Are you wanting a workshop that:
- Is time efficient
- Has a guaranteed outcome (action plan with clear responsibilities)
These are all characteristics of a facilitated Participlan workshop.
Participlan is a visual group-facilitation tool that makes excellent use of time and allows everyone to contribute, and yet the process does not allow any-one-person to dominate. Participlan is an ideal tool to use for group/team sessions where a common understanding of a business problem is required, as well as buy-in to the solutions and actions
Workshop duration is anything from half a day to 3 days depending on the complexity of the issues and the number of participants (3 to 100). For example:
Scenario planning, strategy development:
- Create the context
- Explore the typical opportunities and threats (scenarios) that could unfold over then next two to 5 years in the space that your business operates
- Based on the scenarios have the group identify what is working and what is not working and what are likely obstacles.
- Build the solution
- Create the ideal business model. What are we doing and what do we look like as this ideal model? In other words what decisions have we taken?
- What roles are responsibilities will we need to have in place to deliver this model, and how do we structure this team?
- Implementation
- Define what actions should be taken to build this ideal business.
- Assign responsibility for each task
User requirement definition/software development/web site design
- Bring design, technical staff and customers together.
- What is the ideal solution, what are the obstacles, what actions must we take?
Team Building
- How can we be more effective as a team? How do we retain our culture? What result to we want?
- Use SDI to provide individual and group profiles to understand and enhance team dynamics and reduce conflict.
Robert Brain is a qualified Participlan facilitator and is available to facilitate your workshop.
Effective workshops – plan well
What is an effective workshop? We can recognise one when we see it, but how can we ensure effective use of time and valuable people-resources? Effective workshops are planned. Who should attend? What is the desired result? How long do we need? How should delegates prepare? How can we encourage participation? How do we prevent any person or group from dominating the workshop? See this article from Mindtools: Contact me to facilitate your...Participlan Workshop Facilitation
Robert Brain is an accredited Participlan facilitator. Participlan is a visual mapping tool where the facilitator poses a question to the group, and every person writes down their answers on cards, one answer per card. The facilitator gathers the cards and the participants guide the grouping of cards on sticky sheets. The benefits of the Participlan process are: • A wider range of ideas and contributions is received. Divergent and lateral thinking is encouraged • Everyone contributes yet no-one dominates the discussion • Cards are anonymous so the focus is on the issue rather than the person. This also frees people to raise issues that may otherwise be avoided. • Everyone’s contributions are heard, not just those of the senior people in the room. • A clear agenda is followed and the result is a consensus understanding of the issue and the way forward • The process is very time efficient. Workshops duration can be anything between 2 hours and 2 days depending on the number of issues and participants. • The use of an external facilitator means that the leader of the group is free to participate and learn, and does not have to switch from the role of leader to that of...