Facilitative debriefing is a requirement of TRI/E Line Trainers SFIs Ground school instructors. As CRM is now being assessed in conjunction with the skills of a pilot, it requires the instructor to encourage and develop the pilot's ability to evaluate their own performance. How can we as instructors blithely reel off the observations made in the cockpit/sim without having any appreciation of how the pilot viewed it? Facilitation encourages by means of judicious questioning to understand BOTH parties views, thereby giving the instructor valuable feedback in order to improve or correct the problem areas, and acceptance by the pilot. It becomes a productive discussion rather than a challenging one sided criticism.
I have been instructing facilitation techniques for the past 3 years, and those instructors who have taken this style on board have told me how rewarding they find it. They believe it improves their ability to understand why skills falter and give a meaningful and supportive remedy to improve matters. I have recently returned from Canada and was so impressed on my TR course for the instructor to start off the debriefing with "sum up what your observations were in 10 words" Brilliant...better than opening up that dreaded notebook and reeling off all bad points. Well done Bombardier.....
