Workshop activities to Analyse, Understand and Innovate

You can help a large group of people identify obstacles and opportunities for spreading ideas or innovations at many levels. Panarchy enables people to visualize how systems are embedded in systems and helps them understand how these interdependencies influence the spread of change. Participants become more alert to small changes that can help spread ideas up to other system levels; they learn how shifts at larger or lower system levels may release resources to assist them at another level. With better appreciation of the Ecocycle dynamics at play, the group creates “opportunity windows” for innovations to spread among levels and across boundaries.

This is a structured discussion activity for exploring a topic by answering questions in three different set-ups: individually, in pairs and in teams. 

The closing evaluation of a program.

Help a group to time-travel and tap their imagination by fictional objects.
With tangible objects and the stories your participants make up w/ them you'll get so much richer inputs and context to inform joint visioning / strategizing:
The future doesn't look that far away when you can pick it off the shelf.

This is an exercise to use when the group gets stuck in details and struggles to see the big picture. Also good for defining a vision.

Open Space is a methodology for large groups to create their agenda discerning important topics for discussion, suitable for conferences, community gatherings and whole system facilitation

3D Modelling is a physical process. Participants create a sculpture that represents their current situation and the emerging possibilities of their work and life.

The process prompts questions from four vantage points, allowing for 360-degree seeing and sensing of an emerging future. The power of the practice lies in participants relying on their hands, rather than on habitual ways of thinking, to discover new insights.

Stakeholder Interviews are conducted by practitioners with key stakeholders in their ecosystem, such as decision makers, team members, peers, or customers both within and outside an organization. The interviews allow you to step into the shoes of the interviewees and see their role through their eyes.

This is a practical, dynamic and versatile method for groups to explore ideas and questions together. Something like a physical questionnaire; participants respond to questions by walking around the space and placing themselves on an imaginary line. This provides a starting point for reflection and discussion and brings teams together.

Using the Social Process Triangles created by the Institute of Cultural Affairs to identify a broad range of issues faced by a community, followed by the Consensus Workshop Method to see larger patterns of issues.

Evaluate the factors that will either support or hinder a change in an organisation or entity. 

To explore how it feels to be excluded—and to be excluding.