FUTURE PLANNING
To help teams with future planning Poisson Rouge has developed a unique and wonderfully creative intervention that we call THE FUTURE HISTORY CHALLENGE . It is a unique way of planning and creating a future vision for a team.
From experience we know that a common characteristic of high performers is the clarity of their goals. They visit, in their minds, the place they want to be and describe it in detail, to the point where they can touch and feel it. Then they work back from the achievement of the goal, defining the steps they will need to take to get there. Their focus is on how they will have got there, not whether they might.
The Future History Challenge relies on suspending thoughts about the difficulties that exist now, today and the barriers that might exist tomorrow and instead invites participants to get into a mental ‘Time Machine’!
Success depends on the ability to really ‘Blue Sky’ the required thinking in order to:
Get to a ‘desired future state’ at a defined moment in the future. Describe what that future state looks and feels like. What is good about it and what opportunities exist within it to take them forward?
Describe what the team did to get there - the actions taken, the barriers overcome, how, and in what sequence? This process unlocks the planning capability of the group in a really creative and innovative way and enables them to solve problems which using conventional methodology may often seem to be insoluble.
During syndicate activity ‘Theme Leaders’ are appointed to capture the essence of the team’s contributions using a pre-arranged format. This process is important in order to ensure there is the necessary depth and capability to any follow-up process.
Once the Future has been scoped out and the method of getting there established a variety of presentation formats and styles are used to present back. This provides an opportunity to introduce energetic and fun performance based elements to the process.
Presentation Styles include: Role Play • Stand Up • Radio Interview • TV • Musical Rendition • Soap Opera • Conference Speech
If you would like to download an at-a-glance overview about this subject – click here