Facilitation in business, organizational development and consensus decision-making refers to the process of designing and running a meeting according to a previously agreed set of requirements.
Facilitation is "used in a wide range of situations and occupations, including workplaces, leisure and health activities, organizational planning and community development".
[3] Facilitation serves the needs of any group who are meeting with a common purpose, whether it be making a decision, solving a problem, or simply exchanging ideas and information.
This is covered in-depth in the research work of John Heron at the University of Surrey and the International Centre for Co-operative Inquiry.
With the introduction of modern telecommunications the field has grown to embrace other forms of meetings: With the upheaval of the Digital Revolution the widespread use of Video conference combined with other digital tools for collaboration gave rise to an emergent field of virtual facilitation that occurs in the same time, different place meetings.