Since most futuring processes are collaborative, we find it essential to include some general hosting and process facilitation techniques. While previous sections have focused on content-driven techniques, this section is about practices that concentrate on group dynamics and encourage participation and pro-active engagement. These techniques can be applied to structure conversations around any topic, and can therefore be used during all stages of a futuring process. The techniques are not specific to foresight, and can be applied to any participatory and co-creative exercises. Good facilitation appears effortless and invisible, and as such is often taken for granted. In our experience, hosting a participatory process is a painstaking craft that can only be developed through practice. Even though futuring is essentially collaborative, not all futurists will automatically make good facilitators. Hosting is one of the aptitudes that needs as much cultivation as horizon scanning, for example.

For novice facilitators, it can be helpful to become familiar with some basic hosting concepts and techniques, which tend to grow more informal and less forced with practice. In this section we collect a few techniques that we have used in a range of futuring processes.

• Check-in and Check-out
• Framing
• Questions
• Hosting Conversations
• Open Space
• World Cafe
• Pro-action cafe
• Graphic harvesting
• …

See also FoAM's notes on hosting craft.