Deciding on focus area(s)

Deciding on focus area(s)

Deciding on focus area(s) for 100-Day Challenge

Why do this?

  • Decide on the focus area.
  • Practice inclusive decision making.
  • Provide guidance to the team.
  • Ensure there is support from leaders for the team by having them all participate in the strategic decision on focus area(s).
60 min

Facilitation steps

  1. Review the menu of focus areas and the learning agenda you shared and refined in the Reflection on interviews element.
  1. Suggest criteria for prioritising focus areas of 100-Day Challenges:
    • How critical is this for our overall strategic priorities?
    • To what extent can we see real and significant progress on this in 100 days?
    • To what extent will making progress on this require intense collaboration and rapid innovation?
    • To what extent will working on this focus area generate insights about the learning agenda?
    • How broad is leadership interest and support for this?

Use the funnel to help leaders move from the overall strategy to a specific focus area and to emphasise that it is the team’s role to select the 100-day goal within the focus area, at the Lift-off Workshop.  

  1. Open the floor for advocacy – who would like to advocate for one or two of these, based on the above criteria?
  1. Ask leaders to individually rank the order of the focus areas, based on these criteria and then share their rankings.  The criteria should be used in aggregate, not one criterion at a time.
  1. Facilitate a convergence discussion. This can be done through alternating open conversations and order ranking or voting, eliminating some options after each round.

What if’s

Thought starter reflection questions

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:
  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
  • How would you characterise the level of trust among participants in the meeting? To what extent did this shift as the meeting progressed? To what do you attribute this shift, if indeed it happened?

Thought starter...

Reflection Questions 

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:

  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
These are 100-Day Challenge Mentors. 

They did some work before you received the Challenge Note. This included:

  • Writing the Challenge Note, and making sure that the leaders of all the organisations represented on the team are comfortable with it – and committed to supporting the work of the team
  • Helping the leaders of these organisation recruit you and your colleagues to the team
  • Gathering some baseline data and other information that will help you and your teammates set your 100-Day goal and develop your plan.
  • Making sure all the preparations are made for a successful Lift-Off workshop, when you and your teammates will meet and get your 100-Day Challenge started. This includes venue, facilitation support, food, swags, comms, travel arrangements and whatever else is needed.

 

Mentors will participate in all or part of the Lift-Off Workshop, mostly at the start to provide context and answer questions, and at the end to give you and your teammates feedback about the goal and plan you develop.

During the 100 days following the Lift-Off Workshop, here’s what the Mentors will do:  

  • They will check in every two weeks with the team leaders to see how the team is doing and what support they and the team need.
  • They will keep other organisational leaders informed and engaged during the 100 days, and pull them in to help as needed.
  • They will participate in the last part of the Refuelling Workshop, halfway through the 100 days, to see what additional support the team needs, and to begin to plan with the team for sustainability and scale-up.
  • They will work with the team at the Sustainability Workshop to finalise recommendations on sustaining the results and building on the work of the team.