Last september, Manuel, a facilitator from Italy had the opportunity to attend a 2 days workshop for one of our major clients. A quite intense session with no less than 500 people together in the same room. “Wow” were his first words. Here is some input from his external point of view.*
Making collaboration possible with a 500 group - by Manuel Marrese.
You wonder why Stormz motto is extraordinary collaborative workshops? Let me just tell you what happened last september.
I had the pleasure to join Stormz team at Cité de la Mode, a new fascinating building on Seine’s riverbank. When I entered the main hall I found myself in a huge space, beautifully organized in different colored areas.
Around 4 PM on Day 1, some 500 top managers from a world leading bank gathered there to meet and discuss a common strategy for the way forward, define key priorities to implement throughout the whole organization. And they did all that together, that is to say:
- expressing & sharing ideas
- commenting and augmenting other people’s thoughts
- identifying priorities
- elaborating & evaluating key actions
Since that wasn’t enough of a challenge for the organizers it was decided to add one little tiny detail: on the second day of the forum there were 7 different workshops taking place simultaneously in the 7 areas (and the colors were there to help people orienting in this huge space), the results of which would be instantly available for the whole group to comment and evaluate.
500 people, 1 room, 7 simultaneous workshops, 1 and half day to elaborate key actions in order to bring into practice the change management strategy of one of the leading banks in the world.
An incredible setup that was made possible thanks to the following elements in each area: 4 facilitators, 1 screen, an audio system with dedicated channel for inner conversation and another one for translation - and on top of all this, personnalized tailor made workshops, each of them dealing with a specific issue.
Francis Gosselin and Alexandre behin the control bord
I know, it sounds like rocket science. But the truth is that it worked; not only it worked, but it worked beautifully: ideas were shared, priorities identified, and at the end of the workshop 21 key actions were defined. As one person commented at the end of the forum, “that’s extraordinary”. Indeed it is. You still wondering how that was possible? Oh no, you already have the answer now: it’s called Stormz.