Last year, NMCIA board members were introduced to visual facilitation for strategic planning while attending a presentation by a Canadian risk pool. Intrigued by the description of the interactive process and the visual outputs, they did further research and hired visual facilitation firm, Get The Picture, to facilitate the NMCIA Strategic Retreat in October. For over 15 years Get The Picture (based in British Columbia, Canada) has helped executive teams get clear on their desired futures and lined up for actions that get results. This spring, three NM Counties (Valencia, Union and Roosevelt) also held two-day visual sessions to renew their strategic plans. For efficiency, the three retreats were scheduled over 2 weeks in March.
What is Visual Facilitation?
Visual facilitation boosts engagement far beyond the limitations of traditional meetings. An experienced, impartial facilitator designs and leads your strategic planning process, while capturing your group’s collective intelligence visually. Participants see their discussions and thinking emerge on large boards around the room.
Highly interactive meeting processes help people communicate more effectively, and ultimately make better decisions for your organization. Teams leave visual strategy sessions inspired and on track, knowing where they are going, why that matters and how they’re going to get there together. The visuals are a powerful tool for supporting action afterwards.
Team Alignment and Collaboration with Visual Processes
“What I was most proud of was that everyone was engaged and they ALL bought into the plan to move forward!”
– Danny Monette, Valencia County Manager
Visual strategy sessions are more collaborative! Beginning with a clear definition of your objectives, the meeting is designed with a variety of powerful whole group and breakout exercises to achieve your outcomes. The visual processes help groups align while they map their future vision and the tangible steps to get there, leaving with a high level plan.
Visual Plans Stay Alive Long After the Strategy Session
“We love our vision map! Everyone is excited to have a plan to guide the next 3 years of work, as we established big goals. We are rolling it out to staff in all the departments.”
– Amber Hamilton, Roosevelt County Manager
One of the biggest benefits of working visually is that you have a record of your thinking and decisions after your meeting. Developing a strategy involves many in-depth team discussions, which are captured in the visuals, so you have an artifact of the process of creating your vision and plan. Afterwards, an eye-popping visual summary of your plan is created, so you can easily share it with the entire organization and keep it top of mind as you move through the stages of implementation. This keeps your plan alive in a way long, text-based documents simply cannot.
Unforgettable Moments and Lasting Value
“It strengthened our team…our visual plan was a collaborative effort among all departments.”
– Brandy Thompson, Union County Manager
If you want to transform the way you develop strategy and create an unforgettable experience for your team, consider visual facilitation for your next planning session. To learn more, or for a conversation about how a visual strategy session might look for you, contact Lisa Edwards from Get The Picture Consulting: lisaedwards@getthepicture.ca, 250.896.7939. Get The Picture can accommodate any group size, with one or two visual facilitators, as needed.
