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Global Flipchart #17

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December 2019

How can we make the IAF Philippines a brilliant success story?

John Green

In 2015, an opportunity came up for me to go travelling solo around the world. Check out my travel table! I decided to try and carry out a few facilitated workshops as I travelled. I had been a freelance facilitator for 20 years. This is the story of our work together in Manila.

What are the things we should think about and do to ensure that the IAF Philippines is a brilliant success over the next 5-10 years, with a special emphasis over the next 12 months?

The four members of the IAF leadership team were all professional IAF facilitators. They were keen to explore new techniques and they quickly arranged a suitable venue, and made themselves available for the day. The title and scope of the workshop was finalised with the attendees. It was then translated into Tagalog, with potential for wider audiences. After three years on the road, a possible IAF case study was emerging!

The methodology being used is Japanese in origin. The brainstorm onto post-its leads to clustering of ideas. Headers are then articulated to summarize these themes. For the Japanese, this approach was invented by an anthropologist called Kawakita Jiro, and is known in the literature as the K.J. Method. In other circles it is known as the Gestalt process from the Perls. The next step involves mapping the interconnections to make an Interrelationship Diagram. Only one way arrows are allowed, and there are rules to help the team think through their decisions. It is these arrows that enable the CLOCK and then the ROADMAP to be drawn. And it is these arrows that go “BEYOND POST-ITS” to synthesize these systemic constructs.

Here we have the 22 Affinity Headers that make sense of the agenda. But they are all interconnected, and this process will reveal all bout their priority and precedence.  And they could be translated into Tagalog.

Several flipcharts are fastened together to make a chart that goes from the ceiling to the floor. Gentle discussion leads to agreement on which way the arrow goes. Everything is made to connect with all the other headings.

Coloured arrows can help with the complexity. As long as the team strives to tell the truth about each arrow, The process will look after the result.The ratio of in / out arrows determines the position of each header.

After doing two or three headings around the “clock”, the post-its can be lifted off and placed in position on the  “roadmap”. This helps to motivate the attendees, because they start to see their unique strategy map form before their very eyes. The process is gentle, and allows plenty of time for discussions where needed. With the calibre of people in this room, they can confidently complete the whole process in ONE DAY. Interpreting and actioning the whole strategy can take several years.

When the roadmap is completed, as in the photo below with red post-its, it is nice to show people a completed roadmap. This is where all the arrows from the clock, are transferred onto the roadmap. So the complete map here, is the blue one on the floor. This comes from Manchester UK, and it has been travelling with me for 3 years so far, so like me it is a bit battered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a model that I invented in 1999, For a client. It is a combination of - Michael Fullan’s change model, Deming / Shewhart cycle, and Kolb’s learning cycle. You can detect the DOUBLE DIAMOND.

 

 

They were asked to discuss and nominate which topic (header)  that they might lead on, either solo or in a small team. The fact that they were able to take ownership in this way, was very impressive.