Their challenge was to update the existing operating guidelines and principles of partnership between the global organisation and chapters, and to build stronger partnership and ownership of the framework with the most influential chapters.

Project flow

1. Designed and facilitated a two-day workshop with global chapter leaders focused on creating a safe space where people could freely express themselves and collecting feedback on work done so far.
2. Facilitated the WHY? discovery to ground the partnership in benevolence
3. To open minds for divergent thinking, presented the innovation model and instilled the concept of experimentation and prototyping.
4. Led small core team to create the first prototype.
5. Presented the prototype to larger group and facilitated the discussion feedback.

In numbers this project was:

• 1 in-person, 2-day workshop in Vancouver, Canada
• 2 virtual, 2-hour workshops
• 3 homework assignments
• 1 brainstorm document with live discussion
• 2 rough prototype documents with live discussion
• 8 individual calls for feedback and discovery
• 1 in-person full day workshop in New York
• 1 refined prototype
• Presentation to group of 50 people

The Impact

1. We created the mindset shift that things don’t need to be “finished”, “perfect”, or “done” before they are shared.
2. We made the complex challenge easier to tackle.
3. We introduced the design thinking approach for re-framing the challenge from a human-centered perspective.
4. Team accepted the exploration, or divergent thinking, as the behaviour needed for problem-solving as opposed to the sole solution focused convergent thinking.
5. We developed a tool the team feels confident sharing and developing further.

Feedback

“Approach to the project created an equal playing field for participants and a safe space for each to use their imaginations and offer unique perspectives. No one person dominated via opinion or vision, so the output was a collective one. We have buy-in for an operating framework that meets the needs of all future users.”

” It’s an enjoyable process and definitely made me stop and focus on things I wouldn’t normally pay attention to, (ie: what is my best working group/team.)”