
Earlier this month, we once again had the pleasure of collaborating with our long-term client London CLC. This time around, they’d asked us to help them with a retrospective of last academic year.
For some reason, during the planning process, Bryan and I kept coming up with seaside themes. So we decided to run with it! We used Hokusai’s iconic image The Great Wave off Kanagawa to chart highs and lows over the last 12–18 months, as well as the starfish model to figure out the kinds of things that London CLC colleagues want to focus on going forward.
The most powerful activity, however, was also possibly the simplest. We’d asked London CLC to identify all of the work they’d done over last academic year and where it had come from. During the session, we introduced the three buckets of ‘fun’, ‘fame’ and ‘fortune’ and co-defined what we meant by each of them.
One of the things it’s important to do as a facilitator is not be too rigid in implementing what you’ve previously planned. For example, with this activity, it quickly became clear that, because London CLC is such a values-based organisation, we were going to need a fourth bucket. It seemed a shame not to continue the naming trend, so we labelled this one ‘Fundamentals’.
Armed with a spreadsheet and four metaphorical buckets, the team split into two, They then discussed which of the buckets they’d place their prior work into. Sometimes this necessitated the use of two or three buckets. One project they worked on went into all four!
Like all consultants, we’ve on occasion come up with very complicated and involved activities. What we’ve learned, however, is that simple activities that speak directly to what clients are trying to achieve, work best. Bonus points if you can make them fun.
We got some great feedback from the team at London CLC, who said that even colleagues who don’t tend to like collaborative activities really got stuck into this one.
Why not try it with your team?

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