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Driving to the coast with my children, I played
over in my mind thoughts about a course
design.
Arriving on a cold but sunny beach I found
myself pointing at the sky, using the fluffy
cumulus clouds as virtual “Post It” notes to
construct my course. With startling clarity I
"saw" the course; "The Flexible Thinking
method here, creative styles there, Solution
Focus at that end...," I mumbled.
Onlookers would have seen a lunatic waving his
arms at the sky but my children provided the
perfect excuse for lunacy. My impromptu "cloud
mapping" worked well, it allowed me to get a
sense of how the course would fit together and
I was able to design it quite quickly.
Now let’s track forward in time to a recent
meeting with a client. A programme director,
he had taken on the challenge of turning
around a failing, multi-million pound,
transformational change programme.
CLOUD MAPPING SITE ~ EXMOOR
Project managers were developing new plans
for ten different areas of the project and he
needed to be assured that the plans would
integrate. In addition, he wanted to ensure that
the plans were robust, took into account key
dependencies and that the plan owners’
colleagues would endorse them.
On the team, many people were new and those
with a longer history were low in energy from
fighting fires. Some team building would be
beneficial. We agreed a two day workshop to
tackle the situation. The challenge was how to
design it for maximum success.
Workshop Outcomes
We agreed the following:
Mapping
The Way
Do you and your colleagues have to prepare and share plans for business or
major projects?
Would an approach to present and share separate plans in an integrated way be
of help? One which helps people develop and understand the overall picture in
an interesting and participative way?
Read on….
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Workshop Design Challenges
CHALLENGE ONE – NEED TO BUILD TEAM
Though it was not an outcome, it was
important to build the team to ensure a
successful planning review. Consequently, the
client agreed to dedicate three hours to run a
Solutions Focus workshop.1 The focus was on
how the team would be working when the
project was on track and achieving milestones.
BUILDING THE TEAM – RICH PICTURE
1 [Please see our previous article on Solutions Focus or
request it from [email protected] ].
CHALLENGE TWO – HOW TO ACHIEVE
OUTCOMES
A common way to share plans is to have people
present them and others feedback but I
envisaged that people would be dozing in the
first presentation and comatose by the tenth.
We needed something participative and
collaborative so stealing a trick from my beach
exercise I decided to use mapping.
Mapping is a technique I use often. For this
workshop I decided it would be a collaborative
and enjoyable exercise to have the teams
create individual maps of the plans and then
pool their knowledge by building these in to a
giant integrated map. I used the type of
mapping that Buzan calls “Mind Mapping”.
For an explanation of Mind Mapping please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
CHALLENGE THREE – HOW TO ENSURE
CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK
As the project had a history of issues, we
needed to ensure that participants would
review each plan in a considered and
constructive way. To this end, we used a
variation on De Bono’s Six Hats (please see
Page 4).
For an explanation of Six Hats please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats
Running the Workshop
The group of fourteen convened at a hotel near
St Paul’s in London. The room was not ideal,
having no natural light or fresh air but the
group was keen and open-minded about the
workshop.
WORKSHOP OUTCOMES The Group will have:
Developed a high level integrated plan
to implement the System that identifies
why this plan is different to previous
plans
Provided recommendations to
individuals so that they may adjust their
detailed plans
A sound awareness of each plan
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DAWN ST PAUL’S, LONDON
PREPARING FOR MAPPING
You may ask, why map? Why not just list the
plans on a sheet? Our experience shows that
creating maps enables people to think more
broadly, helps visualise relationships between
different aspects of a topic and is more
interesting than compiling lists.
To form the integrated plan, the group had to
draw their individual maps on a flipchart. As it
is crucial that the integrated map fits together,
I prepared a map framework on the wall before
the workshop.
PARTIAL FRAMEWORK
This framework consisted of two sheets of
flipchart paper on the wall and ten further
sheets of paper around them.
Next, I drew a central image and name for the
map on the first two sheets and plotted broad
lines from this to each of the ten sheets.
Try and make the map attractive with colour,
shading and thicker lines. The teams use these
“marker lines” as the point from which to start
their map. This framework also provides a good
illustration of what the final map will look like.
PREPARING THE TEAM
We warmed up with a “focus” session of
around thirty minutes’ duration. This enabled
the group to relax, review the purpose, clarify
objectives, see the workshop outline and set
the rules for the two days. Through this
exercise and the Solutions Focus session, the
group generated a great deal of energy to carry
forward.
RELAXING START
REVIEWING AND MAPPING PLANS
We arranged the review and mapping into
three sessions. In each session, the group split
into teams, each team reviewed a plan from
different perspectives, provided constructive
feedback to the owners and mapped the plan.
Use 3” x 5” Post It notes to work out the right
configuration of the paper
It’s quicker to use large flipchart markers for this
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In the first session I explained the end goal of
an integrated map to the group, using the map
framework to illustrate this.
Next, I briefed the group on their review
actions. I gave them a question template (see
box) and explained that they should:
1. Review the documented plan (verbal report
and / or reading)
2. Complete question templates
3. Feedback to plan owner
4. Prepare two flipcharts and record on
flipchart 1:
A brief summary of the plan
Benefits of the plan
Why this plan is different to previous plans
On flipchart 2 record:
The issues the project team must manage
to ensure the plan works
Further data / information that is needed to
ensure the plan can be completed
On whom or what is the plan dependent
Ideas to overcome issues
REVIEWING THE PLANS
The group split into four teams to review one
plan each and had 90 minutes to achieve this.
EXAMPLE REVIEW OUTPUT
Ensure that you record the brief on flipcharts or
on briefing sheets so that people can review
them when needed. Chaos can ensue if you
don’t
To ensure uniformity and ease of sharing
information, you should have a standard format
for the plans people bring. Brief the plan owners
on the format in plenty of time to allow them to
prepare it. It could be PowerPoint or Word
format
QUESTION TEMPLATE ~ EVALUATING THE PLANS
1. What benefits does this plan provide
over what has been done before? To
whom?
2. What makes this plan different to what
has been done before? Why will it work
now?
3. What issues must we manage if we are
to implement the plan successfully?
4. What additional data does the plan need
to ensure we can implement it
successfully?
5. Who or what is this plan dependent on?
How feasible is this?
6. What ideas do you have to overcome
the issues you have noted at “3 - 5”?
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MAPPING THE PLANS
Following the review, I briefed the teams on
preparing the maps and how they should
format them. Each map had the name of the
plan in a “cloud” at the point where the map
started, to make it easily identifiable.
Be prepared, they won’t all follow the format
suggested, but the starting point (the “cloud”)
is crucial. They had thirty minutes for this
exercise.
EXAMPLE MAP
Whilst the teams completed their maps, they
discussed the plan in greater depth and further
enriched their understanding of it.
It is essential that people record plan
information on each map at a high level,
identifying only the key aspects of the plan.
This enables the group to absorb information
and compare information across ten maps. Too
much detail makes it too complex.
See the example map for an illustration of this
point.
GROUP FEEDBACK ON PLANS AND MAPS
Each team placed their individual map on the
integrated map framework and presented it to
the group along with the review flipcharts.
They had five minutes to feed back and then
ten minutes to discuss the plan with the group.
Allow an hour to feedback three plans.
Each plan owner was able to see where others
were dependent on them, common issues and
ideas to overcome them. They also received
useful feedback from others in the group.
Plan owners took away their feedback flipcharts
to help them revise their plans.
CONTINUING THE WORKSHOP
As the group added more maps to the
framework, they began to see the overall
picture of the integrated plan.
The rest of the workshop consisted of
reviewing the final six plans in two sessions. As
people became more confident with the
process, they speeded up and we achieved the
review, mapping and discussion in 2.5 hours.
As the final map was integrated, there was a
sense of accomplishment and great energy in
the room.
For the first session, we split the review and
mapping stages to avoid overloading the
participants at the briefing stage. Once they had
carried out one review and prepared one map,
we combined the review and mapping of each
for the next two sessions
Ideally, everyone would be experienced in this
type of mapping but this is unlikely so a few tips
on map preparation are helpful. Send an e-mail
to [email protected] if you would like some tips
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FINAL MAP
CAPTURING THE DATA
When the integrated map is complete, take
digital pictures of each map and use mapping
software (I use Mind Manager Software2) to
make a hard copy map that you can share with
the project team.
Conclusion
Group Mapping is a very useful tool you can
use to share information, prompt discussion
and increase understanding.
It encourages participation, engages people
and can be done in a relatively short time. As
seen in our examples, people can use words,
figures and pictures to express their message
and the map provides a basis for rich group
discussion.
As one delegate said in feedback:
“The enthusiasm of delegates and the output of
a two day workshop impressed me.”
With the information you have here, time and
some facilitation skill, you can conduct a Group
Mapping session yourself.
Try it!
John Brooker Innovation Director. Yes! And…
2 Available at www.mindjet.com
CONTACT:
Write: [email protected]
Speak: 020 8869 9990
See: www.yesand.biz
MAPPING OUR BRANDS
Another client, a chemical company, asked Yes!
And… to facilitate a workshop for the marketing
team. They have grown through European
acquisition and have inherited a number of
different brands. They needed a workshop to
discuss a new brand strategy.
To educate everyone on the similarities and
dissimilarities of the brands, as well as
understand the pros and cons, they planned to
have presentations on the branding in each
country.
As the time available was very short and the
presentations would be after lunch (ideal for
napping), I suggested mapping the brands.
We asked the country managers to bring along
some slides, adverts and / or marketing materials
with pictures of the brands and an assessment of
the pros and cons.
We built a framework as before, except we gave
each country team two sheets to map on. The
teams developed their maps using the pictures
and we built a brand map of Europe.
Each team then made a brief presentation on
their map.
The exercise was very valuable in highlighting
the disparity in the branding across countries and
in building the knowledge of the teams, providing
core information for later discussions.
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About the Author
John Brooker started his career in the RAF and went on to become
a Senior Vice President with Visa International. He now does what
he loves; running his own company Yes! And…
The company mission is to create successful organisations by
facilitating flexible thinking.
John and his colleagues help teams to think more flexibly by
facilitating workshops, developing skills and advising management.
His particular interest is innovation.
John is a Solutions Focus Professional, a Kaizen Training Black Belt Facilitator and a NLP
Business Practitioner. He also has an MBA from the Open University and tutors on the OU
“Creativity, Innovation and Change” MBA Course.
His regular clients include major organisations such as Visa International and EADS as well as
Government departments.
As well as the UK, John frequently works internationally in Europe, Sub Saharan Africa and
the Middle East. He writes the “Creative Gorilla” articles on creative leadership and flexible
thinking, distributing it internationally twice a month. To sign up, send an e-mail with
“Subscribe” in the subject line and your first and surname.
DON’T HAVE TIME TO DESIGN AND FACILITATE?
Do you want to share plans or other information across your organisation? If you have the
time, you can use this article to design and run a workshop to help you do that, but if you
are short of time or prefer to be part of the workshop, you might like to talk to us.
In Yes! And… we are experienced in using Group Mapping and other approaches for
workshops and have many satisfied clients. We also train people in Mapping.
To discuss how you can use Group Mapping to develop integrated plans, share
information and motivate your team, please contact John Brooker:
Write: [email protected] Speak: 020 8869 9990 See: www.yesand.biz
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PASS THIS ARTICLE ON TO A COLLEAGUE WHO MAY APPRECIATE IT.