A Q1 Challenge
Are you entering 2020 with a not-so-clear view of what’s going to happen? Do not fear, now’s the time to make the first quarter of the decade clear and actionable!
Plans are nothing, planning is everything. Michael Porters words will echo in eternity as a reason both for making rigorous plans as well as for making very brief ones.
Whether or not you lean towards multiple short execution cycles or if you prefer a large plan to follow-through — making tangible plans for an entire business is a hefty task. Especially if you want to move beyond a single division or discipline.
I’ve found working with management teams and boards as well as with cross functional project teams, picturing the road ahead as one with everyone taking part it particularly difficult. Either you tend to align on a very high level plan — safe land — or you move into scrutiny triangle to be lost forever.
Details need to be covered, especially as you move further into planning, but agreeing on the overall picture and negotiating direction needs to happen first.
So how do you do this?
I previously wrote about the Year walk reflection exercise (check it out here) as a way to bring past events to surface. The very same routine (with some minor tweaks) works great for forming a view and negotiating the future too. The key is again to make sure that you build a very visual timeline negotiated and painted by the team — not by an appointed leader.
So, first of all, get a large scroll of paper to allow a timeline measuring at least 50 x 200cm. As a facilitator you can choose to establish the actual timeline — I.e. marking months or at least start and end dates of the timeline.
The trick now is to set the scene. Start by allowing each team member to check in. (To learn more about team check-ins, please visit Hyper Island’s toolbox here: https://toolbox.hyperisland.com/check-in-check-out )
Preferably set a topic for the check in that helps the team to get their minds in the right place. I like to combine a sense of “here and now” with some degree of forward leaning. I.e. “what do you expect to walk away with today” combined with “what do you look forward to the most in Q1”. You get the point.
Once the team is checked in, you need to make sure the team is able to stay away from letting fears or worries come in the way of dreaming, scheming and eventually achieving greatness.
The wall of fears exercise
The best way to rid yourself from such distractions is to capture worries or elephants in the room and bring them to surface right there and then. Only then they can be dealt with.
Simply ask “What are your biggest fears for Q1?” — ask the team to write this down on post is during a minute or so.
Then each member presents their post-its and put them up on a designated wall of fears. There should be no questioning or negotiation about ones fears at this point. Everyone is entitled to their emotions. Once all post it’s are up, you check in with the team to see if anything should be added. Now for each of these you do a short discussion on possible mitigation, potential consequences and how to monitor. Note this down.
Once done, you should be able to move ahead with the future planning, without the burden of fear on your shoulders.
Drawing your quarter
Equipped with their felt markers, the team can move on to the paper scroll.
While the overarching task for you and the team is to answer the question “what’s going on in Q1?” you need to be ready to break this down into smaller questions. “Are there any particular deals on the radar?” “Is there really nothing. happening in March?” etc. simply ask questions and continue to provoke.
Allow this exercise to go on until the team is “done” — then ask everyone stand back and observe for half a minute or so.
Then let any member walk the team through the timeline making sure everyone understands everything on it.
Time to reflect
Reflection is where learnings hide. Reflecting. together allows for the team to more easily envision how to jointly achieve what lies ahead.
Check the temperature in the team — ask how they feel about what they see? What emotions can be captured there and then?
Any new worries that have arisen that need to go in the wall of fears? If you are the leader, don’t fall into temptation and start comforting and shift focus to opportunity too soon. Instead let the team, including yourself, stay in that vulnerable stay together for a second. I often find the sharing of worries and cares itself to be enough to allow people to lift themselves beyond worry. Again this will make the team find their own path to optimism.
Conclude with one last ask to the team, to make sure to end on a positive and energizing note. Ask them to light two candles and place the first by the item they feel is most significant to them and the second by the one the look forward the most to — unless they are the same.
Just as in the yearwalk exercise, you want the team to do this one by one and let each. individual share a few words on why they put the candles where they did.
This ending often serves a great setting for rounding off the exercise.
Closing the exercise
Now the sheet is full, the wall of fears feels safe and somewhat under control and the team is exhausted. Only thing left before checking out is to secure that actions and outcomes are properly transferred to your normal workflow.
Sit down in a circle. The first thing is to actually agree upon are next steps are. Often it involves setting up detailed planning for some of the events that came up on the timeline. Almost every time actions arise around the wall of fears. One thing to remember is to document the timeline itself — preferably by taking a panorama picture. It’s easy to forget once you get your head into detailed actions.
Once done, negotiate who owns which action together in the team. Some will have obvious owners but some will require people stepping out of swim lanes, boxes or wherever they picture themselves belonging and move cross disciplines. Don’t fear to let unexpected people step forward and own actions normally out of their comfort zone — you’ll might even be surprised with what happens (in a good way).
Actions should be agreed here and now. Avoid, however, to make the very last part of this exercise takes too long. Once you feel happy with the backlog of actions and owners, either prioritize or move straight on to checking out.
Check out, sitting in the same circle, focus on capturing learnings and expectations. Ask a question like “how do you feel right now and what do you bring with you from today”.
Make sure everyone is checked out and then brush your shoulders off, you’ve just done a nice and inclusive Q1 planning!
Preparations and material
- A large paper scroll, 0.5x2M minimum, preferably longer.
- A Felt marker for each member (like whiteboard pens), preferably different colors to add some spice to your timeline.
- Suitable candles — tea light style
As a preparation task, Ask each member to do two things:
A) Make a brief list of things happening in Q1. This is merely to warm up their minds preparing for the exercise. This should not be brought to the actually workshop. Instead You want the workshop to be informed, but not a simple show and tell.
B) write an imaginary text message to themselves, sent at the end of Q1 by their future selves. The topic for that text should be “what I did to Make this quarter so great”
Comment: This last preparation task is a spin-off I made from Benjamin Zanders fantastic ‘Giving an A’ method — check it out here https://youtu.be/M1ANV5BQnJA it’s five minutes well spent of you are looking to motivate people.
Now try this out and make this yours.
