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Our meeting facilitators combines the best practices of strategic planning and visioning. It enables your executive team to agree on compelling goals, breakthrough strategies and aligned action. Using a variety of models and tools we will create a powerful strategy looking at your organization's past, present and future.
Look into the past to create common ground
Explore the history of your organization in order to ensure that everyone is coming from the same place
Establish organizational mission and values
Collaboratively determine the purpose and the scope of your organization so everyone is on the same page. Become clear on the values of your organization to ensure alignment and make individual and collective decision making easier and more effective.
Analyze the present
Collectively analyze the present circumstances, including your organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, relevant future trends, your customer's desires (internal and external) and organizational capability
Create a collective vision
We will access the group's creativity and wisdom to create a compelling vision one that all members of the team will be inspired to contribute to. We are specialists in creative thinking. We will stretch your group's collective mind into creative yet practical realms. Your group will reach beyond the typical "box."
Establish goals
From your vision we will establish key broad goals
Create tactics
You will collectively establish next steps and tactics that will fulfill your goals for your vision. To ensure that there is follow-through you might elect to use our special Follow-through Process.
Next Steps
Follow Through Process
Duration: 1 to 3 days
Purpose: Work together to develop a compelling vision of the future, clear strategies and grounded tactics to make it a reality:
What: Tap group wisdom by using processes and group tools that stimulate the imagination and establishes grounded ideas and solutions.
How: Work together to achieve consensus on important factors by creating an atmosphere where everyone contributes and is heard.
Where: Off-site, On-site and Remote
Go away and work on what is important to your team.
Our meeting facilitators specialize in leading executive and department teams in retreats (often referred to as an "advance"). We will design your whole retreat which may include strategic planning, making tough decisions, solving a key problem, team building, recreational or time-off time and/or maybe training.
Activities may include...
Visioning, sparking creativity, giving and receiving feedback, evaluating team/organization, role and responsibilities determination, deeper dives, get-to-know-you-better, improving, strategy setting, values determination, determine messages, conflict resolution, determining team blocks and other obstacles, establishing commitments, team-building, building cooperation, dealing with sensitive issues, clarifying mission, idea generation, making decisions, planning evaluating ideas, and more.
Formats may include...
Open Space technology, World, Appreciative Inquiry, Outdoor and indoor experiences, Innovation Games, Improv, cooking, arts & crafts, and many more.
Duration: 1 to 4 days
Purpose: Work together to accomplish organizational and personal goals
What: An executive, department or organizational retreat
How: Through interviews and survey we will design a retreat that will be productive and memorable.
Where: Off-site, On-site and Remote
Always lots of fun, and lots of great ideas. More great ideas per minute, guaranteed!
For product, services and marketing development.
Our facilitators are experts in ideation the process of generating ideas i.e. brainstorming. We use a huge inventory of ideation tools including brainstorming, brainwriting, force-field, nominal group technique, pass it on, story boarding, in-the-shoe-of, metaphors, etc. We also have a boat full of experience in leading ideation groups. We use these tools and experience to facilitate your extremely engaging and interactive ideation session where everyone has the opportunity to generate lots of ideas. Once ideas are generate we will work with your group to converge those ideas into viable ones. Your ideation sessions will be highly productive, providing a surplus of ideas.
Planning for the Ideation: The first thing we do is plan for the session. To accomplish this we will interview you and others to determine the purpose, outcomes and detailed information needed to generate the ideas that you want. We then produce a high level agenda that will be presented to you. Together we will refine the agenda. The result of this step is a meeting agenda that will fit your goals 100 percent.
The Ideation Meeting.. In your ideation meeting and will ensure that everyone contributes. We will draw from hundreds of ideation tools and techniques, including those from Synectics, Edward DeBono, Creative Problem Solving (CPS), Walt Disney, Kepner-Tregoe, and Alex Osborn (father of "Brainstorming"). Follow-up
You and your team will receive a report that contains the results and the "output" of the meeting.
Our Typical Ideation Process starts with "Focusing" Define the problem or challenge or strategic direction, then we Generate loads of ideas with Incubation time, after which your group will determine the top ideas, and with Action Planning to establish what to do with the ideas.
Duration: 1 hour to 1 day
Purpose: To generate scores of ideas for problems solving, product development, marketing strategies and naming.
What: Tap group wisdom by using processes and group tools that stimulates the imagination and establishes grounded ideas and solutions.
How: Use a huge variety of ideation and convergence tools, introverted and extroverted processes,
Number of people: 5 - 500
Where: Off-site, On-site and Remote
Our meeting facilitators will guide your leaders through sticky business challenges and decisions so the team uses the brain trust to its highest ability. Your team will be developing solutions and/or making tough decisions collectively and easily!.
Problem Solving
We will facilitate your team's problem-solving, idea generation, and decision making meetings. The facilitator ensures that everyone contributes and collaborates. Meetings are always highly productive. Your team will collectively define the problem through a process we refer to as "focusing." Your team will then go through different activities that will take you out of your normal way of thinking (commonly referred to as "out of the box") where your team will generate loads of solutions. Your team will then decide on the best solution (s).
We use a variety of approaches to guide you to solve problems including CPS, SPRINT, Kepner-Tregoe and our own Aha! Problem Solving Process.
Decision Making
We will facilitate your group through several processes both intuitive and rational (right-brained and left-brained) to create a collective decision that all your team members will fully support.
Duration: 2 hours to 5 days
Purpose: Ensure a highly productive and successful problem solving or decision making meeting by increasing collaborative action, synergy and buy-in
What: Tap group wisdom by using processes and group tools that stimulate the imagination and establishes grounded ideas and solutions.
How: Using the process tools to find viable and effective solutions and decisions. Everyone contributes making this meeting highly successful.
Where: Off-site, On-site and Remote
We will guide your group to establish the appropriate strategic message for your product or service. Everyone contributes and collaborates. And we are able to extract the wisdom of the group. Meetings are always highly productive.
Outline of a Typical Workshop
Establish Corporate Profile: We will collectively determine the essence of your corporation or division. What makes your business unique and appealing?
Establish Customer Profile: We will answer these questions: Who is the customer that you want to attract and what are their characteristics? How do they think? What are their needs and desires? What would get them to be interested in what you have to offer?
Establish Unified Product or Service Profile: We will, collaboratively, lead your group to determine what makes your product or service so special enabling everyone to be on the same page.
Determine Media Profile: We will establish what medium is the best vehicle for your message given the product/service and the target market. Create a unified message: We will, collaboratively, lead your group to determine the most effective key message you desire for your product or service.
You and your team will receive a report that contains all of the output from the meeting.
Duration: 4 hours to 1 day
Purpose: Establish the strategic direction for your organization's key messages that will have the greatest impact. Determine the strategic message for your product or service.
How: Access the power of the group and partnerships. Work together to achieve consensus on important factors by creating an atmosphere where everyone contributes and is heard.
Where: Off-site, On-site and Remote
For summarizing meeting results for whole brain learning and retention
In the same room to ensure anonymity and efficiency. Great for large group of 100 or more.
...for determining priorities, desires & ideas from customers. This is a type of enlivened market research
Productive conversation where great idea flourish based on the desires of the participants
to Express and to Summarize. Use arts and crafts to have meeting participants express their perspectives and ideas, and/or summarize key points. Our gifted and professional artist Liz Grebler has 30 years of teaching art to adults and children, will lead you through an easy, fun and expressive process.
Provides Productive Meeting Process and Organization
Your meeting will be well organized to ensure a smooth flow and the best use of time
Coalesces the Team: Be on the Same Page
We use unifying group processes to foster team focus with greater energy and interest for the project at hand
Promotes Team Buy-in
We know know how to stimulate buy-in and team ownership to bring ideas to action
Maintains Interest & Enthusiasm
We evoke reenergizing interest and enthusiasm throughout the meeting
Frees the Whole Team
Supports all meeting attendees, including the leader, as contributing participants
Gives you Neutral Meeting Leadership
Equalizes the interactive playing field for maximum participation. Good for leaderless groups too!
Increased Quality
Raises and maintains the standard for quality solutions, ideas and decisions
Our meeting facilitators will expertly guide your executives, managers, department or project team towards generating great ideas & making the best decisions while building your team. Below are the key areas we facilitate...
We are a meeting facilitation, team building and training group specializing in innovation, improving and developing team collaboration and customer service.
San Francisco Bay Area
Phone: 1.415.479.2028
Email: bruce@IdeaGuides.com
IdeaGuides.com
