Practical – Moving forward after the Design session

Practical – Moving forward after the Design session


Practical

You have left the participants some assignments at the end of the Workshop. There is a good chance they will need to be reminded of these, and they will need support on this.

First step is to send out a note to the participants, with a copy to other leaders who were invited but were not able to attend. The note will show your appreciation, codify the decisions they made about the focus area and the mentors, and clarify the next steps, including the assignments agreed on at the end of the session:

  • Preparing the Challenge Note 
  • Recruiting the Team
  • Preparing a background package for the team, including any information available on baseline data.

Click to see Challenge Note

Draft for Municipalities
Draft for Courts

Download is available in the Ambassador toolkit.

While the workshop is fresh in your mind, make a few notes to yourself on the things that surprised you or stood out for you during the event. We will ask you to share these with us and with other Ambassadors a week or so after the event. This will help us improve the Design Course for future Ambassadors.  

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session.  Here are a few thought-starter questions for your post-event reflections.  
 
Complete the Reflection assignment (under the Assignment folder) to keep notes of your throughs.

Thought-starter Questions

The Second Step is to set up a follow-up call with the mentors to help them with their assignments. This should happen within a few days of the Leadership Design Workshop. The agenda might include:

  • Debriefing from the Leadership Design Workshop.
  • Clarifying their role further. 
  • Going over a sample challenge note with them (Download a draft in the Ambassador toolkit).
  • Setting a tentative date for the Lift-Off Workshop.
 
  • Seeing what support they need from you on the tasks assigned to them. You might want to offer them one or more ways that you can help, including:
    • Drafting the Challenge Note (though it is best that they draft and you give them feedback)
    • Meeting with a data person to discuss what baseline information  would be helpful
  • Setting a check-in call with the mentors to update each other on the progress of preparations for the Lift-Off Workshop, and to deal with issues that might come up. 

In effect, you and the mentors have now become a small team whose mission is to prepare for a successful Lift-Off Workshop. 

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.