Facilitation and strategic planning

Hannah is  an experienced facilitator and trainer, helping organisations to work through policy decisions, organisational development and strategic planning. She works with both large groups and small, drawing on the assistance of associate consultants where necessary to provide a full service. She provides face to face facilitation mostly in Ireland, and online services for meetings and events anywhere in the world. Hannah also offers customised facilitation training, to allow staff to run better meetings, consultations and events. 

Resource: Running a fishbowl discussion online

Project Example

In March 2018, Hannah Grene was one of four consultants engaged to assist the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Ireland in developing a new White Paper on international development (March 2018-March 2019).

She led two internal workshops on financing for development, and on inclusive economic growth, producing a paper for each. She co-facilitated two expert policy workshops (one on sustainability, the other on poverty and inequality), and co-ordinated notetaking for the five public consultations held nationally. She produced a paper on making the case for aid, and provided a synthesis of the internal consultation submissions to the White Paper process.

In early 2019, she conducted a short review of the public consultation process against Open Government Partnership principles, interviewing both external and internal participants in the process. She conducted two follow up facilitated workshops with the Policy Unit in Irish Aid, to assist them in considering steps forward in implementation of the new policy.

What they said

"Hannah came in to support the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to deliver on a significant policy project. She worked with us for throughout the course of a year producing analytical think-pieces; preparing and facilitating workshops; leading on organising and briefing teams for public consultation meetings. She was an excellent consultant – highly professional in her engagement; very responsive to our needs and always delivered high quality outputs to tight timelines. I would highly recommend her and hope to have the opportunity to work with her again."

Nicola Brennan, Policy Director
Development Cooperation and Africa Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Dublin

Need some help planning a facilitated workshop? Click here for Barncat’s checklist for working with a facilitator and planning a workshop. Some of the points in this checklist (on logistics, for example) are less relevant at the moment with pandemic restrictions in place. If you would like some tips on how to run a successful online workshop, click here.

Resource: Planning a facilitated workshop