(null) on the longish side:action planning

[Chris Corrigan]

Pannwitz brings to mind for me one further design, with this notion of
families.  I think I originally got this one from him too.

Sometimes in doing strategic planning, the sponsor has some givens
around areas that need to be addressed.  For example with one group, the
sponsor wanted open space, but the plan that came out of the other side
needed to address Human Resources, Labour Relations, Financing, a
Service Delivery Model and Government Relations.  I opened space for the
conference with the invitation to the participants to discuss anything
they wanted too, but at the end of the day if they wanted their ideas to
be a part of the plan, they needed to fit into the five categories.  So
I asked them when they posted their proceedings on the news wall to post
under one of the five headings.

At the end of Day One we had about 25 topics grouped under the five
headings and a couple of "orphans" (carrying on the "family" idea!).
During the course of the day, as conversation proceeded, Labour
Relations and Human Resources got together and became one big family.
Just before the closing circle I asked if the two orphans had anywhere
to go.  They found their ways into the existing four topics, and we
closed for the day.

Overnight, we produced the proceedings with four chapters, each one
containing the notes from the topics in the four categories.  In the
room I had four flipcharts in the corners with the categories written on
them.  As we opened, I invited people to choose a category to work on
and head to that corner.  The task for them was to actualize as much of
it as possible so that it could sit in the plan.  Laws and Principles
apply etc.

It worked fine, and it gave the group the focus they were looking for at
the back end with the openness they wanted at the front.

Cheers,

Chris

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