Shalaka's session 20 May 2024 , using participatory stragetic planning method . Much to explore

By Shalaka Gundi .  

Recently, I got the opportunity to facilitate an Annual Strategic Planning workshop for a group of 40 Development and QA professionals from an IT Product Company in Pune. In this 2-day workshop, I based the flow of sessions on ICAs Participatory Strategic Planning, but adapted some parts of it and used other processes as I found this approach to be useful to reach the purpose – ‘To co-create an annual strategic plan for the members of the Development and QA teams that will guide them to be more innovative and efficient’.

All the stages of PSP were followed. Current reality was captured using the SWOT analysis, Practical Vision was crafted using visualization and Consensus Workshop Method, Challenges were identified using Force-field analysis, brainstorming for Strategic Directions was done using individual and group discussion followed by World café. Implementation Plan was worked upon in homogeneous groups.
To get them into the mindset of innovation and possibilities, the group went through a creativity exercise – ‘The Force-fit’, which was brought in a lot of energy, creativity and fun!

Every day, the group went through ice-melters and energizers that helped to build rapport, trust and brought humor to the experience. They also reflected and debriefed after every process as well as at the end of the day to process their experience and make sense of it individually and in small groups.
All in all, a satisfying workshop which achieved most of the desired outcomes, with some unintended outcomes like – greater team rapport, creativity, humor etc…. Some statements that participants made – “It is fun to work in groups and we get a lot done!”, “We should definitely come to office 2-3 times a week so that we can meet each other”, “We didn’t realize that we did so much work, it was quite smooth and seamless”.

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