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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 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.
- Issue/Problem Identification
- Identify and invite Charrette participants (team)
- Develop community relations and public awareness
- Assemble support information
- 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. From
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.
- Charrette. The primary objective of Charrette is to generate consensus among diverse groups of people and form an action plan.
- 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.
- Consensus Conference. Its primary objective is to come up with a consensus and a decision on a controversial topic.
- Delphi. Delphi is a method that exposes all opinions and options regarding a complex issue.
- Expert Panel. The Expert Panel synthesizes a variety of inputs on a specialized topic and produces recommendations.
- Focus Group. The primary aim of the Focus Group is to expose different group opinions on an issue and why these are held.
- PAME. PAME is Participatory Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation. PAME is basically used for evaluating and learning.
- 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.
- Scenarios. Scenarios are used for planning and preparing for an uncertain future. This is basically vision-building.
- 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.
Dynamics of every workshop is unique – a unique set of techniques is needed for workshop leaders to achieve expected results.
Facilitation is going to be a key component of work in the future as employers and society face bigger and more complex problems and ideas. However, facilitation is never an easy task. It requires a certain level of facilitation skills which can be enhanced by mastering the use of Workshop Facilitation Techniques. Note that Workshop Facilitation requires different techniques and skills than normal (smaller) Meeting Facilitation.
Using a variety of techniques will help people engage fully in workshops and meetings. In organizations, workshops and meetings are normally undertaken to discuss and address problems and issues while, at the same time, intended to come up with the best ideas and solutions. This can only be achieved when we get to involve more people. But when people vary in things like how we take in information most easily, whether we prefer to speak in large groups or small ones, how much reflection time is needed to make up our minds, this calls for a range of different activities that will engage people to be active generators of ideas, information, and solutions.
The Dynamics of Workshop Facilitation Techniques
Workshop Facilitation Techniques are practical applications of the principles and concepts of group dynamics, behavioral psychology, and communication science essential to facilitate progress and success.
These are essential tools for workshop leaders to facilitate workshops such as Design Planning Sessions, Joint Requirements Planning Workshop or Strategic Planning Workshops. Workshop leaders must employ various techniques to accelerate the capture of planning, analysis, and design information, as well as ensure that participants work effectively together.
Failure to effectively harness the knowledge of participants and manage participant behavior can lead to the inability to accomplish a set of pre-defined objectives that can hamper organizational effectiveness.
Discovering the 12 Techniques in Workshop Facilitation
There are 12 Techniques in Workshop Facilitation. Learning to identify and use the proper technique will maximize workshop facilitators’ capability to engage participation, harness and integrate ideas, and effectively promote in-depth thinking to achieve the workshop objectives and purpose.
- 1-2-4-All. A technique that facilitates rich conversation in small groups and integrates small groups ideas around an important issue or question.
- 25-to-10 (Crowdsourcing). A technique for quickly generating and rating ideas.
- Card Sorting. A technique of gathering and organizing ideas that draw on the knowledge of the whole group.
- Field Trip around the Room. A technique used to organize how members of the group discuss several topics and integrate ideas on how to address them.
- Gallery Walk. A technique that gets the whole room on its feet to take a walking tour of posters for flip chart pages that reflect each group’s answers to questions.
- Knowledge Café. A method that fosters discussion about topics important to participants.
- Popcorn Report. A technique for eliciting comments from those who feel moved to share.
- Speed Consulting. A technique that draws on experiences of participants to advise another participant on how to address specific problems.
- Speed Networking. A technique that gets all participants to reflect on a question and share their insights.
- Storytelling. A technique of sharing the knowledge that incorporates the context, emotion, and tacit knowledge.
- TRIZ. A technique that helps groups think creatively how to solve a problem or improve a complex process.
- Voting with Your Feed. A technique for engaging participants to express their views for or against a position by moving from one side of the room or the other.
Each Workshop Facilitation Technique has its own specific objective and application. Their approaches may be different but there are also some techniques whose approach may be a bit similar. Regardless of what technique is used, what is important is that participants are completely engaged and the objectives set forth are met.
In the end, an effective Workshop Facilitator is one who makes use of various techniques to keep the discussion moving. When tension or discussion comes to a halt, the facilitator must be prepared and know which technique to use to continue the learning and continually make it happen.
Interested in gaining more understanding of Workshop Facilitation Techniques? You can learn more and download an editable PowerPoint about Workshop Facilitation Techniques (Volume 1) and Workshop Facilitation Techniques (Volume 2) 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.
