6 planning asks about sustainable solutions in an uncertain world

I had the pleasure this week of working on strategy development with around 40 stakeholders in the culture sector. The topic was organizational and people development and the delivery organization was CCCO, better know as www.workinculture.com

The two separate stakeholder groups (arts businesses, government, educators, cultural associations, etc.) followed this approach:

1. What are we most pleased so far about CCCO’s work?
2. What are the barriers to future success in the sector? (second group)
3. What is the culture sector doing well?
4. Suppose it’s 2013 and the sector is making progress with organizational and people development, what will be happening? (from 4 different stakeholder perspectives)
5. Suppose it’s 2013 and CCCO is helping make progress with organizational and people development, what will be happening? (from 4 different stakeholder perspectives)
6. Suppose the stakeholders were to state the (outcome) benefit to them, how would they describe it?

- Was this the most rigorous exploration of CCCO’s situation and desired future state? No.

- Was the diversity of about 40 different perspectives on what might be desirable and possible in the future useful input to the impending plan? Yes.

- Was it useful for the stakeholders to hear each other’s voice (and network at the break)? Yes.

- Would more rigour with data, customer research, etc., make it even better? Yes. That’s the next stage.

Learn more about this approach