Alyson asked: I would love to tap the collective wisdom of the list and the sooner the better as the planning is percolating and needs to become concrete fairly soon.

Alyson,

The term "planning" often means different things to different people. One interpretation relates to convergent thinking and is used to mean "implementing" an existing vision or set of objectives. This is essentially a left-brain activity. Such a "planning" session would involve a session to determine tasks, timelines, responsibilities.

The other view relates to divergent thinking which attempts to developing the vision or objectives. This involves brainstorming and other right-brain activities. Each interpretation involves VERY different activities and outcomes.

I sense from your request that you are, at least initially, embarking on the divergent/visioning activity. As such, the following may prove useful. I help organisations to do just this and follow a few guidelines that have worked well for me over the years:

1. I ask participants in the group to state what they believe are the outcomes/deliverables that their group/department/division/organisation or themselves are expected to deliver at the "end of the day". Ideally this is done on a one-to-one basis before a workshop/seminar so that the time at the group session is spent "working the knowledge" rather than gathering it.

2. Having already defined the sponsor's/owner's expected deliverables/outcomes, I use the group to match the "imperatives" with their "perceptions". Mismatches are discussed and resolved (this is easily said but may take considerable time to do).

3. In light of #2, I get the group to agree the outcomes that are common outcomes that all will strive to deliver.

4. I then ask people to look forward 10 years and ask them to "see" the organisation/department etc delivering these outcomes. I then ask them to tell me what they see. This vision should not be a glib "mother-hood" statement, but should be in some detail: What will we be doing? How will we be delivering our products/services? How will we be communicating? What will our competitors be doing? What will our customers/clients want? What will regulators be doing? What will our IT look like? What will our culture and people be like? etc...

5. I capture their "visions" on a white board.

6. We then develop a Vision/Outcome Matrix by listing the desired outcomes against the top axis and the vision elements along the vertical axis.

7. We then "tick", "cross" or quality the boxes in the Matrix for the ability of each Vision element to contribute to the desired outcomes.

8. Within the Matrix, we identify all desired outcomes that have no vision element appended and discuss what would be required to deliver the outcome since nothing yet envisioned will do it.

9. Once we have vision elements that will deliver the desired outcomes, we then prioritise them in terms of "biggest bang for bucks ($, resource and effort) and weight them for complexity.

10. These vision elements are then ranked by their score.

11. For each element, we then develop a set of "action/resource/timeline" to identify the impact on the organisation/division of each element.

12. We then allocate identify "Next Steps" for each item and allocate responsibilities and timelines for each element.

Warning: I have found over many years that allowing a group to develop a vision divorced from expected outcomes will ultimately be a waste of time since sponsors/owners will inevitably force them to adopt their agenda.