, program advice, and asset obsolescence.

Five years of content creation related to asset management topics provides a great foundation for where there is continual interest. Google also provides a great way of tracking which insights are steady in their interest year-over-year. As we celebrate our fifth anniversary, here are the top six steady asset management topics as we head into 2025.

JD Solomon Solutions Blog

We created the JD Solomon Solutions blog in 2020 when we began the business. We believe there was greater value in providing our clients with trending content than self-serving newsletters.

The topics for the blog insights come from the hot topics we see in our consulting practice, which focuses on asset management (including reliability and risk), program development, facilitation, and the environment.

“Steady” is Determined by Several Factors

We use Google Analytics to track the number of visitors to your blog posts over time. We compare the year-over-year numbers and look for the consistently high posts with the least variability.

We use views and comments as our primary engagement metrics.

Our final evaluation is based on a weight-of-evidence approach.

Steady Interest According to Our Blog & Google

These are the top six topics we published in the last five years that are consistently high in interest.

Using SOAP Will Save Your Criticality Analysis Time and Money

The Solomon-Oldach Asset Prioritization (SOAP) method is an alternate method for conducting criticality analysis for use on industrial assets and public infrastructure; SOAP can result in staff time savings of up to 70% compared to traditional methods, which are time-consuming and sometimes misleading.

Originally posted in February 2021

https://www.jdsolomonsolutions.com/post/using-soap-will-save-your-criticality-analysis-time-and-money

Improving System Performance Starts with a Criticality Analysis

Criticality analysis is the best way to prioritize organizational activities such as business process improvements, condition assessments, preventative maintenance program improvement, workforce development, work prioritization, inventory management & critical spares, predictive maintenance programs, health & safety improvements, design or re-designs, O&M budget development, CIP prioritization, and communications. Improving system performance starts with criticality analysis.

Originally posted in February 2022.

https://www.jdsolomonsolutions.com/post/improving-system-performance-starts-with-a-criticality-analysis

Controversial Thoughts on Operationalizing Asset Management for Better Results

Are you drowning in the many activities related to what to do in your asset management program? Are you spending valuable resources and little very few short-term results? Are you tired of paying large sums of money to consultants and software vendors?

Originally published in December 2022.

https://www.jdsolomonsolutions.com/post/controversial-thoughts-on-operationalizing-asset-management-for-better-results

 

Asset Management History Empowers Critical Infrastructure Rules of Thumb

History often frames the way we do things in the present and future. Asset management is no exception. Understanding asset management history enables and empowers the current generation to use several critical infrastructure rules of thumb.

Originally published in October 2023.

https://www.jdsolomonsolutions.com/post/asset-management-history-empowers-critical-infrastructure-rules-of-thumb

Five Ways to More Effectively Facilitate Tree Diagrams

The foundations of systems thinking and facilitation apply to tree diagrams, rich with many parts and the logic that connects them. The five ways to more effectively facilitate tree diagrams enhance a facilitator’s ability to guide the participants through a series of predefined steps to arrive at a result that is created, understood, and accepted by all.

Originally posted in March 2022.

https://www.jdsolomonsolutions.com/post/five-ways-to-more-effectively-facilitate-tree-diagrams

Why Consider Asset Obsolescence Before Field Condition Assessments

Obsolescence is a driving force behind the decisions to renew or replace assets. As part of asset management policy, incorporating obsolescence saves resources associated with a field condition assessment program, improves decision making, minimizes organizational risk, and maximizes ratepayer value.

Originally published in March 2023.

https://www.jdsolomonsolutions.com/post/why-consider-asset-obsolescence-before-field-condition-assessments

Asset Management Topics of Steady Interest

Google searches, views, and likes are one source for understanding trending infrastructure and facility topics as we move into 2025. We were not surprised that criticality analysis, rule-of-thumb, operationalizing asset management, and asset obsolescence made the list. We were a little surprised that popular topics like reliability assessments and risk matrices were more streaky than steady, at least when it comes to the blog.

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JD Solomon Inc. provides solutions for program development, asset management, and facilitation at the nexus of facilities, infrastructure, and the environment. Visit our Asset Management page for more information related reliability, risk management, resilience, and other asset management services. Subscribe for bi-monthly updates related to our firm.