Week 1: Facilitate the Start-up Workshop + prepare to support the Team Leader
Week 1
Facilitate the Start-up Workshop
This week, you will help a group of committed individuals during the Start-up Workshop to become a Team with a goal, a plan, and an agreement for how they will work together. Take a deep breath.
Your Mission This Week
The Start-up Workshop
Shortly after the Workshop, with it still fresh in your mind, make a few notes to yourself on the things that surprised you or stood out for you during the event. This will help you sharpen your facilitation skills and your preparations for the next workshop (The Refresh Workshop, at the start of Week 3). Here are some reflection questions to help you:
- What parts of the workshop, if any, took you by surprise and ‘threw you off your game’, despite all the preparation work that you did?
- What do you wish you had done before the workshop that would have made it go more smoothly for you and the team?
- During which part of the workshop did you have the most fun, and why do you think that was the case?
Meet with the Team leader
It is good to strike the iron while it is hot and to set up a time to meet with the Team Leader right after the Start-up Workshop – and before the first team meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to:
- Establish a clear working relationship with the Team Leader, ensuring they understand their role and the support they will require from you and others.
- Go through the agenda of the first team meeting, and decide on what pre-work team members might need to do before that.
- Help the Team Leader finalise the agenda and ensure it is sent out to the team before the meeting.
Conduct the First Team Meeting
The Team will be eager to wrap up loose ends from the Start-up Workshop, and to begin implementing their 30-Day Plan. If the Start-up Workshop takes places early in the week, the first team meeting may be scheduled for the end of the first week. Prepare for this by reviewing the Learning Deep Dive on the First Team Meeting that was shared last week. We will include it here for easy reference.
Preparing for the First Team Meeing
Preparing for Next Week (Week 2)
The coming week – week 2 of the 30-Day Project – the Team will be busy implementing its plan. You will be working closely with the Team Leader to make sure the Team remains focused on its 30-Day Goal. As part of this, they may need to grapple with data and measurement issues: What is the baseline? How do we measure progress towards the goal every day or every few days, rather than at the end of the 30 day? Please review the Learning Deep Dive below to prepare yourself for supporting the Team Leader and the Team next week.
Tracking Progress – Data issues
Since you may need to help the team find creative and fun ways to collect data from staff, we included a Learning Deep Dive on Using Mentimeter. This is a simple and fun tool to collect dats without creating surveys and firms. It does require the use of smart phones.
Next week will also be a good opportunity to engage the Project Sponsor. The Sponsor is your insurance policy. If things go wrong and the Team Leader is in denial or is simply not paying attention, the Sponsor can help you get things back on track. So it is important to have the Sponsor be updated so she remains interested and engaged, in case her support is needed.
You can invite the Team Leader to join you in a meeting with the Project Sponsor next week to update her and agree on how best to communicate with her during the 30 days. As a Team Coach, you also need to develop a coaching relationship with the Project Sponsor. Please review the Learning Deep Dive below to gain some insights on this.
Using Mentimeter
Coaching Project Sponsor
