Changes in business and technology are occurring at a rapid pace while companies simultaneously fight to free themselves from the residual effects of the pandemic. Companies and teams must invest in innovation not only to stay ahead but to simply survive in today’s extremely fast-paced environment. Utilizing innovation exercises and innovation training can help create impactful, powerful results. 

A McKinsey study of over 200 organizations across industries found that 90% of surveyed executives said they anticipate the effects of COVID-19 to fundamentally alter how they conduct business in the next five years. 85% of executives said that they expect the pandemic will also impact their customers’ needs indefinitely. Innovation is the critical component companies need to heal from the current crisis, transcend its lasting effects, and adequately meet their customers’ needs.

“The truth is that there is no one ‘true path’ to innovation, no silver bullets and no shortcuts. There are, however, effective strategies that managers can pursue to dramatically increase their chances of success.” -Greg Satell, Mapping Innovation

In this article, we’ll explore five innovation exercises that you can incorporate with your team or organization to spur innovation and get creative juices flowing. There is no one way to approach innovation. Explore what methods work best for your team by applying these innovation exercises and strategies.

1. Group Brainstorming

This innovation exercise is great for getting the entire team involved, regardless of what project or role each team member has. Group brainstorming can take place in person using sticky notes and a whiteboard or wall or virtually for distributed teams using a virtual whiteboard tool like MURAL (and digital stickies). Have everyone write down any challenges they are facing on sticky notes and tape them to a wall or create them in a MURAL template. Next, everyone walks around the room and stops at each sticky note to add an idea with their own sticky note that can potentially solve that problem or challenge. For best results, have everyone write an idea on every sticky note and build upon what others said. This exercise increases productivity and creativity as employees have the chance to interact with individuals from different areas of expertise and perspectives, which helps spark new ideas to solve challenges. It also promotes full participation without anyone feeling self-conscious about sharing their ideas. 

2. Liberating Structures

Liberating Structures is a framework for facilitation that consists of 33 microstructures designed to build trust and enhance cooperation and communication between teammates. Incorporating Liberating Structures into in-person and remote team collaboration strengthens communication and improves attention management so you can do exceptional work as a team. When there is equal participation amongst the group, you get the best performance from everyone, i.e., you are able to create meaningful solutions together. Check out our library of Liberating Structures templates for MURAL and Miro.

3. Mind Maps

This innovation exercise can be done either alone or in a group setting. Start by writing a general idea in the middle of a blank piece of paper. From there, begin making connections that build off the main point and write them down. For example, if your idea or project is developing a mobile app, a connection that might branch out is Android vs. iOS. Continue building on each connection to generate a stream of new ideas. If you find your team is struggling to come up with connections, try to reframe the main idea and start a new mind map to get a new perspective. The output will be many new ideas to start working with.

4. R&D

Research and development is a series of innovation activities to develop new products and services or improve existing ones. This is a reverse version of Group Brainstorming (or standard innovation process). Instead of starting with problems and brainstorming solutions based on them, encourage your team first to examine the latest technological developments and then ideate their application to your organization’s challenges. This is the flow in many engineering industries, where technology comes first. The Design Sprint process is effective for exploring R&D and solving big challenges quickly. The 5-day structure allows you to align team members and key stakeholders to solve a problem, rapidly prototype and test potential solutions, avoid costly delays in the innovation process, as well as decrease the time to bring the idea to market. Learn more about how and when to incorporate a Desing Sprint into your innovation journey here

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5. Template Exercises

Exploring innovative ideas can be daunting. Where do you start? How do you bring an idea to fruition? We’ve created a library of interactive and customizable digital templates for you to use with your teams to ignite and accelerate innovation. The templates are created for MURAL and Miro, digital whiteboard tools that allow teams to work together async and in real-time in a shared space. Each template serves a different purpose in your innovation process. For example, the How to Remix Anything Template helps you vary your points of inspiration and approach to achieve a different outcome for an existing idea. The Beyond the Prototype Template helps you overcome roadblocks in innovation by navigating slumps and maintaining momentum. Explore the full library of free resources here.

Innovation is more important than ever for companies to stay relevant in today’s economy. Stay ahead of the curve by utilizing various innovation exercises and implementing innovation training to incorporate effective strategies for your team to succeed.

Want to learn more about innovation training?

We can help! Voltage Control offers a range of options for innovation training. We know that no two teams are alike. Companies are complex, with their own unique set of structures and company culture. That’s why we build and curate custom workshops to find solutions based on your team’s exact needs.

Voltage Control’s experts will guide you through your choice of experiential, interactive learning workshops and coaching sessions where individuals and teams learn and practice how to successfully apply the best of today’s innovation methodologies and facilitation techniques to any business challenge. Contact us if you want to learn more about innovation training, design sprints, or design thinking facilitation.

The post Innovation Exercises: 5 Ways to Spark Innovation in Your Team appeared first on Voltage Control.

Over the years Voltage Control has hosted various Liberating Structures immersion workshops. We hold these workshops as part of a series of Liberating Structures immersion workshops with a focus on scrum masters, agile coaches, and technology leaders. In this post, we’ll take you through what liberating structures are and how we ran a liberating structures immersion workshop in the past. Through our workshops, you will learn the principles behind why Liberating Structures work and experience specific structures that will allow you to tap into the room intelligence no matter how large the team. 

Our next Liberating Structures immersion workshop is scheduled for December 2021 – learn more and sign up here. We are also holding a mini-workshop on Liberating Structures foundations in November.

“It’s so fun to see people from a super wide range of domains connecting to one another and beginning to realize what’s possible if they begin to use Liberating Structures in their work all the time. New ways of working together really begin to open up and you can see how enlivened our everyday work can be.” — Anna Jackson, Liberating Structures Workshop Leader

What are Liberating Structures?

Let’s review Liberating Structures first. Liberating Structures is a framework created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, intended to promote powerful ways to collaborate and engage everyone within a team and boost collaborative team interactions. Liberating Structures consists of 33 microstructures, which are a collection of exercises that allow you to unleash and involve everyone in a group. They provide simple rules that make participatory decision-making easier and are a solution to the dysfunctional format of most meetings, or what Lipmanowicz and McCandless refer to as “conventional microstructures.”

Conventional meeting microstructures are either too inhibiting (i.e. status reports/updates, managed discussions, presentations), or too loose and disorganized (i.e. open discussion and brainstorming). They often limit participation and the control is isolated to one individual or a select few–often the extroverted participants in the group. As a result, these conventional microstructures can routinely stifle inclusion and/or engagement. The Liberating Structures framework is built to encourage participation by including all team members–whether teams are in person, work in a virtual environment, or a hybrid one. 

Liberating Structures Immersion Workshop

A couple of years ago Voltage Control co-hosted a 2-day Liberating Structures immersion workshop with Anna at Native, an Austin modern hostel, kitchen, and bar. Liberating Structures had been quickly gaining popularity among the agile coach and scrum masters communities. In addition to Anna’s typical audience of health care, nonprofits, and government we thought it would be great to include these people from the technology world. While not exclusive to them, we designed with them in mind to ensure they would find exceptional value in the workshop.

We also brought in Amanda Bowman, a Liberating Structures practitioner that has extensive experience leading workshops with Anna, to assist in leading the workshop. Like Anna, Amanda is a skilled graphic recorder. They took turns illustrating as we all facilitated individual methods. Adding the visualization always makes an event more engaging and memorable.

The design team used Purpose to Practice, Liberating Structures Principles, and Design Storyboarding to guide our workshop structure. We met four times before the workshop to plan and prepare for the day.

Amanda kicked off day 1 with an Impromptu Networking followed by Douglas facilitating Appreciative Interviews and we wrapped the day with a tour of the Liberating Structures Principles. Day 2 started with Anna facilitating spiral journal and finished the day with everyone’s favorite, 25–10 Crowdsourcing. We also covered TRIZ, Discovery and Action Dialog, Conversation Cafe/What, So What, Now What, Troika, and Open Space led by Anna; 9 Whys, Design 101, What I Need From You led by Amanda; Ecocycle Planning and Critical Uncertainties led by Douglas.

Voltage Control feels strongly that Liberating Structures has an approach to address almost any challenge you may have to overcome. Therefore, we created a suite of free and interactive Liberating Structures templates for MURAL and Miro for the activities we use most often and hope you enjoy using them as much as we do.

During the workshop, Douglas facilitated the strategic methods. Strategic methods are exceptionally well-suited for technology companies or anyone that may face potential disruption. 

Critical Uncertainties and Ecocycle Planning are two of the more robust strategic planning tools in the Liberating Structures repertoire.

Critical Uncertainties

Critical Uncertainties is a tool that helps you to assess the ability of current strategies and build an ability to respond to changes in the future. First, you consider all of the critical and uncertain factors that you are currently facing or may face in the future. From this list, you’ll select the two most important and place them each on an x- & y-axis.

Once you have drawn your matrix, it is helpful to name and describe each quadrant. Once you’ve considered each quadrant, you can then begin to explore each quadrant to determine strategies that may work in those scenarios.

After working on each quadrant, go back and review all your strategies. Consider which strategies are hedging strategies and only work in a specific scenario or prepare you for those conditions and which strategies are robust strategies and will work in all or most situations?

This structure does not help you generate a plan. It is a tool for developing your strategic thinking and building the capacity to respond to and anticipate changes in your environment proactively.

Critical Uncertainties is a great fit for exploring what features to include in your product, planning and preparing for multi-country IT implementations, and executives creating or refining a 10-year strategic vision.

“The workshop helped me learn and practice some of the LS tools. I now understand enough to read about the other tools and apply them as well” — Michael Smith, Director of Orquestando

Ecocycle Planning

Ecocycle Planning helps you to contextualize aspects of the system that you are operating and allows you to scan for bottlenecks objectively. An Ecocycle is drawn as an infinity symbol with four phases and two traps identified. These phases help you to determine where various components of your systems or products in your portfolio exist within the ecosystem lifecycle. The four phases are birth, maturity, creative destruction, and renewal. The two traps are the rigidity trap and the poverty trap. The Ecocycle is a continuous loop and activities and projects can exist in one place on the map and quickly shift to another.

The front half of the loop, birth & maturity is how we typically think of projects. The back of the loop, creative destruction, and renewal, is often new to people. This is an important opportunity for teams to expand how they think of their portfolio or system. Activities can also exit the loop if you decide to end them. The two traps are also an opportunity for series exploration. We find ourselves in the rigidity trap when activity in maturity has become ineffective and we haven’t made requisite changes. Projects live in the poverty trap when we discover opportunities for re-birth and are not investing in the change.

Ecocycle is effective at prioritizing a backlog, balancing a product portfolio, discovering resources that can be repurposed, stepping back, and shedding light on situations where killing one project allows you to proceed on another.

When running an Ecocycle internally, you’ll invite your team to begin by listing out projects and initiatives that occupy their time. Then you’ll organize into groups of four and explore the placement of these activities onto the Ecocycle. After everyone has finished plotting on the Ecocycle, everyone shares and explores areas where there is a lack of consensus. Finally, the group discusses the next steps how they might respond to insights from the Ecocycle.

During the workshop, Douglas asked participants to consider various Facebook products and services and where they fall on the Ecocycle. He encouraged them to think of themselves as part of a focus group, and Facebook is asking them: “As a Facebook user, where do these features and capabilities live on the Ecocycle?” The following Facebook services were explored: Groups, Events, Messenger, Dating, Newsfeed, Security + Privacy, and Facebook Live.

“I found the strategies and techniques provided by the LS methods to be ideal for the groups where there are frequently power differences amongst participants. The LS methods substantially reduce that differential “— Andres Guariguata, LCSW

The Value of Liberating Structures

Liberating Structures have many useful applications in the innovation world, such as for Scrum or a Retrospective. Liberating Structures don’t need to be practiced in person – in fact, Liberating Structures are more important now than ever in today’s virtual environment and are great for optimal remote team communication. For more information on when to use Liberating Structures and solutions on using the best Liberating Structure for the job, download our guide here. 

For additional information and ways to use Liberating Structures, check out our Liberating Structures course where you will learn key Liberating Structures principles, practice 5 key design methods, chart a plan for further application of Liberating Structures and connect with a Liberating Structures community. You can also learn hands-on in real-time at one of our Liberating Structures workshops as discussed in this article: a deep-dive of Liberating Structures, when, and how to use them to unleash creativity in your meetings through maximum participation. And, as an extra bonus, you’ll also learn how to do this virtually!

The post Liberating Structures Immersion Workshop appeared first on Voltage Control.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – at Voltage Control, we’re Liberating Structures enthusiasts. Liberating Structures have many useful applications in the innovation world; one of the most useful being utilized for Scrum. Applying Liberating Structures into a Scrum workflow is a natural fit, as various Liberating Structures can be used for strategizing, problem-solving, and promoting collaboration and shared understanding. To get the most out of the Scrum framework and maximize productivity, try utilizing the Liberating Structures format. 

In this article, we’ll review Liberating Structures and the Scrum framework, then go through some examples of how to apply the Liberating Structures format to Scrum. For more information on when to use Liberating Structures and solutions on using the best Liberating Structure for the job, download our guide here.

What are Liberating Structures?

Liberating Structures is a framework created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, intended to promote powerful ways to collaborate and engage everyone within a team and boost collaborative team interactions. Liberating Structures consists of 33 microstructures, which are a collection of exercises that allow you to unleash and involve everyone in a group. They provide simple rules that make participatory decision-making easier and are a solution to the dysfunctional format of most meetings, or what Lipmanowicz and McCandless refer to as “conventional microstructures.”

Conventional meeting microstructures are either too inhibiting (i.e. status reports/updates, managed discussions, presentations), or too loose and disorganized (i.e. open discussion and brainstorming). They often limit participation and the control is isolated to one individual or a select few–often the extroverted participants in the group. As a result, these conventional microstructures can routinely stifle inclusion and/or engagement. The Liberating Structures framework is built to encourage participation by including all team members–whether teams are in person, work in a virtual environment, or a hybrid one. 

“Liberating Structures start with something so simple and essential as not to seem worth doing and end with something so powerful and profound that it hardly seems possible.” –Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless

What is Scrum?

Before diving into the application of how to use Liberating Structures for Scrum, let’s quickly review what Scrum is. 

Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber co-developed the Scrum process in the early 1990s. Here’s how they define it:

“Scrum is a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value. Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams, and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems. In a nutshell, Scrum requires a Scrum Master to foster an environment where: 

1. A Product Owner orders the work for a complex problem into a Product Backlog.
2. The Scrum Team turns a selection of the work into an Increment of value during a Sprint.
3. The Scrum Team and its stakeholders inspect the results and adjust for the next Sprint.
4. Repeat.” 

In simpler terms, Scrum is a better way of building products and solving problems. The Scrum Guide, written by Sutherland and Schwaber, goes into more detail around Scrum Theory, Values, Team, Events, and Artifacts.

Tangible Ways to Use Liberating Structures in Scrum

There are several ways Liberating Structures can help improve and streamline the Scrum framework. Below, we’ve outlined various scenarios and paired them with a specific Liberating Structure to utilize in them–including example ideas of when and how to apply it. Of course, there will be more than one Liberating Structure that can be utilized to help improve Scrum within your team – these are just a few ideas to get you started!

Clarifying the Scrum’s Purpose

Liberating Structures can help teams define a common strategy. A Liberating Structure example that can be utilized for this is Nine Whys, which helps groups discover and identify their purpose. This Liberating Structure begins by having participants create a list of activities and tasks they are working on for the project, and then encourages the participants to interview each other about ‘why’ the activities are necessary and important.

“Keep asking, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ up to nine times or until participants can go no deeper because they have reached the fundamental purpose for this work.” –Liberating Structures

Examples of how to use it for Scrum include:

• As part of a Sprint retrospective to recap the key findings during the past Sprint, feedback and discussion, and deciding on the best next steps and path forward. Pro tip: Learn about other ways to use Liberating Structures for a Retrospective here  
• During Sprint planning or project kickoff. Doing the work upfront to identify and define the purpose will save time later

Improving Engagement during Scrum Events

As mentioned earlier, conventional meetings are often either too inhibiting (such as during status reports/updates, managed discussions, presentations), or too loose and unstructured (i.e. open discussion and brainstorming). Liberating Structures can be applied during Scrum events to optimize, improve and mitigate these drawbacks while promoting engagement and collaboration amongst a team. A Liberating Structure example that can be utilized here is Conversation Cafe, which helps “engage everyone in making sense of profound challenges.” 

Conversation Cafe has four rounds of discussion: the first is where each person shares their thoughts, feelings, and/or actions about the topic or project, the second is where each shares thoughts and feelings after having listened to everyone’s else’s, the third is for open conversation, and the final round is for each participant to share their takeaways. This Liberating Structure encourages engagement and ideation from everyone and promotes positive collaboration across the full team.

Some example ideas for Scrum application:

• At Sprint planning or kickoff, try Conversation Cafe to discuss and level set on project goals and objectives
• During a Sprint retrospective, utilize this Liberating Structure to create a positive environment where every single team member has the opportunity to share thoughts, feelings, worries and ideas before moving forward

Supporting a Scrum Team’s Self-Organizational Capabilities

Scrums and Liberating Structures both support self-organization: “As with the Scrum framework, Liberating Structures offer clear boundaries and constraints. It’s up to the participant to self-organize within these constraints. When using Liberating Structures, the Scrum Team is encouraged to explore local solutions that fit their context.” –Scrum.org

A Liberating Structure that can be applied to encourage self-organization is Troika Consulting, which is meant for giving and receiving quick feedback and advice from teammates. It can help participants get insight, wisdom, and ideas on challenges they are facing. Through fast-paced “consultations,” participants ask for advice from others: “Peer-to-peer coaching helps with discovering everyday solutions, revealing patterns, and refining prototypes. This is a simple and effective way to extend coaching support for individuals beyond formal reporting relationships.” Everyone has an equal opportunity to both receive and give advice, which helps build mutual trust in the group, promotes innovation and new solutions, and encourages self-organization. 

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Through Round-Robin consultations, individuals ask for help and advice from two peers. This is an effective way for employees to support each other without a formal management structure.

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A few ways to apply this to Scrum:

• During a Daily Scrum, to discuss and help resolve any current problems or challenges through quick feedback and decision making
• During a Sprint Review, as a chance for the team to gain insight on any issues faced and decide on the best path forward 

Consider utilizing these Liberating Structures to get the most out of your team. Remember, there are many other Liberating Structures (33 to be exact) out there too that can be combined to best fit your team’s needs and help you reach your goals. To help you implement them in your next meeting, we created free interactive MURAL and Miro templates for you to use.

Additional Resources

For additional information and ways to use Liberating Structures, check out our Liberating Structures course where you will:

• Learn key Liberating Structures principles
• Practice 5 key design methods
• Chart a plan for further application of Liberating Structures.
• Connect with a Liberating Structures community

We’ll lead you through our favorite Liberating Structures for opening, exploring, and closing in your facilitation. We’ll teach you about these methods and why and how they work. You’ll learn tips and tricks for using Liberating Structures across your work to facilitate lasting change.

You can also learn hands-on in real-time at one of our Liberating Structures workshops: a deep-dive of Liberating Structures, when, and how to use them to unleash creativity in your meetings through maximum participation. 

FAQ Section

What is the optimal team structure for agile frameworks?
The ideal team structure in agile frameworks typically consists of cross-functional teams that include a mix of roles, such as developers, product managers, and scrum masters. Each member contributes unique skill sets, creating a balanced environment for collaboration. The agile team structure ensures that all necessary expertise is represented to handle complex projects effectively.

How does an agile team manage the sprint backlog and upcoming sprints?
An agile team manages the sprint backlog by holding a sprint planning meeting, where they break down the healthy product backlog into sprints. Each upcoming sprint has clearly defined sprint goals that align with the team’s objectives. The sprint duration is set in advance, allowing the team to maintain focus and deliver a product increment by the end of the sprint.

What is the role of product managers in agile scrum?
In agile scrum, product managers play a crucial role in defining the vision and priorities of the product backlog. They ensure that the scrum team understands the project goals and that the development process aligns with business objectives. Product managers work closely with the team to make sure that the product increment meets user feedback and stakeholder requirements.

How can agile principles improve remote teams’ collaboration?
Agile principles emphasize frequent feedback loops, continuous communication, and an empirical process to adapt to changes. For remote teams, agile scrum provides a structured framework that supports effective collaboration through daily scrum meetings, retrospective meetings, and sprint reviews. These events create a safe environment for team members to share feedback and improve workflows, even when working from different locations.

How does an agile team size impact the effectiveness of complex solutions?
Agile teams are typically small, with an optimal team size ranging from 5 to 9 members. This smaller structure allows for better communication paths between teams and faster decision-making, which is especially important when working on complex solutions. Entire teams working in this structure can remain agile and adaptable to changes throughout the project.

What is the role of retrospective meetings in maintaining a flexible project management approach?
Retrospective meetings are held at the end of each sprint to reflect on the completed work, analyze challenges, and improve processes for future sprints. This feedback loop is a core principle in flexible project management and helps ensure continuous improvement within the agile team. These meetings create a safe environment for all members to share insights and discuss paths to optimize the development process.

How does the network of relationships within an agile team impact project success?
A strong network of relationships within an agile team fosters effective collaboration and trust. Building these connections is essential for promoting a mindset for software development that prioritizes collective problem-solving and cross-functional teamwork. A well-connected business team can address complex products more efficiently by leveraging the diverse skill sets present within the team.

How does Agile Scrum adapt to innovative software and user feedback during the development process?
Agile scrum is designed to be adaptive to change, making it highly effective for innovative software development. By incorporating user feedback during sprint reviews, scrum teams can adjust the sprint backlog and plan for future sprints. This iterative approach ensures that the product development scenario evolves in response to real-world user needs and compliant solutions.

The post The Value of Liberating Structures for Scrum appeared first on Voltage Control.

Have you ever asked for input in a meeting and only gotten the sound of crickets as a response? We’ve all been there, and 1-2-4-All can quickly turn this silence into rapid insights.

Engage everyone without putting anyone on the spot

1-2-4-All is one of 34 Liberating Structures developed to add structure and meaning to everyday conversations. It’s a great way to sift and sort ideas to allow the best — and most novel  — concept to bubble up to the surface. It triggers spontaneous conversations at a time when many meeting attendees typically zip their lips and avoid eye contact. 

The activity is great for groups that are “stuck” having endless conversations without making discernible headway or decisions. It’s also really handy to combat the phenomenon of “follow the leader,” where everyone just nods and goes along with what the leader is saying and writing down. 1-2-4-All prevents a vocal minority from dictating how an organization operates. It seeks to solicit input from everyone involved, no matter how contrary or left-field their ideas are because it’s those ideas that contribute to the diversity of thought so many companies lack.

So how does 1-2-4-All work? It’s pretty simple, actually. Ask each participant to quietly reflect on the opportunity or challenge the group is seeking to explore. For example, “What ideas or actions would you recommend to move forward?” Give them one minute to think about the ideas or actions they’d recommend.

Next, pair two individuals together and allocate a couple of minutes to review their individual ideas. Where are they aligned? Are there a few ideas that both people feel strongly about? 

After the groups of two have had enough time to discuss and align on ideas or solutions, typically about two or so minutes, merge the pairs of two into foursomes and task them to spend four minutes noticing the similarities and differences in their respective ideas. Instruct them to identify the best of the best.

Finally, over a five-minute period, invite everyone into the dialog or simply ask each foursome to present the one idea they feel stood out most in their discussions. In roughly 12 minutes, you’ll get a variety of thinking and lots of lively conversations instead of a bunch of blank stares.

Shifting to virtual

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, conducting a 1-2-4-All exercise was as easy as asking participants to push chairs together and talk. In this new era of video conferencing, facilitating 1-2-4-All is a little trickier, but it’s not impossible.

The idea for the Concentric Consensus templates stemmed from a need we identified when we designed and facilitated an annual kick-off for the Global Partner Solutions group in Australia. 

One of the first activities of the day was called “Empowering You,” an event-wide conversation around the principles by which they wanted to all hold each other accountable. The objective was to define a “team code” that was co-created with all 105 attendees, giving everyone a voice regardless of hierarchy. 

The 1-2-4-All model was an excellent method for arriving at consensus, but with such a large (virtual) group we needed to tweak the interaction model. We designed the 48-node Concentric Conversations template to host a 1-2-4-8-All conversation which utilized MURAL’s voting feature to facilitate our “all” step of the process and select the five top principles. It was a huge success, so we decided to release it to the world for all facilitators to use! 

Because the number of participants ranges per meeting, we also developed templates for smaller groups so you can use them no matter the group size:

8-node Concentric Consensus template

12-node Concentric Consensus template

16-node Concentric Consensus template

24-node Concentric Consensus template

48-node Concentric Consensus template

96-node Concentric Consensus template

5 Tips to ensure you see success using these templates in virtual meetings

1. Utilize breakout rooms

Using Zoom or some other service, create smaller workgroups vs. having everyone in the same chat room throughout the entire exercise. Once everybody has had the chance to think independently, create rooms for pairs, then foursomes and finally the group at large. Randomly assign participants to respected groups.  

2. Mute/unmute participants

To provide emphasis — and reduce distracting background noise — we recommend muting everyone but the person sharing his or her ideas.

3. Turn video on/off

Similarly, we suggest you only allow the individuals/teams who are speaking to appear on camera. This will keep the focus where it needs to be.

4. Set up a chat channel

This can be a good way to facilitate conversation and avoid people from talking over each other when others are presenting. 

5. Capture feedback in a shared workspace

We’re partial to MURAL, so much so we created the Concentric Consensus templates exclusively for the platform. 

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Use this template when a large group needs to create key points for a topic or question and write down those key points to a consensus. This is an adaptation of the Liberating Structures 1-2-4-All for 48 people.

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From too quiet to total consensus

You’ll find using these templates will get everyone generating ideas without it devolving into a free-for-all. The shy in your group will also appreciate an opportunity to express their thoughts without having to do so in the spotlight. In short, our Concentric Consensus templates can create unified virtual teams by allowing them to get a sense of what the collective group thinks. Another advantage of the templates is anyone can go back later and trace through the steps to see how the ideas evolved (just zoom in on the Microsoft graphic to see what we’re talking about). 

The next time you need your team to quickly arrive at a shared understanding, try the Concentric Consensus template to make your meetings more effective. But why stop there? If you’re looking for additional ways to boost productivity in your meetings, you can browse our resource library for advice on how to improve remote collaboration and even download additional MURAL templates.

Want to learn how to ask meeting attendees better questions?

Thoughtful questions are the secret to an engaged audience. For a pocket guide to the questions you should always ask, download the free Facilitator’s Guide To Questions from our resource library.

The post Don’t just ask anyone for ideas. Ask everyone for them. appeared first on Voltage Control.

“There’s a spectrum of teaching styles, and there’s maybe the more traditional historical style of command style and sage on stage, all the way to a self-discovery. It appears to me that facilitation is really in that middle space between the command style and the self-discovery. [Facilitation] is about unleashing the collective power of a group.” -Sarah L. Collie 

In this episode of Control the Room, Sarah Collie and I chat about the influence facilitation has played throughout her professional career. Sara shares the valuable learning principles of facilitation that continue to inspire her, along with the direct impact that the Liberating Structures framework has on facilitation. We take a close look at how meeting disruption can happen no matter how prepared the facilitator is and how to redirect the energy in the room and recover attendee productivity if there is disruption. Sarah highlights what she’s learned from her facilitation experiences and the outcomes that can appear for any facilitator. She also notes the importance of prioritizing accountability for participants and creating conditions that cater to each unique audience. Listen in to hear Sara’s viewpoint on the opportunity that facilitation brings for people to collectively come together and create a supportive network that can lead to the true essence of exceptional facilitation.   

Show Highlights

[3:35] Dr. Sarah’s Beginnings in Facilitation 
[10:22] Valuable Tools in Learning Principles of Facilitation 
[17:17] Sarah’s Lessons Learned from Liberating Structures
[30:33] Sarah’s Take on Disruption in the Meeting Room 
[38:15] The Core Skill of Identifying Outcomes & Sarah’s Final Thoughts

Links | Resources

Sarah’s LinkedIn
University of Virginia

About the Guest

Sarah Collie founded and leads the Organizational Excellence Program at the University of Virginia. She partners with the University community to develop strategy, implement improvements, foster innovation, and build organizational capacity for change to support and advance the mission. She describes the work as “helping the university be better.”  Sarah’s higher education career spans diverse academia and administrative positions at several universities. She is a forever student of being a part of successful organizations and creating effective change and culture. Sarah holds a Ph.D. in higher education with a focus on organizational change from UVA’s School of Education, where she frequently serves as a lecturer and mentor. Outside of UVA, she enjoys applying her skills through board service and consulting to assist non-profit organizations to enhance their effectiveness. 

About Voltage Control

Voltage Control is a change agency that helps enterprises sustain innovation and teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.

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Full Transcript

Douglas:

Welcome to the Control The Room Podcast. A series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all the service of having a truly magical meeting.

Douglas:

Thanks for listening. If you’d like to join us live for a session sometime, you can join our weekly control the room facilitation lab. It’s a free event to meet fellow facilitators and explore new techniques so you can apply the things you learn in the podcast in real time with other facilitators. Sign up today at ultimatecontrol.com/facilitation-lab. If you’d like to learn more about my new book Magical Meetings, you can download the Magical Meeting’s quickstart guide, a free PDF reference with some of the most important pieces of advice from the book. Download a copy today at voltagecontrol.com/magical-meetings-quick-guide.

Douglas:

Today, I’m with Dr. Sarah Collie, Associate Vice President of Organizational Excellence at the University of Virginia. In this role she partners with the university community to develop and execute strategy, design and implement improvements to foster a culture of innovation and change. Sarah’s work has been recognized with several awards including the NCCI Leader of Change Award and the Gold Facilitation Impact Award from the IAF. Welcome to the show, Sarah.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Thank you, Douglas. Thanks for hosting me, it’s really a pleasure to be with you.

Douglas:

As usual, I’d like to start off with a little bit about how you got your start in this work. It’s really amazing to talk to someone who is receiving awards from the International Association of Facilitators and is at the peak of what it is to impact change in organizations. There isn’t a straight path there always, it’s generally a secure  journey. Really curious to see how you made your journey to this pinnacle facilitator.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Yes, I think the term journey is a really accurate one. It’s been progressive in nature, and one that was probably with me, and in me for a long time. I just didn’t realize it, nor did I characterize it as facilitation. I’m a lifelong educator. I have experiences in teaching, in coaching and administration. I’ve worked at all levels from elementary school to college.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Honestly, they’re more similar than different. But the majority of my career has, in fact been in higher education. If I look way back to my teacher preparation studies, I think I learned a teaching style that was very facilitative in approach. I learned some key facilitation skills in my teacher prep background. Things such as starting with the stated objective, how do you organize and engage groups? How do you elicit certain outcomes?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I was relying upon these facilitation techniques, I just didn’t call them that or know that’s really what they were. Sometimes in education, you hear the term active learning, I think there’s some similarities, they’re not exactly the same, but some similar principles and concepts. The arc of my career then took me into administrative roles, and I was able to transfer and apply some of those facilitative techniques and approaches, but honestly, in a limited basis. There are strong cultural and status quo poles to how meetings are run.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I won’t say that I brought those facilitative techniques wholesale over to the administrative context. It was really when I was pursuing my doctorate in higher education administration when I became interested in studying organizations, studying organizational culture, organizational performance, organizational effectiveness. Got turned on to the works of people like Peter Senge and Edgar Schein. It’s when I made this shift in my career to one that was much more focused on improvement and innovation and change. But I would say facilitation took much more of a center stage in my daily life.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Many of those methodologies have facilitation embedded in them. It was a toolkit and skill that I’ve just started to build out and continue to grow. That’s my journey. Facilitation now is a part of my everyday life.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

One comment I would make, however, and I hope it won’t be too controversial as we start this podcast, and that’s that I actually don’t describe myself as a facilitator, I don’t use that term or that label. I realize it’s probably all in the semantics and the definitions of the word, but I see facilitation as a toolkit that I use to achieve other outcomes, other organizational outcomes. Whether they be strategic planning, process improvement, engaging in creating a healthy, productive culture. Facilitation is a means, rather than an end. That’s my approach to facilitation.

Douglas:

I want to come back to some of the stuff you were talking about, as far as, teacher training, and how that prepped you for this facilitation work, or maybe they didn’t have the same language or didn’t refer to them in the same ways. Specifically, something that we’ve thought a lot about is this connection between facilitating groups to a desired result, and training. Meaning that, we’re looking at a lot of these training or learning types of tools and frameworks and approaches, just learning science in general, and workshops and meetings, the similarities are very apparent, and the more we thought about it, it was like well, meeting participants are learners, is they have to show up and learn something. Whether it’s an innovation, or whether it’s a new strategy. They’re hearing new ideas from their co-workers that they have to assimilate, integrate, and then do something with.

Douglas:

When I made that realization, it made that connection between education and meetings and workshops and facilitation so clear. It’s really fascinating that you went through this journey. Then, as you started to see these tools, saw the similarities. I’d love to unpack that a little more with you.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Yeah, I think it really comes back to, that there’s a spectrum of teaching styles, and there’s maybe the more traditional historical style of command style and sage on stage, all the way to a self-discovery. It appears to me that, facilitation is really in that middle space between the command style and the self-discovery. When it really allows you to unleash the collective. Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and what better way to learn than to learn with others?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I think that’s really what facilitation is about, is about unleashing the collective power of a group. Douglas, let’s stay with this connection between education and facilitation for a moment, because I think what’s central to both of them is learning. If you think about education, education is more focused on individual learning. While Of course, there’s some residual learning from being with others. For the most part, education is focused on learning at an individual level.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

But if you think about facilitation, facilitation is also about learning, but learning at an organizational level. Facilitation really enables organizational learning through groups of people. I’m pretty fond of saying, all the work of organizations is done by people. Then it would follow that all organizational learning has to take place through people, collectively.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I do see a really strong connection to both education and facilitation. In some ways, you might think of, individual learning and organizational learning as two sides of the same coin, and you need both.

Douglas:

I love that. We often talk about this idea that designing workshops and designing learning experiences are pretty much one and the same. We apply a lot of the learning experience design principles to our workshop design framework. It’s really interesting to hear about this notion of individual versus group learning. That’s really cool.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

We have a professor at UVA who talks about the world of hyper learning. Ed Hess, with the fast pace and changing world speaks of hyper learning, which captures this notion that you can learn with yourself and learn with others and it needs to be continual in this fast paced world to adapt to the speed of change.

Douglas:

If someone were to… A lot of folks find facilitation through design, or through specific tools and methodologies, and are just starting to get curious and approaching this journey from a different perspective. As someone who has a deep experience in learning, and various teaching and training styles, what’s something that you might suggest that people check out or keep in mind as they’re thinking about maybe applying these learning principles to their work?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I’ve learned a great deal from Keith McCandless in Liberating Structures. I think his framework and approach can be adapted by anyone and applied by anyone. That you don’t have to be a professional facilitator. I find that ease of his structures and his approach to be really helpful. It brings intentionality to facilitation, and I think that’s where you have to start, otherwise, it’s just a tool. It’s like, technology is a tool. If you think technology is going to solve a service improvement you have, well, it may not. It may, in fact, make it worse if you don’t effectively design and deploy it.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

That’s true about facilitation. It’s much more than just getting people in a room and having them talk. I think his framework really brings intentionality, and I think the most critical place to start is getting clear on the purpose of any given session. I go so far as to even write out a purpose statement to make sure that I have clarity about what the group I’m working with wishes to achieve in our time together. I think that’s why that dialogue with who you’re working with is so important up front, to be sure that you have alignment. Because you can’t go to designing a session, if you’re not crystal clear on the purpose.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

They may not even be clear on the purpose, which is why you need to have a conversation. Don’t ask them to fill out a form and submit it to you. But the power is in the dialog to dig in and understand, what are you trying to do in this session or series of sessions?

Douglas:

How are you typically having those dialogues? What’s your go to approach to distill that purpose?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Certainly, a lot of listening. Some people will be able to answer the question, what do you want to achieve? Many people will be more rambling around purpose. I think asking questions around what does success look like? Just asking questions of curiosity. Inquiring what is great look like during the session? Lead them there, and then I tried to take that, craft some language, a couple of bullet points and share it back with them to say, did I hear you? This is what I heard you say.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

If we achieve this, if it’s written in an outcome statement, if we achieve this, by the end of this meeting, this session, this series of sessions, is that what you hope to achieve?

Douglas:

Yeah, it’s always nice to start off with purpose. I find that to be lacking, quite often. Even when there’s a focus put on it, people can struggle with it, because it sounds so simple. But sometimes it can be hard to articulate, especially if there’s a lot of jargon, or a lot of, just here’s the project brief, and we just keep coming back to that language. People aren’t getting to what’s the root of what’s driving this? I’m curious if you’ve run into that before.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Yes. I have to go back to Priya Parker. Priya Parker said something very clear on this point. She emphasized that we assume that the purpose is known and shared when we gather. The reality is that it isn’t. I don’t know about you, but I go to plenty of meetings where it’s really not clear to me what purpose, or what my role is, as an attendee. Am I there to provide ideas? Am I there to provide feedback? Am I there to ask questions of clarification?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

What happens a lot of the time is the participants will remain passive and quiet, because the purpose isn’t clear, nor is their role.

Douglas:

I think that’s spot on. In our book, Magical Meetings, we talk about the need to, not only can you clarify your purpose, as far as writing it down and what it is, but if you don’t communicate it, and you don’t clarify it to your participants, then you haven’t gone far enough. To that point, I think it is important to even rename our meetings.

Douglas:

Often, our calendars are full of stuff, and it’s like, I don’t even know what this is. Can their names at least give us a hint on our purpose or take us there?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Yes. Often, that’s all you have to go on. There is no agenda, but it’s just here’s the name of the meeting, show up. My experience is many, many meetings, probably some 90% are what I would classify as the traditional talk at meeting. The convener, the leader, the presenter, will talk at, using up probably 55 minutes of a 60 minute time period. Maybe at the very end ask if there any questions.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Sometimes they’ll have a very dense PowerPoint to go with it, and they’ll read those PowerPoint slides to you. I see some meetings where they’re sending out the information in advance, which I think is a wonderful way to set expectations about what the meeting’s about, the kind of information that’ll be conveyed. However, don’t then come in and read the PowerPoint, because you’ve now conditioned people to not do any pre-work, to do any pre-thinking, to come prepared for dialogue. We’ve conditioned them to expect, oh, I will come and be a passive participant in this meeting.

Douglas:

Yeah, it’s interesting, this notion of being passive, versus something you said earlier around unleashing the collective. I’d already scribbled that down, because I was going to take us back to Liberating Structures, and you already mentioned Keith. I’m also a huge fan of his work. I think the framework’s fantastic for… To your point, anyone can be a facilitator, and that’s part of the allure. It’s like, what a great way to unleash everyone, if now everyone’s empowered to be part of the unleashing.

Douglas:

I’d like to dig into your experience with Liberating Structures. I know that there’s some case studies that got released about your work using Liberating Structures with the community there. I believe it was there in Charlottesville. Would love to hear more about that, and how you found that to be effective, and anything that listeners might find helpful.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Sure, well, Liberating Structures, as we’ve already stated, are just a wonderful way to really tap into the collective wisdom of a group. My core starting principle is if you’re bringing a group of people together, don’t you want to leverage the talent, the expertise, the knowledge, everything they bring? That’s the power of having a group together. Otherwise, you just have the one plus one, an individual plus an individual plus an individual and the limitations that come with the way we all think.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I think better with others, and I believe others think better with others. Keith has a set of principles. He helps you understand the micro organizing design elements of every meeting. Again, I think anyone can use those.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

From his work, I’ve adopted, I would say, four really core guiding principles for every facilitation idea. That is, I want to engage everyone that shows up. I want to be sure I can tap into diverse perspectives that are in the room. I want to create conditions to promote cross pollination. The last one is focus on forward looking positive conversations.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

That doesn’t mean you ignore the past. But we have to get past the past, and we have to learn from the past, use it constructively, so we can focus on moving forward. Those are really the four design elements I use over and over and over.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

When I’m working with a group, I actually share that with whoever I’m working with to co-design, because I do believe it is a co-design, even though I may do the first design and get some refinement from them. I share those principles back with them, so they can see how those principles show up in the actual designing session.

Douglas:

That’s a total power move as a facilitator, well, meaning that when you do that it’s inclusive. It also means that they understand the mindset behind some of these moves, and then you start to really get contributions that you would have got otherwise, because it starts to click for them. They go, oh, okay, that’s how I can contribute.

Douglas:

I’m a big fan of that. Plus, if you get a buy in and an agreement on the principles, then it’s a lot easier when people gravitate to some of their old behaviors, we can point back to the principles. It’s not the behavior we’re challenging. It’s like, didn’t we say we were going to do this?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Right.

Douglas:

That’s so good. It’s interesting, you mentioned these key skills that jumped out earlier. There was structured objectives, they organize and engage and then elicit these outcomes or these contributions. The structured objective, I think, is, from my perspective, is pretty similar to the purpose, but a little different. I’d love to talk about that a little bit with you.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Well, I think there’s probably an overall purpose, more of an umbrella purpose to any given session or series of sessions. Then you can Zoom in into an individual session or even part of a session. What is the objective you’re trying to achieve in this session, or in this section of a meeting? Is it ideation? Is it planning? Is it prioritization? Is it getting to action steps? Just being really, really intentional about why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I’m going to come back to Priya Parker, only because she’s been Top of Mind lately, as she’s out there, quite prominent these days. I love the way she also talks about openings, and the importance of how you open a meeting and open a session. I think openings and closings are probably one of the most neglected areas of meeting facilitation.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

People even on Zoom, or they come in the room and they’re sitting, there quiet, or some people are talking and others are sitting there doing nothing. It often starts with someone speaking to the group. I would just ask people to be very mindful about what do you want to accomplish in those first opening moments? Is it engagement? Is it connection? Is it being present?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I think you want to do that in the context of the meeting. It’s often maddening for me when I hear people take valuable time or see people take valuable time at the beginning of a meeting for a really disconnected, irrelevant, maybe icebreaker. What color M&Ms do you like? Maybe that’ll get people connected. But I think you have an opportunity to get people present, focused in those early moments and do it with, again, intentionality and aligned with the purpose.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

This is the comment Priya made that I thought was so well said is, an opening should connect people to purpose and each other. I just think that’s beautiful.

Douglas:

Yeah, 100%. To your point around intentionality, so many times, people will throw icebreakers around because they think, oh, this is what I’m supposed to do. It’s like a prescriptive, this is how you open. Sure, that shows up in a lot of openings. But if we don’t get down to the reason, the why that’s there, we’re not going to get the most out of our experience.

Douglas:

I always love to tell people, when we’re doing facilitator training, we’ll say, if you run an icebreaker, a warm up, or any sort of activity that’s transitioning or setting folks up for the next step, and you turn to the group after running that session or that activity, and you say, “Why did we just do that? And it doesn’t erupt into a pithy conversation?” Then you need to ask yourself, why did we just do that?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Yes. Going back to Keith McCandless and Liberating Structures, I’m sure you’re very familiar with impromptu networking, and use it regularly to open meetings. In my world, you would rarely call a facilitation structure by its name, you just give them the instructions. Give them a prompt, a question, and off they go. It’s a great way to have high energy, connect with your purpose, spend some time thinking about what the question is, so it’s really, again, intentional and aligned with your purpose. But great way to bring connection, engagement, purpose, bring people present.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

People are going from meeting to meeting to meeting, they enter the meeting, and they’ve got to get reset. They’re maybe reflecting upon what they just heard in the last meeting. So, get them present quickly.

Douglas:

So good. I run into that so often. It’s like, people running from meeting to meeting, and they just frantically show up. I haven’t actually measured this, but I bet you could study, what is the average time it takes people to actually transition into whatever you’re discussing? Because people are just going back to back to back, and it takes time. I call it the boot up time. If we don’t account for that, and to your point, the opener’s a great time, we should be planning on that in the opener.

Douglas:

But so many times I’d see people just cutting right into the content or right into the discussion. It’s like, man, no one’s had time to even get there.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Great.

Douglas:

Do you have any stories you could share about openers you’ve done that you thought were really effective? Maybe, what made them effective and how you were intentional about how you opened?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I think openers that are very personal, meaning you’re asking them to share a time when XXX, or imagine you are somewhere. I think it really starts with them. Who doesn’t like to share about their own experiences or their own observations or talk about them, and connect it to purpose? I think those are the most powerful ways to start.

Douglas:

Thinking a bit about the next key skill, which is to organize and engage. We talked a little bit about Liberating Structures. They’re great for creating engagement. What are some of your other moves, or some examples of ways that you’ve created more engagement?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I think there are many methodologies and facilitation tools that just have engagement embedded in them. Increasing engagement, I think there are probably two elements I’d emphasize. One is the way you set it off, the structure itself, to ensure… The organizational structure to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to participate.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

We all know groups can have dominant voices, so set it up, so everyone has a chance. That may be including everything from, whether it’s starting off with some individual reflection, because some people are more processors, using pairs or trios, small groups. But I would emphasize small groups to ensure that everyone has a voice.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

There are ways then to come back as a whole, and cross pollinate across groups as well so everyone, again, is getting the benefit of the collective input and the collective wisdom. I think how you physically organize, and how you create your groups have a tremendous bearing upon the amount of engagement.

Douglas:

You mentioned that we often have to deal with dominant voices, thinking about how we structure, or how we group folks, keeping small groups together and how the conversation can flow between individual to the small groups, the big groups and back and forth. Some people talk about Ws or zigzags, where you’re going up and down the small group to large group.

Douglas:

I want to just get maybe a story or maybe some advice around what happens when you’ve got some structure, you’ve been planning on it, but there’s just some disruption in the room. Maybe that dominant voice has just found its way in, or the participation’s out there. Maybe there’s some psychological safety that’s absent. What are some of your go to moves in the moment that maybe you didn’t even anticipate it? So you couldn’t plan for it, but what are some of your go tos to help get the team on track and help get everyone contributing?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

That’s a really important point. Because while I do emphasize the intentionality and the planning, there are certainly always elements of any meeting or session that are unknown, and you may have to deal with them in the moment. If you’ve done that planning well, I think you do mitigate some of this, because you flatten the power in the room, the hierarchy in the room. The leader is not sage on stage. I usually try to speak to the leader in advance and ask them to be a full participant. They are not there to espouse their viewpoints and have everyone align behind them in most cases, if it’s a true group facilitation.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I think there are things you can really intentionally do in advance to help mitigate. But nonetheless, it’s going to happen, and I think the structures will help you, because you don’t want to stay in one structure too long, where it can escalate and get amplified. I think limiting whole group interaction is another way to mitigate that redirecting. Even if you come back and you ask people to share, you can qualify it. What is something you’ve heard that everyone in the room must hear? That’s another Keith McCandless one. Not just come back and to give me a report out of everything in your group, but something truly spectacular, extraordinary.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

You’re helping them have some management of self, self-manage how they interact. Redirecting is just an important part of facilitation. If someone is going too long, can you summarize that point so they feel heard, and move on to the next activity or next part of the session?

Douglas:

That’s all really great advice. Focusing on engagement is so vital. I see, especially a lot of new facilitators, it’s easy to throw in the towel and go, “Oh, well, that’s just culturally how it is here.” It’s so worth the effort to lean in to the conflict. I think it’s the conflict where the lack of engagement tends to suffer.

Douglas:

For instance, if the leader speaks very firmly around, well, we can’t do that, or just shut something down, then all of a sudden, engagement, just will stifle or whatever. I think leaning into that and inviting a dialogue around it is scary for a new facilitator, but the more you do it, the more you will keep that engagement high.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

You’re going to have to adapt. You may have planned an activity for X amount of minutes and you realized you didn’t get maybe the results you had hoped for. So, you refine it a little bit, and you send them back and have them repeat it. Or you drop an entire activity in the moment. Or I’ve been in a situation where I was given some strong feedback that they didn’t feel like they had heard enough from, or qualified as the user voice in a facilitation session.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I reflected upon that, I took a step back, and this happened to be a multi-session facilitation. I took a step back, and the very next session, I organized what’s called a fishbowl, so they could hear from the users, this particular program was serving. I garnered the respect of the participants, they gathered more context and information that they needed, but it wasn’t in the original design. I actually appreciated that they have, as you described, psychological safety, to offer a suggestion. It didn’t let them tell me how to do it necessarily. I think we have to be careful in that space. I love it when people show up and say, “We want you to facilitate this, and these are the activities we want you to do, and this is the timeframe. We’ve already described that it’s going to be 75 minutes, or it’s going to be three hours. Can you do it?”

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I want to be careful that we’re not giving them all the power, but you do want to be responsive, and listen to what the needs of the group are, and adapt.

Douglas:

That’s right. It’s funny how I see facilitators that understand the inquiry, and active listening, and, just being curious, is the cornerstone to good facilitation. They get that in the session with their participants. But then when it comes to feedback on shifting the structure, or the activities or the agenda, they’re very protective, because it’s their baby, it’s what they created, right. But if we’re practicing those same skills of inquiry and active listening, we should be willing to adapt it.

Douglas:

At the end of the day, to your point, we are here for our purpose. There is a stated objective we’re trying to get to. I guarantee you that objective is not run these 10 activities.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Exactly. When I think about a multi-session engagement, I have a skeleton plan, and we’re starting here, and I want to get there. Perhaps I think it’s probably going to be three or four sessions, and I have a skeleton plan. But I honestly do not put the details around session two, session three, until I’ve had the prior session and see where the group is.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I have the luxury, in my work, of also adapting, in the sense that I may think it’s going to be a two or three session engagement. But if I need to, I can make it a five or six session engagement. I have that kind of flexibility, which is helpful to make those adaptive moves instead of feeling like it’s a linear process, and these milestones have to be hit. I think it also yields better outcomes.

Douglas:

Yeah, that’s really great. I want to shift to the key skill number three that you mentioned, which was eliciting these outcomes. I think that’s pretty critical, because if we don’t get to deliverables, if we don’t know what done looks like, if we haven’t understood that in our pre-work, or discovery call, or whatever we want to call it, A, we have no map to reference against, we don’t know when we’re there. Also, no one experiences any business value. It’s like, oh, we just had a lovely chat. But that’s like one of those things where people were like, oh, these workshops, they’re just a flash in the pan. This is one that’s very important for me, and I love that it’s one of your three core focus areas or key skills.

Douglas:

Tell me a little bit more about how you think about eliciting outcomes, and how you get there and what are some good principles to follow?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

When I think about eliciting, I actually come at it from two levels; a micro level and a macro level. The micro level, I think the eliciting comes from the structure and the prompt. It may not always be a very direct question. You may have to use imagery or use stories to uncover whatever it is you’re working on. Whether that be ideation or solutions.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Eliciting at the micro level. Then when I think about eliciting at the macro level, I don’t know about you, but I’ve worked with many, many groups or been a participant in where there’s lots of ideation, and then nothing happens. There’s no lack of ideas, but there’s a lack of execution and a lack of commitment. How can we elicit commitment and action?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I don’t like to leave groups without… I may not be able to stay with them all the way through implementation. But I can help position those groups to take the first steps and hopefully toward a successful outcome. Ways that we might do that is, if they have lots of ideas, helping them, prioritize them, selecting a few, understanding the context that they may be executing those in, and then really getting down to articulating what would be the first steps? Who would do it. But let’s even go one step further around, what are you going to do?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

You want commitment and accountability, it may be easy to create the plan and say someone who’s not even in the room is going to execute on these steps. Let’s have them take ownership of what they’re going to do and what they’re going to commit to and commit to that in front of the group, with the group and have some mechanisms of accountability in place as well.

Douglas:

15% solutions is one of my favorite closers.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Yes, that’s it.

Douglas:

That’s just so spot on. I love this, you’re thinking of the micro, the macro, because if we don’t think about how this fits in to a continuum, then the work could easily just evaporate or just lose momentum. It’s important to think about how things take root. There’s a really awesome book called The Messy Middle, which talks about, oh, it’s really easy when things are just getting started. Because it’s fun to ideate and figure out where we’re going to go. It’s really fun when products are ending, because the end’s in sight, and you’re putting on the finishing touches and stuff, and you’re getting it out the door. There’s launch parties, and everyone’s having cheese and crackers, whatever.

Douglas:

But that messy middle, man, there’s so much… Especially anything that might resemble a complex environment, there’s so much emerging stuff that we didn’t understand, and we just got to be able to adapt and deal. I love this idea of, whether you can stick around for a little bit as they start to veer in what might be the messy middle, or least shine a light on the fact that it’s coming.

Douglas:

The commitments really help with that, because if they’ve got ownership, then they’re going to stick through it versus saying, “Oh, Susan will figure it out.” Thinking about this macro, and the organizational development and change work that you do, what’s maybe a story that you could share, that highlights some of that work, and how you think about the macro and helping people in that longer journey?

Dr. Sarah Collie:

In terms of some examples, let me just start by providing a little bit of background about our program, because I think it’ll situate the examples. UVA Organizational Excellence Program is a resource and a partner for the university community. We offer a suite of core services around strategic and operational planning, process and service improvements, organizational effectiveness, project management, and navigating organizational change.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

In the course of our work, we apply an array of improvement, innovation and change methodologies and tools. We don’t subscribe to just one singular approach. I raise that because then we also integrate facilitation with those approaches. I would even go so far to offer that facilitation actually enhances many of those methodologies.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Whether we’re using design thinking or appreciative inquiry, we’re doing value stream process mapping or using change management, strategic doing. Regardless of the methodology or tool that we then add in facilitation. Some of them have it embedded in them. But in many cases, we’re adding on additional facilitation techniques. You asked me specifically about some of the work we’ve done. There was one in particular recently that was recognized, an initiative called Project Rebound, where we partnered with the local region and the local businesses to really come together, and launch plans for their economic recovery in the wake of COVID.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

That project, we convened more than probably 300 plus stakeholders in industry specific committees, as well as general community sessions to gather input, to help them sort through and prioritize ideas that would lead to actionable strategies and actually be a blueprint for reopening and revitalizing the local economy. It was a crisis moment for many of these businesses. Facilitation really brought out the best of people, really brought out that collective community power, even amid these challenges. They were really able to come together before looking, create a plan.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

But beyond that, they actually created a support network for one another. Almost everybody spoke about making new connections that would be long lasting. In fact, one of the goals of the project was to foster more ongoing collaboration that would go on long after the recovery period from COVID. It was just a really meaningful and impactful project.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

At the simplest level, what we did was create the space, create very intentional space for people to gather and engage and share in a productive way. I’ll be much shorter here, and just give you a couple of other examples. But we’re engaged with various process and service improvements, and facilitation is embedded throughout the effort. The early stage of discovery, what’s the current state? Imagining the future, what’s possible. Designing how we get to that future state, and then even after implementation, collecting feedback, and further refining the process or the service. Facilitation is embedded throughout.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Some recent things we’ve worked on include our capital construction, building process, hiring processes, enhancing support for research. Even in the academic space, we have a partnership with our Center for Teaching Excellence to work with academic departments in schools on curriculum redesign. While the center brings the expertise around curriculum content, to help ensure that it’s relevant and aligned with the desired student learning outcomes, we’re bringing in knowledge and techniques to engage our faculty, to be very inclusive, and to really help the department navigate organizational change successfully.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

While there are many examples, I could give my strategic planning, organizational effectiveness, I guess the final point here would be that facilitation really knows no boundaries. It’s applicable to all functional areas, it’s applicable to all constituencies. In our case, faculty, staff, students, alumni, even partners of the university. It just pairs well with other methodologies and tools, and it pairs well with all audiences and groups.

Douglas:

I couldn’t agree more that especially in complex environments, facilitation is a prerequisite for leadership. Leaders aren’t doing these things. They’re leaving so much potential behind and potentially, I would say operating at a high level of risk.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Yes. Leaders have the responsibility to create the conditions where people can come together and thrive and do their very best work. I don’t know how you do that if you aren’t using some facilitative skills along the way.

Douglas:

Yeah. I think that statement is such a powerful statement. I love to end there. I want to transition to this moment here at the end, to just give you a chance to share your final thought with our listener.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Yes. Well, I think I would just build upon that facilitation is leadership. Leadership has a commitment to help groups be the best they can be. I don’t know how you do that if you aren’t using facilitation. There’s a saying in the improvement and quality world where I work about organizations and systems deliver the exact results that they’re designed to get.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I would encourage everyone to look at their meetings as well. Your meetings and your sessions are delivering the exact results that you’ve designed them to deliver. That means if you don’t have engagement, you probably designed the session like that. As leaders, let’s all go back, look at our day-to-day interactions, take a critical eye towards our meetings and our sessions, and consider how we might alter the design and get different results rather than continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

I’ll end with this final quote that I have on my desk. This is my call to action for all leaders. An organization’s results are determined through webs of human commitment, born in webs of human conversation. Fernando Flores.

Douglas:

That’s so lovely. Thank you so much, Sarah, for joining me and sharing that lovely quote at the end. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you today and I hope you all the best.

Dr. Sarah Collie:

Thanks, Douglas. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Douglas:

Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don’t forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together. Voltagecontrol.com.

The post Episode 55: Facilitation as a Means, Not an End appeared first on Voltage Control.

In the world of innovation, retrospective meetings are an essential component of a project lifecycle. They’re the crucial debrief or “look back” at the work that took place during an agile project to evaluate effectiveness and gather feedback on how to improve and mitigate risk moving forward. We’ve been a part of many retrospectives with our internal team at Voltage Control as well as with clients after Design Sprints and innovation workshops, and after each iteration of an agile project. To get the most out of attendees at retrospective meetings, and to ultimately optimize the retrospective process, we utilize the power of the Liberating Structures format. 

In this article, we’ll review Liberating Structures and the retrospective concept, then go through some examples of how to apply the Liberating Structures format to a retrospective meeting. You can also find additional options, strategies, relationships, and solutions using the best Liberating Structures in meetings here.

The Impact of Liberating Structures on Retrospectives

Liberating Structures is a framework created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, intended to promote powerful ways to collaborate and engage everyone within a team and boost collaborative team interactions. Liberating Structures consists of 33 microstructures, which are a collection of exercises that allow you to unleash and involve everyone in a group. They provide simple rules that make participatory decision-making easier and are a solution to the dysfunctional format of most meetings, or what Lipmanowicz and McCandless refer to as “conventional microstructures.” Conventional meeting microstructures are either too inhibiting (i.e. status reports/updates, managed discussions, presentations), or too loose and disorganized (i.e. open discussion and brainstorming). They often limit participation and the control is isolated to one individual or a select few–often the extroverted participants in the group. As a result, these conventional microstructures can routinely stifle inclusion and/or engagement. The Liberating Structures framework is built to encourage participation by including all team members, including those in today’s increasingly virtual environment. 

“Liberating Structures introduce tiny shifts in the way we meet, plan, decide and relate to one another. They put the innovative power once reserved for experts only in the hands of everyone.” -Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless

Before diving into the examples of how to use Liberating Structures in a retrospective meeting, let’s quickly review what a retrospective is. At a high level, a retrospective is an opportunity to reflect on a project and learn and improve. It may be a single long meeting after a large project is finished, depending on the environment. In agile environments, a retrospective is most commonly shorter and held often (i.e. 90 minutes at the end of a Design Sprint). Questions are asked and discussed such as:

• What did we do well?
• What did we do wrong? 
• What can we do better in the future? How can we best move forward?
• Pro tip: Share the questions ahead of time with team members so they can review and provide answers before the retrospective, resulting in time better spent during the meeting.

Retrospectives are an essential tool to help teams thrive in innovation. However, they can also get complicated and complex, leaving little room to extract team members’ ideas and input. Liberating Structures are an efficient and effective way to facilitate these meetings and help get the most out of them.

Find tips and tricks on facilitating Design Sprint retrospectives like a pro here.

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3 Ways to Use Liberating Structures in a Retrospective

Now, let’s dive into 3 Liberating Structures examples that can be utilized for a retrospective.

1. What, So What, Now What?

This is a Liberating Structures technique that helps groups reflect on a shared experience to build understanding while avoiding unproductive conflict during a retrospective. You collect information about “What Happened,” make sense of the information with “So What” and, finally, uncover what actions logically follow with “Now What.” It is a very helpful exercise to help the team identify the pain points of a project and how to solve them.

What, So What, Now What? Steps

1. Individuals write down observations that stood out (1 min.)
2. Discuss observations in a small group for (2–7 min.)
3. Share with the whole group (2–3 min.)
4. Capture the important WHATs on a whiteboard.
5. Individuals write down patterns, hypotheses, and conclusions. (1 min.)
6. In a small group, discuss patterns, hypotheses, and conclusions (2–7 min.)
7. Small groups share with the whole group. (2–5 min.)
8. Capture the important SO WHATs on a whiteboard.
9. Individuals write down next steps (1 min.)
10. In a small group discuss the next steps (2–7 min.)
11. Small groups share with the whole group. (2–10 min.)
12. Capture the important NOW WHATs on a whiteboard

2. 15% Solutions

This simple (but extremely powerful) Liberating Structure is great when a retrospective’s time is limited but you want to get a group or team focused on what they are going to do next. The activity helps individuals think about small tweaks they can make to move toward and improve upon the larger goal.  The 15% Solution is the first step or solution that an individual can do without approval or resources from others. It is something that anyone can start right now if they want to. “15% Solutions show that there is no reason to wait around, feel powerless, or fearful. They help people pick it up a level. They get individuals and the group to focus on what is within their discretion instead of what they cannot change.” –Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless

15% Solutions Steps

1. Introduce the 15% Solutions concept to the team.
2. Each person generates his or her own list of 15% Solutions. (5 min.)
3. Individuals share their ideas with a small group. (3 min./person)
4. Group members ask clarifying questions and offer advice. (5-7 min./person)

3. TRIZ

This Liberating Structure is all about creative destruction and encouraging anti-patterns to unlock value and question the status quo. It forces teams to look at what didn’t work, targeting the “What did we do wrong?” question, or the worst-case scenario that could happen when bringing an idea to fruition. Do not identify net-new behaviors. Instead, focus on the worst-case scenario associated with the way your team functions, your product, project, or service offering. 

Pro-tip: Use our Triz templates for MURAL and Miro with your team during the retrospective to capture ideas, ideate, and reflect on the findings. 

TRIZ Steps

1. Introduce the concept of TRIZ to the team.
2. Identify an unwanted result that the group will focus on. If needed, have the groups brainstorm and pick the most unwanted result. (5 min.)
3. Each group uses 1–2–4-All to make a list of all it can do to make sure that it achieves this most unwanted result. 1–2–4-All refers to working alone, then in pairs, then foursomes, and finally as a whole group. (10 min.)
4. Each group uses 1–2–4-All to make a list of all that it is currently doing that resembles items on their first list. (10 min.)
5. Each group uses 1–2–4-All to determine for each item on its second list what first steps will help it stop this unwanted activity/program/procedure. (10 min.)

Utilize Liberating Structures for Project Improvement

Next time you are planning a retrospective, consider incorporating Liberating Structures to get the most out of your team and capitalize on improving your project. These three Liberating Structure exercises can be pieced together or combined with other Liberating Structures to best fit your team and needs. To help you implement them in your next meeting, we created free interactive MURAL and Miro templates for you to use.

Additional Resources

For additional information and ways to use Liberating Structures, check out our Liberating Structures course where you will:

• Learn key Liberating Structures principles
• Practice 5 key design methods
• Chart a plan for further application of Liberating Structures.
• Connect with a Liberating Structures community

We’ll lead you through our favorite Liberating Structures for opening, exploring, and closing in your facilitation. We’ll teach you about these methods and why and how they work. You’ll learn tips and tricks for using Liberating Structures across your work to facilitate lasting change. You can also learn hands-on in real-time at one of our Liberating Structures workshops: a deep-dive of Liberating Structures, when, and how to use them to unleash creativity in your meetings through maximum participation.

The post How to Use Liberating Structures for a Retrospective appeared first on Voltage Control.

At Voltage Control, we are Liberating Structures enthusiasts. Liberating Structures is a framework for facilitation created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, intended to provide simple rules that make it easy to promote inclusion and participatory decision making. At a high level, Liberating Structures consists of 33 microstructures designed to build trust and enhance cooperation and communication between teammates. In today’s increasingly hybrid environment, Virtual Liberating Structures will also become more prominent as more of the workforce elects to work remotely. Applying Liberating Structures virtually will also come with its own set of nuances. Learn how to utilize Virtual Liberating Structures to unleash engagement, provide space for good ideas, and address challenges your team or organization may be facing. 

What is the Liberating Structures Framework?

The Liberating Structures framework is built around improving coordination and promoting participation by including and unleashing all team members. The framework consists of a collection of structures or methods that are meant to introduce small shifts in the way teams meet, plan, decide, and learn. They put the innovation once reserved for experts into the hands of everyone within a team or organization. Each of the 33 microstructures is easy to learn. Regardless if you’re an experienced leader at the executive level or new hire at the entry-level, this framework can work for you and your team (with a little practice, of course). 

Most organizations in today’s business environment rely on what Lipmanowicz and McCandless refer to as “conventional microstructures.” These microstructures are structures that teams default to when meeting and organizing into groups. These conventional microstructures are either too inhibiting (i.e. status reports/updates, managed discussions, presentations), or too loose and disorganized (i.e. open discussion and brainstorming) according to Lipmanowicz and McCandless. They often are limited in the number of participants and the control is isolated to one individual or a select few–often the extroverted participants in the group. As a result, these conventional microstructures can routinely stifle inclusion and/or engagement. Liberating Structures, and Virtual Liberating Structures, provide more constructive alternatives than the conventional structures by including everybody regardless of group size, seniority or comfort level, and distributing control among all participants.

For more information on when to use Liberating Structures and solutions on using the best Liberating Structure for the job, download our guide here.

Why Virtual Liberating Structures Are Important

Liberating Structures offer an alternative way to approach and design how people work together. In today’s distributed workforce, Virtual Liberating Structures will become more necessary as teams and organizations won’t always be all together in the same office anymore. Even when in person, conventional facilitation and microstructures can be creativity’s worst enemy. They often end up in the exclusion of the more introverted team members in the room, lack organization, and discourage out-of-the-box thinking. It’s difficult to feel encouraged and engaged after a 30 minute PowerPoint over Zoom presentation followed by an unfacilitated brainstorm (in which a couple of the highest-positioned extroverts do most of the talking). 

When applied to virtual meetings, these drawbacks of conventional facilitation and microstructures only get worse. Little regard to the unique challenges of virtual facilitation and participation will result in frustration for both you and your team. Remote participants face more distractions, more technical difficulties, and less engagement than in-person participants in virtual meetings and/or workshops. You will want, and need, to put extra thought into inclusion, participation, and engagement to make the most of remote, virtual and hybrid communication. This is why Virtual Liberating Structures is such a great framework for remote teams. 

The framework’s advantages–participation promotion, creative empowerment, and cooperation improvement–precisely counteract the challenges of meeting and working together remotely. When everyone in the virtual room feels enabled to participate, virtual meetings will naturally produce more and higher quality work. Team members and participants are invited because they have something of value to offer, regardless of title or level. Consequently, it’s critical to empower them to contribute. Collaboration between participants will promote individual creativity by enabling everyone to build off each others’ ideas and inspire one another. The group is smarter than any individual.

The Liberating Structures frameworks’ focus on participation will make attention management significantly easier, especially in a remote and virtual environment. Liberating Structures, whether in person or remote, operate under the philosophy that every participant has a lot to contribute, which means that every participant is being asked to take an active role. Participants who are actively engaged and engaging are much less likely to become distracted and/or disengaged.

Virtual Liberating Structures Examples

We understand that adapting all 33 Liberating Structures in a virtual setting can seem daunting. That’s why we detail Liberating Structure activities to strengthen virtual collaboration in another post here. In summary, here are a couple of Liberating Structures that are applicable to the virtual work environment and can strengthen virtual teams:

Troika Consulting

This activity allows an opportunity for two participants to become consultants for a third group member (the “client.”) The first client shares a question or challenge, then the consultant has 1-2 minutes to ask clarifying questions. When time is up or the consultants are finished asking questions, the client will mute their audio and allow the consultants to spend 4-5 minutes generating suggestions and advice. The consultants will then have 1-2 minutes to share their most valuable feedback to the client. This activity builds trust between teammates and helps participants better understand each other’s strengths and areas of expertise.

Conversation Café

This is a longer activity that will make group discussion more structured and train participants to strike a balance between speaking and listening. Participants will break into small groups or breakout rooms in Zoom; one participant from each group will act as The Host, whose responsibility (in addition to participating in the activity) is to step in when another participant isn’t following a simple set of agreements. Within these groups, team members will move through four rounds of conversation:

• First round: Each group member will have one minute to share their thoughts or feelings regarding the given conversation topic.
• Second round: Each group member will get another minute to share their thoughts and feelings after having listened to what others had to say. Traditionally a “talking object” is passed around in person to signify whose turn it is to speak, but in a virtual setting, you will have an appropriate replacement.  For example, everyone mutes their microphones and participants use the “raise hand” feature in Zoom to signal that they’d like to talk next, or each participant is asked to bring a common household item to the meeting, such as a mug or a spatula, to hold up in place of one singular talking object.
• Third round: This is an open conversation in which participants can speak when they wish rather than taking turns. You may choose to continue using your talking object method (or “raise hand” feature) or to leave them in round two. This is likely where The Host will need to step in the most; ask them to encourage quieter members to talk and over-sharers to leave space for them to do so.
• Fourth (and final) round: Give each member a moment to share their biggest takeaways from the previous three rounds of conversation, round-robin style.

This exercise helps the quieter or more introverted participants build confidence contributing during virtual conversation, and the small groups make it harder for a participant to fade into the background (which is a bigger issue on Zoom vs. in-person meetings).

Additional Resources

We feel strongly that Liberating Structures has an approach to address almost any challenge you may have to overcome. Therefore, we developed a variety of resources to help support you as you navigate Virtual Liberating Structures for your team. 

We created interactive MURAL templates for the activities we use most often and hope you enjoy using them as much as we do. Note: find the template overview here.

We will be hosting a workshop on Virtual Liberating Structures later this year. Let our expert facilitators guide you to better understand and integrate Liberating Structures with your teams, both in-person and virtual. You will learn the principles behind why Liberating Structures work and experience specific structures that will allow you to tap into the room intelligence no matter how large the team. 

Finally, Voltage Control offers an online Liberating Structures course that provides you and your team with the key foundations in Liberating Structures to unleash creativity in your meetings through maximum participation.

Want more assistance helping your virtual team thrive?

Here at Voltage Control, we are exercising and sharing the best tools and techniques needed for teams to thrive in the virtual workplace, through productive meetings, remote work team collaboration, considerations for return to work, facilitation skills, virtual events, meeting culture, Magical Meetings, and design sprints.

The post Virtual Liberating Structures: More Important Now than Ever appeared first on Voltage Control.

This is an outtake from the book The Non-Obvious Guide to Magical meetings (No Matter Who is in the Room), written by Douglas Ferguson & John Fitch.

A successful meeting needs structure and purposeful activities that facilitate collaborative work between attendees, not an hour-long PowerPoint presentation or endless debate. There is a vast library of preexisting frameworks and methods available to you to help you build a meeting that will get your team to their objective; here are some of our favorites.

Frameworks

Art of Hosting:

The Art of Hosting centers around the idea that people will devote the most energy and resources to what matters most to them. This framework focuses on harnessing the group’s collective wisdom by facilitating conversations that require participants to directly face the challenges in front of them. The goal is to empower each participant to help guide the meeting towards its objective in the most effective way possible rather than sit back and let the facilitator do all of the heavy lifting. This framework can be applied to gatherings of any size and works best for meetings that will be mostly conversation-based. To learn more about the methods behind the Art of Hosting framework, visit artofhosting.org.

Design Thinking:

At its core, design thinking is a process used for creative problem-solving. Overall, a design thinking approach is one that minimizes uncertainty and the risk of innovation. The core of this methodology is human-centric and asks the question, “What’s the human need behind this product/method/process/service?” This encourages businesses to focus their efforts on the people they’re creating for, therefore, helping them to understand and deliver to their target audiences.

Design thinking is the fusion of what is desirable (from a human perspective), technologically achievable, and economically feasible. It helps to consider all parts of a problem or challenge to understand it holistically, steering projects clear of ambiguity and uncertainty.

There are five stages of design thinking:

1. Empathize – understand the perspective of the target audience/customer/consumer to identify and address the problem at hand
2. Define –  convert the defined problem into a tangible, human-centered statement
3. Ideate – now it’s time to generate ideas around this data; this is a massive brainstorm
4. Prototype – experiment; identifies which of the possible solutions can best solve the identified problem(s) using trial and error
5. Test – flesh out and refine ideas through testing of the product to create the best solution possible

The Design Sprint

When you desperately need to jumpstart a project at work, there’s one tried-and-true method that falls under the Design Thinking framework – the Design Sprint. A Design Sprint is a five-day process where you dissect a business challenge through a set of powerful activities. The result is a rapid prototype that has been vetted with real customers. We like to say that a Design Sprint helps you accomplish a month’s worth of work in a week.

The Design Sprint was initially developed at Google Ventures as a process for “answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers.” It’s an excellent way to push through confusion and inertia to come up with new ideas and find out quickly if your customers might respond positively to them.

One of the beautiful things about the Design Sprint is that it is a prescriptive (in the best meaning of the word!) week of events. You don’t need to wonder what to do. You don’t need to struggle to come up with an agenda.

This doesn’t mean a Design Sprint is “easy”; it does mean that the activities for each day are clearly defined so any team can jump in and run a Sprint if they take the time to read up on the process.

Gamestorming:

This framework is a collection of gamified activities to foster creative thinking in business people who may not always consider themselves “creative types.” Games are created for and sorted by specific goals, such as decision-making, problem-solving, and strategy creation. The idea is that games innately provide a set of strategies and tools for getting where you want to go as well as breeding a light competitiveness that can boost innovation. For a list of games to utilize under this framework, check out gamestorming.com.

Liberating Structures:

Liberating Structures is a framework created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, intended to provide simple rules that make it easy to include and unleash everyone’s best work and ideas. The framework consists of a collection of 33 structures or methods that introduce tiny shifts in the protocols of how we meet, plan, decide, learn, and relate to each other. They put the innovative power once reserved for experts only into the hands of everyone. Instructions for using Liberating Structures are on the website, book, and mobile app. The website has lots of information. If you are wanting to learn more about the structures, we suggest going straight to the LS website and read about each structure in the menu.

A tip to quickly digest each structure is to begin with the purpose at the top and then skip to step 5 and read the sequence and allocation to get an overview of how the structure functions.

MG Taylor DesignShop:

Matt & Gail Taylor of the MG Taylor Corporation developed a 3-5 day workshop known as a DesignShop. This workshop focuses on harnessing the group’s collective genius and creativity by harnessing group dynamics and collaboration. The MG Taylor method is best utilized with large and diverse organizations who are working to solve large, difficult problems with no perfect solution. For more information on the MG Taylor DesignShop, check out legacy.mgtaylor.com

Thinking Wrong:

We are often held back by conventional ideas of how we should work; if you are exploring solutions and challenges that are both certain or well-known, you are considering the predictable path. Explore the uncertainty and welcome the unexpected. Allowing your team to challenge the status quo and bold new future will propel their creative problem-solving abilities and give way to innovative thinking. If you’re interested in reading more about how to think wrong, we recommend Think Wrong: How to Conquer the Status Quo and Do Work That Matters by John BielEnberg, Mike Burn, Greg Galle, and Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson.

Activities

The following activities are some that are used in the previously mentioned facilitation structures. Use them in your meetings to experience heightened team collaboration and communication.

Impromptu Networking:

In this exercise, take about 20 minutes for participants to meet in pairs, introduce themselves to each other, and answer these questions: “What big challenge do you bring to this gathering? What do you hope to get from and give this group or community?” By the end, each person will talk to about four people and learn something new about their colleagues or teammates. Impromptu Networking is excellent when your meeting attendees don’t know each other, or even when they do; either way, participants quickly gain new perspectives on the people they’ll be working with throughout the meeting or day.

SCAMPER:

This is a method of focused brainstorming. Rather than just saying “Come up with ideas!”, SCAMPER runs you through seven techniques for idea generation: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate and Reverse.

You use SCAMPER like this: first, identify the product or service you’re working with or the business question at hand. Run through the SCAMPER list and ask yourself questions based on the letters. (You can feel free to jump around and focus on the ones that are inspiring you the most.)

For example, let’s say you work at Uber. You need to think of ways to innovate. You take Combine and think: How could I combine Uber with another experience that riders need? You say to yourself: Riders need food when they are coming home in an Uber late at night. This might lead you to think of an experience where Uber riders can order pizza and a car at the same time. Their driver arrives with a hot pizza in the car and the rider can eat it on the way home. (this example might just describe UberEats, but you get the idea.)

Crazy 8s:

Crazy 8s is an activity that we run as part of every Design Sprint, but it can be used anytime you want to come up with a bunch of ideas quickly. The simplicity of this one is wonderful. Grab a piece of paper and fold it into eight sections. Set a timer for 8 minutes. Have participants sketch a distinct idea in each section. (Remind them that the ideas don’t have to be amazing, or even viable. The point is getting ideas down on paper without censoring themselves.)

Decision Trees:

A decision tree is a visual model that presents all of the different choices associated with a problem or question which helps to eliminate uncertainty during the decision-making process. They are commonly used in operations research or decision analysis to help identify the strategy needed to reach the desired goal. We use this design thinking exercise in virtual workshops via MURAL to ideate creative solutions.

Affinity Grouping:

Affinity grouping helps you identify big themes in a large group of ideas. We use this method to synthesize sticky note storms and other brainstorming activities. Take the ideas generated by the group and begin to cluster like ideas together.

Note and Vote:

This is another method that comes out of the Design Sprint. The benefit of this exercise is that it gives everyone an equal vote when decision making. It’s super simple but highly effective.

Let’s say you have a series of ideas that you are reviewing as a group. Have everyone silently write down which idea is their favorite on a sticky note. Once they’re done, have everyone put their vote up on the wall or whiteboard at the same time. Review the votes, see what idea has the most votes, and have a conversation around the pros and cons of the 1–3 “winners.”

Dot voting:

You can get a sense of what ideas are resonating as most important with the group during this exercise. Give everyone in the group 3–5 (or more!) sticky dots. Have everyone simultaneously put their dots on the idea or concept that they like the most. In the end, you have a heat map of the ideas that the group gravitates toward.

A Whiteboard Isn’t Enough: Breakout rooms & tools for creating a toolbox

It is crucial – especially in large groups – to ensure that each participant as well as each smaller team within the larger group receives some amount of differentiated learning/specialized instruction.

Individualized, direct feedback will help your teams and team members grow and produce the best work.

If you aren’t doing one-on-ones, I’ve got to break it to you: you must start. There is no excuse—not even for a small team! Managers, and especially executives, have the luxury of seeing the forest for the trees. One-on-ones are one of the most important tools you have to identify problems, opportunities, and see across your team to create alignment. They allow you to understand what motivates your team, their fears and concerns, and their challenges. So, if someone reports to you, I suggest weekly one-on-ones. I know everyone is busy, but I don’t recommend doing them bi-weekly. Schedule them for every week and commit!

An important organizational feature to use during meetings, workshops, and other large gatherings is the breakout room. This is an assimilation of organizing people in separate spaces for discussion like you would normally do in person. For virtual gatherings, Zoom has a breakout room feature built directly into the program; you can assign people rooms in the app or use the option for random assignment. You can also automatically redirect them from the main screen and back again according to your schedule. These breakouts allow attendees to engage directly with the given content and explore the material in a more detailed and hands-on manner.

We’ve found this especially helpful during storyboarding. The feature to automatically route participants in and out of breakout rooms and back to the main meeting room makes the virtual facilitation experience much easier. You also have the capability to mute all participants at any time (this cancels out everyone’s individual background noises) which is helpful when giving directions or speaking to everyone all at once in the main meeting room. 

These breakouts allow attendees to engage directly with the given content and explore the material in a more detailed and hands-on manner.

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Breakout rooms can also be wonderful for breaking the ice between attendees at the beginning of a meeting. We use Zoom’s breakout rooms feature to randomly assign pairs of participants to each other in rounds. They discuss warm-up questions pertaining to the workshop topic for several minutes each. Participants are alerted by a timer and pop-up notification at the top of their screens when it is time to move after each round, then they are again automatically assigned another participant. When the rounds are over, all participants are automatically re-routed back to the main event screen.

Use Google Docs, Google Slides, or MURAL during breakout room sessions to assist in participants’ collaboration. MURAL is one of our favorite tools to use at Voltage Control. It is a virtual whiteboard tool that supports complex group work and allows teams to virtually share and collaborate on digital stickies. We prefer it for our virtual workshops because it has the most features to support facilitators.

Pro tip: play a thoughtful playlist while the group works so that they are all in the same flow.

Below is a list of helpful tools for creating a toolbox for your individual participants and smaller groups to work together. This digital toolbox will boost collaboration between your teams and create a permanent record of the work done in your meeting, preventing the group’s ideas from fizzling out of existence the minute the meeting is over. Take some time to explore these options and decide which would best serve your meeting’s activities.

1. Basecamp – Real-time communication tool to keep track of everything you’re working on in a shared space. 
2. Focus To-Do – Pomodoro time and task management app that helps you perform tasks efficiently.
3. Figma – Collaborative design platform to design, prototype, and gather feedback in real-time in one place.
4. Trello –  A place for assigning work and tracking work progress using a Kanban-style list-making application. Assign individuals to cards to create clear to-do lists and organize priorities.
5. Google Docs – Smart editing and styling tools support joint teamwork to flow smoothly and easily and keep ideas in one place. Teams can work on different pages or in different docs accordingly. 
6. Google Slides – Interactive work templates with multiple pages to allow individual and collective work. 
7. Google Sheets – Collaborative spreadsheets to organize and update tasks and information. 
8. Google Drive (or other cloud storage) – Drop all assets and work content into a shared space for easy access for all team members. Use different folders to organize information. 
9. MURAL – Digital whiteboard with collaborative templates for visual collaboration including planning, brainstorming, and designing
10. Process Street – Make checklists for your team to help you remember and keep track of all of your to-do’s. 
11. SessionLab – Dynamically design, organize and share workshops and training content. 

Buffer Time: How to Prevent Stragglers

The first step to keeping a meeting – virtual or in-person – running on time is to start on time. Use tools such as Google Calendar or Doodle to keep everyone on the same page about when and where a meeting will happen. If you have team members in different time zones, provide a resource such as World Time Buddy’s meeting scheduler to coordinate across time zones.

With so many varying schedules and wondering headspaces, not everyone shows up to a meeting in the same place. For example, some people may be rushing from one session to the next, unable to quiet the busy chatter in their heads, and experiencing brain fog because of it. Setting aside even five minutes at the beginning of the meeting to center everyone into the same headspace can drastically improve collaboration, attention, and performance.

Practicing mindfulness through group meditation is one option. Once attendees have found their seats, you can play a short guided meditation for the group. They only need to close their eyes and listen. Five minutes meditating is all that’s necessary to experience a decrease in stress levels and an increase in mindfulness, focus, and performance.

Meetings and Virtual Design Sprints are not the same online as they are in-person, so we must treat them differently. In general, we believe that the pace of the sprint needs to be slower in a virtual setting. While technology can indeed speed us up, it can also slow us down. That’s because virtual gatherings must account for many factors that don’t exist when we’re connecting face-to-face. 

For example, there is a limited ability to read the virtual room intelligence to ensure that everyone is on the same page. The physical separation and low bandwidth signals make it difficult to notice that someone is distracted, struggling, or falling behind. If you do manage to detect that someone needs help, it takes extra time to stop and catch them up. Simply put, things take longer online. There are inevitably delays and extra processing time needed to get everyone on board. Account for extra buffer time to set up and field mishaps during the sprint or meeting. You’ll need to prepare to support those that are less familiar with the tools you’ve chosen or having trouble with their internet connection.

The threat of technological difficulty can never be truly eradicated, but there are some steps you can take to mitigate it. Send out your tools ahead of time and ask your attendees to spend a few minutes familiarizing themselves ahead of time; perhaps include a crash course for more complicated programs. Additionally, if your organization is large and/or holding multiple meetings that some attendees may be attending back-to-back, we recommend using Google Calendar’s Speedy Meeting function. When scheduling a meeting via Google Calendar, check the “Speedy Meeting” box to end a 30-minute meeting 5 minutes early or a 60-minute meeting 10 minutes early. You can also make this your Calendar’s default by going into your settings. This allows a buffer for meeting attendees to get their computer, tools, and resources set up for their next meeting without being late. Attendees who know they have buffer time to make it to their next meeting are less likely to mentally check-out towards the end of your meeting due to stress or anxiety surrounding rushing to their next scheduled meeting.

Another factor to consider in a virtual Design Sprint is that participants are more likely to get distracted online. An effective Design Sprint ground rule to increase productivity is to ban the use of personal devices. However, it’s impossible to eliminate the distraction of screens during virtual Design Sprints because laptops and tablets are the means for connection. In short, you have to wrangle the cats more. That’s because each participant is in their own physical environment. Facilitators will have the most success when they allocate extra time and are prepared to assist participants through these distractions. 

When using breakout rooms, give people time to connect. They will have less opportunity to connect than at an in-person event. Allowing extra time for interaction can have a big impact on collaboration and productivity when it comes time to work. 

Time Constraints for Better Ideas: Using a timer without pissing anybody off

Constraints breed innovation. When given too much time to think, people are prone to overthinking and allowing their inner critic to censor their best ideas. Setting a time constraint for your team is crucial for eliminating analysis paralysis and encouraging ideas that come from outside the box. It also instills a light pressure that prevents team members from getting distracted by happenings outside of the room. When time is of the essence, being present in the moment comes much more naturally.

Unfortunately, people aren’t typically particularly fond of timers. Bringing out a kitchen timer or putting up a countdown can often cloud peoples’ thoughts with anxiety. Not all hope is lost, however. Here’s how you can use a timer in a meeting without stirring dread in your attendees.

Firstly, make sure that you are putting enough time on the clock. Are you giving your participants a realistic amount of time to discuss a topic or perform an activity? 5 minutes may be all you need for a voting activity, but it would be inappropriately brief for a complex discussion amongst a large group. Ensure that you’re being realistic about how quickly you’re expecting attendees to complete a task or they may throw their hands in the air and declare the task impossible from the get-go.

Don’t gloss over the introduction of your timer. Use this moment as an opportunity to frame the timer as a helpful tool rather than an oppressive force lurking in the background. Remind your team that the timer is their permission slip to spitball; they do not have all of the time in the world, so of course they will not be expected to perfect all of their ideas before sharing. Sharing imperfect ideas encourages collaboration and results in better, more efficient work. The timer gives them the freedom to think in pieces rather than in perfection.

Use a timer that alerts the team of a time’s up with an auditory cue and be sure to give a warning – two for longer activity times – that time is almost up. Let the room know before the activity starts that you will be giving these warnings. Team members who feel stress regarding the clock won’t have to stare at it for the duration of the activity in order to keep a handle on how much time is left; they will be able to relax and be present knowing that they will be notified when it is time to begin wrapping up.

Lastly, consider the aesthetics of the timer that you choose. Giant, red digital numbers counting backwards that end in an aggressive beeping may set a much more ominous mood than you’re hoping for. Consider using something more neutral, relaxing, or even funny. There are countless physical and virtual timers available to you – find something that feels right for the mood you want to set.

Want to learn more about how to have Magical Meetings?

Check out Douglas Ferguson and John Fitch’s upcoming book: The Non-Obvious Guide to Magical Meetings (No Matter Who is in the Room) & our online Magical Meetings Course.

The post Facilitation Methods & Modalities appeared first on Voltage Control.

Our world has changed more rapidly and unexpectedly than ever before these past several months. Nothing has been safe. Businesses have and continue to struggle with how to navigate the obligatory adjustments and unforeseen challenges the pandemic has presented. We’ve all been forced to improve our change management skills; it has become crucial on an elevated level. The ability to maneuver around obstacles and through transitions, and do it well, is essential.

When a company is facing change in any capacity, change management is how company leaders manage the processes, systems, structures, overall morale, and employee responsibilities during a time of transition. This is a skillset we know well at Voltage Control. We spend our days helping people embrace, face, and transition through changes. Whether your company is struggling to make sense of required changes or you’re thriving and embracing an innovative transition, we want to share some of our change management strategies with you so that you can be successful in these uncertain times.

When Change Comes Knocking

First and foremost, a carefully constructed change management plan is a crucial base-level strategy to stifle fear and prepare your company to adequately navigate change. Planning for change eliminates unwelcome surprises; you have a recipe to fall back on and plug into. Weave the following six change management strategy principles into your customized plan:

1. Pinpoint the problem

The first and most important thing to do when change–especially unexpected change–arises is to clearly identify it, why and how it happened, and what the solution is to solve it. You must fully know and understand the problem before you can adequately fix it. 

2. Integrate culture to drive new direction

Company culture is the backbone of every work environment and team dynamic. It is the script for how employees interact with one another, how they know what to expect, and how they should perform. Change can disrupt the standard workflow and social status quo. It is critical to keep culture top-of-mind during times of change so that you are not met with resistance and so that employees stay connected to one another. 

3. Unify top-level leadership

All links of the chain must be on the same page in order to survive change. Upper-level executives and leaders need to act congruently and share the same information throughout the company on all levels. A united front is the strongest defense against falling to the challenges of change.

4. Engage every level

The ripple effect of change is felt on some level throughout the entire company. So include everyone in the conversation to unify and confront the problem together. Involve mid-level employees as soon as possible by offering a safe space for everyone to share their concerns, including any logistical or technical issues they might see. Managers and leaders can also use this as an opportunity to evaluate the effects the change will have on their teams and the company at large.

5. Incorporate change agents

Change agents help to drive the challenging task of getting all employees on board. They are any informal leaders who can help organizational leaders drive and champion change. Whether they are internal leaders or stakeholders, change agents should be intentionally chosen. They will serve as a coalition to help spread the unified message, get their teams integrated, and put people at ease.

6. Identify critical behaviors

Even with the former five principles in place, change won’t happen overnight. Provide employees with defined critical behaviors to follow within the first couple of days that the change occurs. Provide them with the “what”, “why”, and “how” so that they fully understand the dynamics of the change and introduce any new practices necessary for a smooth transition. Old patterns are hard to break. Make sure to provide all employees with adequate training and informational meetings to communicate details of the change and new expectations. 

Break Barriers with Liberating Structures

A change management plan will help guide you through the dark uncertainty of change. Along the way, incorporate additional change management strategies to break up tensions and spark creativity–both crucial components of maintaining company culture and morale. 

One of our favorite ways to do this is to use Liberating Structures during meetings and workshops. This facilitation framework consists of 33 microstructures designed to build trust and enhance cooperation and communication between teammates. Participation is the name of the game with Liberating Structures. They are built around improving coordination by including and unleashing all participants; a great way to shake things up in times of tension. 

Each microstructure is easy to learn and implement. Try incorporating one, or several, of the following Liberating Strategies to connect your team and ideate solutions: 

1. Open Space

This activity helps to release people’s inherent creativity, leadership, and the ability to self-organize. It guides groups small and large to co-create agendas and address issues that are important to them. The release of central control empowers people to quickly take responsibility for solving problems and taking action. The structure ensures total inclusion and provides a space for all concerns and voices to be heard. 

2. Appreciate Inquiry

Groups of any size focus on and share their success stories rather than problems. Collectively, the group generates a list of orders that are necessary for its overall success. Inclusivity and open and honest conversations help to highlight the importance of investing in social supports. Overall, sharing successes elevates the energy in the room.

3. Conversation Cafe

This activity helps structure group discussion and train participants to strike an important balance between talking and listening. Attendees break into small groups and one person acts as the Host. They monitor seven agreements that must be met at all times, including respecting one another and suspending judgment as much as possible. If anyone in the group disrupts an agreement, the Host steps in. Groups engage in four rounds of timed conversation–each with clearly defined prompts and expectations–where participants equally share their thoughts and listen to others. The activity helps to foster calm and profound conversations.

4. Triz

Make space for innovation by inviting in creative destruction. This activity liberates options for renewal by focusing on identifying what the group must stop doing in order to achieve its goals. The group makes a list of all the ways it can achieve the worst result possible as it relates to their deepest goals. This airs out all of the worst-case scenarios and gives the group a chance to clearly analyze them and reflect on if they are acting them out in any way. Then, the group goes through the list and assigns counter action items to each scenario as to not create the undesired results. 

Change is inevitable. But we have the power to brace it with more grace and ease and use it to our advantage when we arm ourselves with change management strategies.

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” -John Maxwell 

Need a facilitator?

Voltage Control facilitates design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out at info@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.

The post Change Management Strategies–Before & During Transitions appeared first on Voltage Control.

Protests surrounding police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement have generated much conversation surrounding how to work towards social change. It can be overwhelming to find a first step towards tackling such a huge challenge. Voltage Control hosted a virtual workshop to discuss the facilitation of social change. The workshop was co-facilitated by Bill Aal, Elena Farden, Maui Francis, and Jyo Maan. Control the Room and Voltage Control founder Douglas Ferguson served as the community organizer and Tara Weghorst served as the event manager.

Introduction

Maui started off the workshop by encouraging participants to center their thoughts and conversation around the following intents and principles of measuring success by: 

• Honoring the past–acknowledging that this has been going on for a long time (it’s so important for us to know our history).
• A clear and compelling change mandate–a call for everyone to center themselves in and around the workshop.
• A rigorous and optimistic way forward–a very clear path based on the change mandate. Be ruthless but positive, not negative.

Elena welcomed participants into the virtual space with a Japanese proverb: “As tigers die and leave their skins, people die and leave their names.” Along with identity, she said, names can recount family stories and preserve events for generations to come.  In the recent tide of events surrounding George Floyd’s death, the calling out of his name has become a worldwide charge.

The remembrance or proclaiming of names is not only valued by this social change movement–it is valued by EVERYONE.

She then asked everyone to write down the name of a person–past or present–whom they respected and wished to invite into the space.

Spiral Journal

Jyo transitioned the room into a centering warm-up activity called Spiral Journal. Participants were instructed to draw a tight, continuous spiral as they focused their attention on the name that they had chosen during Elena’s introduction. She explained that this activity would calm the mind and focus attention on the present. Next, Jyo asked participants to divide their paper into five sections and silently and individually answer one of the five following prompts in each section:

1.       I almost didn’t show up here today because…

2.       It pains me that…

3.       It is hard because…

4.       Now that I have shared my grief, it may be possible to…

5.       I am longing for…

Conversation Café

Participants were randomly split into breakout rooms in groups of three to move through four rounds of conversation about the feelings and ideas surrounding social change that had been surfacing for them. Participants shared their experiences of discussing racism and social change with others from different backgrounds than themselves, whether that be due to age, location, race, or anything else. 

During the debrief, Bill asked the room, “What’s calling you now?” Participants spoke about the critical role of listening and how they could become better listeners. They also spoke about releasing self-imposed constraints such as fear and doubt in order to take action.

15% Solutions

After the Conversation Café, participants were again randomly sorted into breakout rooms, but this time in pairs. They were asked to come up with a 15% Solution to the challenge that they were facing–that is, what contribution they could make given the resources, authority, and control they currently held. Participants helped each other refine and enhance their 15% Solutions and exchanged contact information to follow-up with each other on the completion of their action steps. This provided participants an accountability partner who would ensure that they did not leave behind all the ideas discussed in the space after the workshop disbanded.

Chat Storm

Once the breakout rooms ended their sessions and all participants returned to the main room, Bill asked everyone to type their 15% Solutions into the chat. Participants then pressed enter at roughly the same time and were given time to read what others had written. Here are some of the next steps that participants committed to taking after the conclusion of the workshop:

•   “Got a lot of books to read and [will] join some discussion groups on deprogramming white supremacy.” 
•   “I am reading, writing to policymakers, have a dedicated space for this conversation in my workshop tomorrow.” 
•  “Talk to white people heart-to-heart about racial harmony.” 
•  “Hear the voice of people who are not of my ‘circle’ to open my mind.”
• “Re-focus on listening and start at a micro level–home family, neighbors, peers.” 
• “Be more intentional about creating opportunities, coaching, sponsorship for POCs on my team.” 

Participants were then moved into a second round of chat storm, where they shared what they needed in order to begin taking action. Here are some of the responses:

• “I need to make time–stop doing the extraneous.” 
• “Nothing. As facilitators, we can act right now and encourage people to share valuable opinions and guide appreciative conversations.” 
• “To move out of my comfort zone in conversations.” 
• “Uncomfortable conversations to hear different perspectives and better understand one another with a willingness to change.” 
• “Call old friends, ask Qs and listen… take a couple neighbors out for coffee… pray where to apply my leadership… only need a decision… put it on my calendar and make the calls.” 

Participants were moved into a third and final chat storm to discuss the question, “What do you have to offer?” Here are some of the responses:

• “Skills in organizing & facilitating. Empathy, passion.”
• “Processes (coaching and workshops) for people to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, become aware of their narratives, make new choices.” 
• “Authentic perspective on issues as a AA female.” 
• “Time.” 
• “Money and passion.” 
• “My studio to begin mapping the story of privilege.” 
• “A space to listen.”

Closing

Maui closed the meeting by reminding participants not to forget their relentless pursuit of change as media coverage of the protests died down. “The short time we were together today surely was not enough to finish, but hopefully enough to spark an innovative thought or outcome that you would like to continue to see through to fruition.” He closed with a quote from his uncle. 

In the words of Unko Bob (Marley) as he’s known in my family…

“Until the philosophy,

Which hold one race superior and another

Inferior,

Is finally,

And permanently,

Discredited,

And abandoned,

…me say war.”

Mahalo a nui

Participants thanked each other for their contributions and there was an open discussion about the importance of tolerance and open conversation. Elena asked everyone to hold a moment of silence in honor of who they’d been speaking of and who they’d been thinking of during the workshop.

Weekly Virtual Workshop

Join us for our free, weekly community workshops to collaborate, brainstorm, and network with others. Let’s continue to learn from and help one another. We’re all in this together!

Want to learn more about virtual facilitation? 

Voltage Control offers virtual services including Virtual Facilitation, Virtual Transitions, and Virtual Meeting Design. Please reach out at info@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.

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