Session design for a 2-day peer-to-peer learning retreat

This is the session design mentioned in ‘A space to discover & learn from one another’.

We kicked off the 2-day retreat by inviting participants to connect among each other and to the seminar’s theme Digital Communications for Theatres using Impromptu Networking. 
Several rounds of short conversations in pairs initiated participation immediately for everyone and attracted deeper engagement around the challenges of digital communications.
Chances are, individual stories deepened while they were repeated from round to round.

In just 20 minutes, we tapped a deep well of curiosity and talent and helped the group to focus the attention on the problems they want to solve. A productive pattern of engagement was established!

Now the group was ready for deeper conversations.
Using Appreciative Interviews we shared success stories and collected the conditions that make them possible. Stories from the field offered social proof of local solutions, promising prototypes, and spread innovations while providing data for recognizing success patterns. 
In roughly one hour we uncovered an inventory of promising communications practices and identified several patterns that apply to successful communications for theatres across the board.

Not only catered this structure for these visible outcomes but also it helped to build the group’s confidence in their own expertise and their creative potential to promote European theatre.

By then we had reached the level of trust among the group to address individual challenges. In quick round-robin “consultations,” of Troika Consulting, each participant asked for help and got advice immediately from two others. 

This format for peer-to-peer coaching is a simple and effective way to extend coaching support for individuals beyond formal reporting relationships - and especially powerful with this group as it showcased the benefit of the ETC network.

The second half of the first day was all about inspiration.

A seasoned expert in data driven marketing shared insights from campaigns that used audience data to promote theatre festivals, plays and programs.

We debriefed the input with several rounds of 1-2-4-all one of the most basic and versatile Liberating Structure. It helped us to include everyone in making sense of what we heard and tap the know-how and imagination of the group present.An open, generative conversation about ideas and solutions for data driven marketing within the ETC’s network unfolded.

One might think that our topic ‘GDPR’ for the morning of the second day was really dreadful.
But to the contrary:

A User Experience Fishbowl helped to continue the conversation on data driven marketing from the previous day and connected it with the group’s direct experience with the good, the bad and surprising of data protection law. In the debrief of the previous day, we recorded to ‚use GDPR regulations as an opportunity to explore the sources & use of data available‘ - in this format we learned how this might be done.

Fishbowl sessions have a small inside circle of people surrounded by a larger outside circle of participants. The inside group illuminates what they have done by sharing experiences while in conversation with each other. After some minutes of conversation, the outside group splits up into trios/quartets and exchanges on what they heard. The informality breaks down the barriers with direct communication between the two groups of people and facilitates questions and answers flowing back and forth. This creates the best conditions for people to learn from each other by discovering answers to their concerns themselves within the context of their working groups.

We ended the day crowdsourcing ideas for ETC on their key areas of interest: The international representation of regional theatres and the deepening of the connection and fostering of the opportunities among the members of their network.

25/10 Crowdsourcing helped us to generate and sift the most powerful actionable ideas in these areas in roughly one hour. The winning ideas were surprisingly obvious and the first steps to make them a reality weren’t that difficult to take. 

The seminar ended with the realisation of the potential of their network and ideas like this: 

Have one of our members be the „expert“ for one of our upcoming seminars‚

Extend the sharing among the members of our network - try out some of the things we did the last two days online/virtually 

Use this kind of learning in the framework of a larger gathering/conference of our members

For whom is this?

I recommend organisations keen to tap the full potential of their diverse membership, that exist to enable synergies and to empower its members towards joint action to embrace the peer-to-peer learning approach.

It’s particularly beneficial for associations or internal communities of practice within large organisations to design an event to launch, deepen and expand the collective power of their network.

Contact me to schedule an initial phone consult to explore what’s possible if you design an event to build connection, to enhance the relational coordination among those present.