Most any meeting that involves at least a handful of people with varying ideas or views benefits from having a facilitator. It might be a meeting of just a couple or a few hours that is focused on a narrow and specific question; it might be a meeting that is part of a larger project; it could be a part-day or a full-day planning retreat. It might be a meeting to plan a large and noteworthy family event; it might be a meeting to solve a particular workplace issue; it might be a session in a long series of meetings to develop or redesign a whole new operation; it might be a neighborhood or community gathering to address an issue that has quality-of-life consequences.