Working note 03 — Strategy
Design a strategic offsite from the ending backwards.
Before filling a day, describe what needs to be different when it ends. That intended change is your most useful design tool.
Start with the useful output
Shared understanding, three options to examine and decisions to make require different programmes. The intended output must be realistic given the information and collective time available.
Make the remit explicit
Is the group being consulted, developing options or authorised to decide? Who takes the work forward? The remit shapes questions and conclusions. Presenting a session as open when everything is already decided creates avoidable ambiguity.
Prepare the material, not every answer
A concise situation summary, constraints, differences of view and the sponsor's questions provide a basis. Preparation is not about writing the discussion's conclusion in advance.
Design a progression
A useful programme connects its sequences: make the situation legible, compare perspectives, develop options, examine criteria and agree what follows. Every phase has a role, including breaks and interim synthesis.
Plan a usable record
A collection of whiteboard photographs is not necessarily a synthesis. Define what needs to survive: decisions, their reasoning, open issues and responsibilities. The sponsor then knows what to carry forward after the offsite.
You bring
the question.
We give it form.
A question to clarify. A team to bring together. An idea to put to the test. Let’s start with a conversation.
Discuss your next workshop