I have benefited from Mara's guidance over the years in various capacities: first as a people and process manager, more recently as an entrepreneur.  Overall, Mara provides an organized, inclusive, calm and reflective approach to facilitation.

More specifically, she plans the sessions well in advance by talking about goals and outcomes with the business owner. At the beginning of the sessions, she also preps the target group. During the sessions, I have noted that individual members are engaged and are eager to make their contribution to the discussions, even the shy ones come out of their shells in due course!

Results from the sessions include: noticeable improvements in team communications, collaboration and problem solving outside their immediate sphere of responsibility to tackle larger team issues. Other results: comprehensive feedback from a prototype test group to guide product development before commitment to coding, and guiding the process to articulate/negotiate requirements for a user case document (for a team unfamiliar with the process).

Mara's services allowed me as a business owner to step back and listen to the valuable opinions of others, and by doing so I was able to benefit either in smoother team operations, dramatically improved efficiencies, or in validating business critical hunches in an inexpensive, yet meaningful manner. I look forward to working with Mara again.

Michael Chapman