Currently viewing the tag: "Charrette"

In today’s business environment, management consulting firms must be ready to address client challenges and needs that will transform their charrette pic2business by 10 or 100 times.  Tools and methods must be scaled up to ensure applicability to the widest possible audience globally.

The Consulting Workshop Series provides a good understanding of the 10 Methods of conducting Workshops that are custom designed to fit specific workshop objectives.  Different methods are developed for the purpose of providing organizations the most appropriate tool necessary to support organizations to achieve their strategic goals and targets.

If it is the management’s goal to cultivate creativity and innovation with their organization, then the Charrette is the perfect method to undertake.

Understanding Charrette

Charrette is one method of conducting consulting workshops that can generate consensus among diverse groups of people and form an action plan. Charrette provides time for a deep intellectual exploration of matters significant to the success of the firm. Charrette allows people to work not only at their own pace but also on projects that matter most to them.

This is one method that can effectively assemble practical ideas and viewpoints at the beginning of a planning process. It encourages input and collaboration from a wide range of participants.  When the process is mature, it can facilitate decisions on difficult issues and resolve indecisions or deal with dead blocks between groups.

Charrette can effectively lead to developing feasible projects and action plans with specific practical steps. It can be applied to development, design, and planning projects and identify potential funding sources for projects.

The 3-Phase Approach to Charrette

Charrette must be done in phases with each phase directed towards attaining a specific objective.

 

Each phase is undertaken following a specific number of steps. These steps are necessary to achieve the specific objective of each phase and reach the ultimate goal of the entire workshop using Charrette as one of the methods in the Working Consulting Series.

A Purview on the Pre-Charrette Phase

 The Pre-Charrette Phase focuses on developing and working with a Steering Committee. A Steering Committee is vital as it serves as the coordinator of Chafrette activities. The committee will be the one to establish a timeline and meeting schedule, as well as a preliminary list of issues the Charrette will focus on.

Once a Steering Committee has been organized, the organization is now ready to take on the 5 specific steps underlying the Pre-Charrette Phase.

  1. Issue/Problem Identification
  2. Identify and invite Charrette participants (team)
  3. Develop community relations and public awareness
  4. Assemble support information
  5. Logistics

Before undertaking these 5 specific steps, there are preliminary preparations that must be undertaken. First, there is a need to hold an organizational meeting with the Steering Committee and the Charrette facilitator to set the goals and arrange a basic schedule. It is essential that the Steering Committee must hold a regular meeting to ensure that all necessary preparations are being made.

A well-executed Charrette will set the pace towards a fun and productive opportunity for the organization to build and visualize its future.

Interested in gaining more understanding of Charrette? You can learn more and download an editable PowerPoint about Consulting Workshop Series: Charrette here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

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Whether the focus is a strategy, operations, tax, finance, HR, or IT, management consulting firms have become a staple of corporate life. FromConsulting Workshop Series pic1 defining strategic directions to simply serving as an additional pair of hands for outsourced work, management consultants have become inextricably linked to the success of most large organizations.

However, festering underneath the myriad consulting offerings, methodologies, and tools, management consulting firms are exposed to vulnerabilities that are unraveling the consulting business model. It is the same kind of dramatic disruption that is affecting other companies and other industries.

An industry becomes susceptible to disruption when it becomes entrenched in its longstanding solutions and financial structures. Management consulting firms are not immune to the dynamics of disruption. In an industry where the basis of competition becomes efficiency versus innovation and new solutions, disruption is just around the horizon. While many consultants and consulting firms have established practices advising clients on strategies to leverage disruptive trends and technologies, only a few apply these to themselves.

In today’s business environment, management consulting firms must be ready to address client challenges and needs that will transform their business by 10 or 100 times. Tools and methods must be scaled up to ensure applicability to the widest possible audience globally.

The Consulting Workshop Series 101 provides a good understanding of the 10 methods of conducting Workshops that are custom designed to fit specific workshop objectives. Different methods are developed for the purpose of providing organizations the most appropriate tool necessary to support organizations to achieve their strategic goals and targets.

The Importance of Mastering Consulting Workshops

Consulting Workshops are tools used to maximize performance, align strategies, and actualize potentials of organizations. Management consulting firms leverage workshops as an effective way to rapidly reach decisions within client organizations.

Workshops usually last 1 to 5 days. They are typically used to gather stakeholders who normally don’t cross paths–e.g. stakeholders from different departments, different business units, and/or different regions. Within the workshop, the consulting firm plays the role of both facilitator and external subject matter expert.

The 10 Primary Workshop Methods

The 10 Primary Workshop Methods promote the conduct of a consulting workshop that is strategic and systematic to achieve its purpose and objectives.

  1. Charrette. The primary objective of Charrette is to generate consensus among diverse groups of people and form an action plan.
  1. Citizens Jury. The Citizens Jury method leads participants to come up with a decision that is representative of average citizens who has been well informed on the issue.
  1. Consensus Conference. Its primary objective is to come up with a consensus and a decision on a controversial topic.
  1. Delphi. Delphi is a method that exposes all opinions and options regarding a complex issue.
  1. Expert Panel. The Expert Panel synthesizes a variety of inputs on a specialized topic and produces recommendations.
  1. Focus Group. The primary aim of the Focus Group is to expose different group opinions on an issue and why these are held.
  1. PAME. PAME is Participatory Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation. PAME is basically used for evaluating and learning.
  1. Planning Cells. In Planning Cells, participants are made to learn about and choose between multiple options regarding an urgent and important action. In the end, an action plan is developed.
  1. Scenarios. Scenarios are used for planning and preparing for an uncertain future. This is basically vision-building.
  1. World Café. World Café is a consulting workshop method that is used for generating and sharing ideas.

Each method of conducting workshop differs in terms of objective, topics, participants, and time. Understanding the differences and purpose of the Consulting Workshop Series Methods will allow organizations to conduct the workshop with the greatest impact where one is desperately needed.

Interested in gaining more understanding of the 10 Primary Workshop Methods? You can learn more and download an editable PowerPoint about Consulting Workshop Series here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Are you a management consultant?

You can download this and hundreds of other consulting frameworks and consulting training guides from the FlevyPro library.