In 1978, JAD was created – it introduced structured facilitation.

In 1978, Chuck Morris developed JAD (Joint Application Design) while working as a system engineer for IBM. Chuck originally created JAD to help implement a system IBM was selling called COPICS. This was an early Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) system. In the late 1970's systems were not widely accepted by end users (there were no PC's or Macs). Chuck needed to gather requirements for screen design and process design from people who had little or no understanding of computers. JAD was created to fill that need. Chuck defined many of the roles for the JAD process based on the book by Michael Doyle and David Straus, "How to Make Meetings Work".

Beginning in 1979, Tony Crawford, then of IBM Canada, helped Chuck Morris formalize the process. Tony developed the JAD-Plan Agenda - a workshop to help planning for the JAD workshops. Tony implemented JAD at the IBM Canada office in Toronto and really pushed to have it become a standard. He was more successful in Canada than in the U.S. In the early 1980's, JAD became a popular topic at IBM's users group sessions, called GUIDE. IBM trained numerous JAD Session Leaders (the term used prior to the use of Facilitator) in Canada and the U.S. over the next few years.

In 1983, Chuck Morris trained Gary Rush to be a "Session Leader" while Gary was implementing a productivity program for the IT department at CNA Insurance where he worked.

In 1985, Gary created FAST – a revolution from JAD.

In 1985, Gary Rush founded MG Rush Systems, Inc.; to provide consulting services in facilitation, productivity measurements, and IT productivity.  Within 6 months, Gary added Facilitator Training with the introduction of FAST - The FAST Session Leader Workshop class - a structured facilitation technique (a proprietary product created by Gary Rush) after extensive research and experience conducting JAD Workshops.

Gary created a structured facilitation technique - FAST, wrote a facilitation "how to" manual, and developed training on "how to" be a Facilitator. While writing the manual, he also wrote an article "A Fast Way to Define System Requirements", describing the different variations of JAD. Rather than calling them all "JAD", he created a title - Facilitation Application Specification Techniques - FAST. He sent the article to Computerworld and they published it. The title worked so well that Gary called his facilitation technique FAST with the FAST Session Leader Manual and The FAST Session Leader Workshop class. The Computerworld article came out on October 7, 1985, during the same week that Gary taught his first FAST class.

In 2007, Gary created FoCuSeD™ –  the 1st Holistic Facilitation Technique - a revolution from FAST.

In 2007, Gary Rush, IAF CPF, now MGR Consulting, Inc., created The FoCuSeD™ Facilitator Academy - a revolution from FAST. FoCuSeD™ is the most complete, most comprehensive, and most effective Facilitator class available, providing detailed training on the concepts of Holistic Facilitation. Until FoCuSeD™, facilitation techniques have been either about structure or about group dynamics. FoCuSeD™ contains a unique concept for developing workshop agendas with an understanding of the two parallel developments occurring, "the workshop process and emotional group cycle", that must be holistically planned to achieve useful solutions. It is not sufficient to select a workshop agenda and then insert exercises in different areas and hope that it works. It's time to get FoCuSeD™!

As a Facilitator, Gary knows that the process to build a product is not what drives the workshop; in fact, it is often easy to determine. You must seamlessly integrate it with the emotional group cycle or it is not fruitful because the emotional group cycle usually drives the overall workshop process. The workshop process and emotional group cycle must be planned to evolve in parallel. The overall process design must be holistic.  FoCuSeD™ - the 1st Holistic Facilitation Technique.

“Stop looking for solutions – when you’re FoCuSeD™, you find them.” - Gary Rush, IAF CPF

FoCuSeD™ Classes

It's Time to Get FoCuSeD™

The "How to" of FoCuSeD™