Co-creating Active Safety Values and Winning the IAF Facilitation Impact Award

Introduction to FUTOUR

FUTOUR is an agency specializing in empowering people and organisations to shape their future and be the drivers of the change they want to achieve. Its global pursuit is that of generating happy, fulfilled, resilient people and organisations through the power of facilitation. FUTOUR stems from over 30 years of collaboration in the design and implementation of Future Centers, living labs, creativity hubs through its practical experience in facilitating positive change and impact through participatory processes, methods and techniques. FUTOUR has been designed as a nomadic, mobile Future Center bringing facilitation and participatory techniques wherever they were needed. Its team worked in 5 continents and over 50 countries for organisations, companies and communities.

FUTOUR employs a range of participatory methods and tools to foster collaboration and co-creation among stakeholders. Their approach is flexible, offering solutions for dynamic and fixed-site projects, events, and client venues, all designed to harmonize spaces and facilitate creative processes.

About Paolo Martinez

Paolo Martinez is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) with extensive experience in facilitation, creative problem solving and innovation. As a partner at FUTOUR, he specializes in designing and implementing participatory processes that foster collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Paolo has been recognized for his work in co-creating active safety values, leading the italian company, Autostrade per l’Italia (ASPI) to a Platinum IAF Facilitation Impact Award. His expertise spans various sectors, including health, safety and environment (HSE), foresight and strategic planning, where he applies innovative methodologies to drive sustainable change.

Here, Paolo shares his success story as lead facilitator in winning the  Platinum IAF Facilitation Impact Awards.

Workplace safety is a top priority for every company, and Autostrade per l’Italia (ASPI) has demonstrated how an innovative and collaborative approach can lead to tangible results. Through the “Co-creating Active Safety Values” project, ASPI transformed its safety culture, achieving a significant impact on incident reduction. This project facilitated by FUTOUR, which utilized tools like GroupMap, won the Platinum IAF Facilitation Impact Awards.

The Challenge: Promoting an Active Safety Culture

ASPI, the concessionaire of the main Italian motorway network, with 2.5 million vehicles traveling on its highways daily, launched a strategic transformation plan in 2020. At the heart of this plan was the need to renew the management model towards an integrated, sustainable, and technologically advanced approach. One of the key objectives was to promote a proactive and participatory safety culture, to involve employees and achieve the goal of zero incidents.

The challenge was to create a safety-oriented corporate environment, in which each employee felt personally involved and empowered. ASPI decided to do so in an innovative, experiential, and bottom-up way, actively involving its employees in the decision-making process.

The Methodology: An Innovative and Participatory Approach

To address this challenge, ASPI implemented the “Co-creating Active Safety Values” project, involving 50 young talents (under 35 years old) with high leadership potential, from different departments and branches of the group. The project was conducted in several phases, with the aim of developing concrete prototypes to improve workplace safety:

  • Initial Phase: An online opening workshop allowed participants to reflect on three key safety questions. Through an online “World Cafe” on virtual tables designed in MIRO, participants discussed and added ideas, autonomously changing room and table at each round.
  • Online Workshops: Teams were divided into two parallel groups of 25 people for facilitated online workshops lasting 4 hours each. Each group worked on specific challenges, using techniques such as the TOP ORID flow and the Consensus Workshop.
  • Use of GroupMap: In this phase, GroupMap was used as a digital decision support platform for brainstorming, grouping, and prioritizing ideas. This tool allowed teams to organize and focus their thoughts in a structured way.
  • Interviews and In-depth Analysis: Teams applied the principles of the Theory U Sensing Journey to interview stakeholders and thoroughly understand the safety-related problems.
  • “Safety Walk” Workshop: In a face-to-face workshop, participants continued to work on their prototypes, using LEGO Serious Play to generate new ideas. They also visited a motorway emergency site to discuss safety challenges and prepare video presentations.

The Role of GroupMap

GroupMap played a crucial role in this process, facilitating the collection and organization of ideas. It was fundamental in the following aspects:

  • Effective Brainstorming: It allowed teams to conduct online brainstorming sessions efficiently, enabling everyone to participate and generate a large number of ideas.

  • Organization of Ideas: It helped to group ideas logically and prioritize the most relevant and promising ones, making the decision-making process more structured.

  • Decision Support: It provided a digital platform for managing ideas, helping teams make informed decisions based on concrete data.

The Impact and Results

The project led to the creation of 8 concrete prototypes for safety, which concerned various areas such as construction sites, road safety, infrastructure design, procurement, leisure time, and home safety.

The results obtained were significant:

  • Reduction of Incidents: The incident frequency rate decreased by 45% between 2021 and 2023.

  • Increased Engagement: The number of “Safety Walks” increased by 302%, and the employees involved in the Group Safety Week increased from 1500 to 5300, with a 253% increase.

  • Growth of safety coaches and supporters: The number of safety coaches and supporters increased from 180 to 350 (+94%) between 2021 and 2024.

  • Adoption of Prototypes: One of the 8 prototypes was selected to be applied throughout the organization, and the other 7 prototypes were incorporated into specific areas of the company.

Lessons Learned

The success of the “Co-creating Active Safety Values” project demonstrates that a participatory and collaborative approach, combined with the use of tools like GroupMap, can lead to a true transformation of the company’s safety culture. The enthusiasm and engagement of the LED team led to results that exceeded expectations.

This project has shown how innovation, facilitation, and technology can work together to achieve ambitious goals, such as zero incidents. ASPI’s experience with GroupMap highlights how digital tools can support effective collaboration and lead to tangible results, improving safety and efficiency in the company. The project also emphasized the value of balancing bottom-up and top-down practices in organizational change.

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How Strategies for Children Uses GroupMap for Policy Advocacy

Strategies for Children (SFC) is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that children from birth to age five have access to high-quality early education programs. For 24 years, SFC has been a leading advocate in the early childhood sector, focusing on four major initiatives: The 9:30 Call, The Advocacy Network for Early Childhood, The Early Childhood Agenda, and the Eye on Early Childhood blog.

The Early Childhood Agenda, launched in 2022, brought together over 1,000 stakeholders to identify key priorities for advancing early childhood education. The initiative has since led to significant advocacy wins, new workgroups, and strengthened partnerships in the sector. To facilitate collaboration and consensus-building, SFC turned to GroupMap as a key tool in their engagement strategy.

About Titus and Marisa

Titus DosRemedios, is the Deputy Director at Strategies for Children (SFC), a Massachusetts-based nonprofit dedicated to advocating for high-quality early education and care. In his role, Titus oversees general operations, staffing, grant writing, budget development, and manages the Advocacy Network for Early Childhood. Since joining SFC in 2008 as a Research and Policy Associate, he has led numerous initiatives, including consulting with local communities on preschool planning and expansion efforts, co-facilitating the New Bedford Birth–3rd Partnership from 2016 to 2020, and facilitating the Massachusetts Partnership for Infants and Toddlers from 2019 to 2022, a statewide public-private collaboration with 60 member organizations. He also served as the inaugural co-chair of the Massachusetts Early Childhood Funder Collaborative’s Community Advisory Committee from 2021 to 2022.

Marisa Fear

Marisa Fear serves as the Director of Policy at Strategies for Children (SFC), where she contributes to advocacy, research, policy, and communication efforts aimed at enhancing early childhood education and care in Massachusetts. Her responsibilities include managing SFC’s COVID-19 support initiatives, producing daily advocacy calls for the early education and care field, documenting ongoing challenges, monitoring data trends, state and national budget proposals, and policy changes from the Department of Early Education and Care. Marisa facilitates the Speakers’ Bureau—a statewide cohort of early educators—and collaborates with the field to build advocacy capacity in local communities. She also works closely with SFC interns and manages collaborations with external partners. Marisa is a member of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s working group on Early Childhood and Out-of-School Time.

Challenges Faced by Strategies for Children

Before using GroupMap, SFC faced challenges in coordinating input from a diverse group of stakeholders across Massachusetts’ early childhood sector. 

“We needed a way to facilitate meaningful discussions in both virtual and in-person settings while efficiently collecting feedback from educators, families, and policymakers,” said Titus DosRemedios.

Without a structured system, gathering and organizing ideas from large meetings and workgroups was time-consuming and challenging to translate into actionable strategies.

How GroupMap Helped

To address these challenges, SFC implemented GroupMap as a tool for facilitating discussions, brainstorming, and achieving consensus across multiple engagement levels.

Large Group Convenings

“We committed to hosting large-group convenings on Zoom, roughly once per quarter, after releasing The Early Childhood Agenda in January 2023,” shared Marisa Fear. “Our first such meeting in June 2023 attracted nearly 100 attendees.” 

Using GroupMap, participants provided feedback on how they had been using the Agenda in their work and shared ideas on evolving its structure.

Workgroup Meetings

SFC launched six workgroups to develop solutions for key priorities. 

“Each workgroup relied on GroupMap to break down complex issues, identify key stakeholders, and refine actionable recommendations,” explained Marisa. “For instance, workgroup #4 used GroupMap to list top recommendations, define clear objectives, and anticipate potential barriers.”

Stewardship Team Coordination

SFC created a Stewardship Team to recognize the need for a coordinating leadership body.

“GroupMap helped us track progress, collect feedback, and foster collaboration among facilitators and partners,” said Titus. “At our first Stewardship Team meeting, we used GroupMap to gather input on how this structure could be most effective.”

Outcomes and Benefits

The adoption of GroupMap significantly improved the efficiency and effectiveness of SFC’s engagement efforts. “Stakeholders reported a greater sense of involvement as they could see their contributions reflected in real-time,” said Marisa. “The tool’s interactive nature made it easier to build consensus and develop policy recommendations collaboratively.”

SFC’s efforts have led to tangible outcomes:

  • Engaged over 1,000 stakeholders in shaping early childhood policies.
  • Held quarterly convenings with 100+ participants, including an in-person event at Polar Park baseball stadium.
  • Launched six workgroups to tackle high-priority issues.
  • Drafted actionable recommendations for publication in 2024.
“Using GroupMap has been a game-changer,” Titus emphasized. “It allowed us to structure discussions effectively and ensure that every voice was heard.”

What Participants Had to Say

“GroupMap provided a structured way to gather and prioritize ideas,” said one participant. “It made complex discussions more productive and inclusive.”

Another stakeholder noted, “I appreciated how easy it was to contribute my thoughts and see how they fit into the bigger picture. It really helped us move from brainstorming to actionable strategies.”

The Future of The Early Childhood Agenda

As SFC finalizes the next phase of The Early Childhood Agenda, GroupMap remains an essential tool for fostering innovation, supporting decision-making, and driving meaningful progress. 

“We are excited about the next phase of our work and will continue to use GroupMap for consensus-building,” said Marisa.

Equip your team with better brainstorming and decision-making tools. See how GroupMap can strengthen your advocacy efforts today! Start your free trial here.

How GTIA (Global Technology Industry Association) Uses GroupMap for Group Brainstorming and Collaboration

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How do you bring together global technology leaders to collaborate, innovate, and drive industry change—without meetings becoming inefficient or overwhelming? This is a challenge Chris Phillips, Senior Director of Industry Advisory Councils at GTIA, faces daily. His mission: to create structured, engaging discussions that result in meaningful action. And that’s where GroupMap made all the difference.

Introduction to the Global Technology Industry Association

Chris Phillips is a seasoned professional in the technology industry, currently serving as the Senior Director, Industry Advisory Councils, at the Global Technology Industry Association (GTIA). In this role, he is instrumental in fostering engagement within the GTIA community, overseeing programs such as the Member Champions. This initiative brings together highly engaged members who collaborate to enhance member involvement and provide valuable resources to the industry. Chris’s dedication to advancing the technology sector is evident through his efforts to build programs that promote education and resource sharing among professionals.

With a career spanning project management, business development, and community engagement, Chris understands the complexities of leading discussions across diverse stakeholders. His expertise allows him to design and facilitate impactful industry conversations—ones that turn ideas into action.

GTIA, formerly known as CompTIA, is a globally recognized leader in the IT industry, dedicated to empowering IT channel professionals, including managed service providers (MSPs), solution providers, vendors, and distributors. With a strong foundation in education, certification, and industry collaboration, GTIA continues CompTIA’s legacy of fostering innovation, security, and growth within the technology sector.

As a vendor-neutral, non-profit membership organization, GTIA provides trusted resources, research, and networking opportunities to help businesses navigate an evolving IT landscape. By facilitating industry best practices, cybersecurity, and professional development, GTIA ensures its members have the tools and knowledge to thrive in a rapidly changing digital world.

Their Client Story

With technology leaders and experts from all over the world, Chris had a challenge as to how to get everyone on the same page during meetings, without it being an over complicated and unwieldy process.

As Chris explains, “That’s where GroupMap came in, and honestly, it’s been a total game-changer.”

One of the key factors with time pressures was how quickly and effectively a group of leaders could come together and brainstorm with clarity and ease. As Chris explains ”GroupMap is super easy to use, and its customizable templates made brainstorming, prioritizing, and refining ideas is a breeze.”

The first example included having remote meetings where representatives across different timezones could come together to discuss, deliberate and decide in a collaborative manner.

Chris elaborates: “During our quarterly virtual meetings, council members used it to capture insights, vote on initiatives, and build consensus-all in real time. The best part? It visually organizes everyone’s contributions, so no one’s ideas get lost in the shuffle. It really helped make sure every voice was heard, which is so important for fostering engagement and inclusivity.”

By ensuring each person’s ideas could be easily seen, prioritized, discussed in depth and then to create engagement and discussion led to improved group decision making.

But besides industry consultation meetings, the use case for GroupMap extended into other aspects of GTIA’s organization. As Chris continues to explain: “It didn’t stop there. GroupMap wasn’t just used for the advisory councils-it’s been a hit across multiple groups at GTIA. Whether it was structuring discussions, tackling industry challenges, or coming up with actionable solutions, GroupMap became the go-to tool for our member leadership groups.”

While meetings can sometimes be seen as a waste of time, uneventful, and lacklustre, being able to create actions and outcomes is what can transform mundane team huddles into impactful events.

“For an organization like GTIA, where collaboration and innovation are at the heart of what we do, GroupMap has been invaluable. It’s helped us bridge the gap between global members and made it easy for everyone to contribute meaningfully. If you’re looking for a tool that can bring people together and get things done, GroupMap is it!”

We are most honoured that GroupMap has been an invaluable tool for an organisation like GTIA, where collaboration and innovation are core.  It has bridged the gap between global members, streamlined discussions, and empowered teams to generate meaningful outcomes. As Chris Phillips highlighted, GroupMap isn’t just a tool—it’s a solution for organizations looking to enhance engagement, structure conversations, and drive real results.

Want to run more structured and results-driven meetings?
Start using GroupMap today to capture ideas, prioritize discussions, and drive clear decisions.

Streamlining Stakeholder Analysis with Digital Brainstorming and Mapping Platforms

Introduction to OFFB

The Operator’s Association for Emergency Response (OFFB) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting several oil and gas companies operating on the Norwegian continental shelf. In addition to providing professional emergency response services, OFFB also acts as a resource and expertise center.  

OFFB’s 2nd line emergency response organizations main task is to respond to incidents which carry the risk of affecting or harming people, the environment or physical assets. OFFB trains and exercises its own personnel, the operator’s 3rd line emergency response organization as well as collaborating actors.

OFFB’s Strategic Crisis Communication Team (SKT in Norwegian) advises and supports operators at a strategic level through training and exercises, courses and continuous development in, among other things, writing messages about ongoing emergency situations, media management, media monitoring, stakeholder analyses and stakeholder follow-up.

The goal of the SKT is to ensure good collaboration between everyone affected by crises, and to make sure that correct information is released at all times.

The organization manages over 100 emergency drills annually, including stakeholder mapping, analysis, and communication strategy development. Learn more about OFFB on their official website.

About Alf Inge Molde

Alf Inge Molde is the head of OFFB’s Strategic Crisis Communication Team, which includes 15 seasoned communication experts. With a strong background in facilitation, leadership, and managing operations, Alf Inge plays a vital role in ensuring the smooth execution of crisis response strategies.

In his role, Alf Inge:

  • Leads emergency response initiatives for member organizations.
  • Facilitates stakeholder mapping and crisis communication workshops.
  • Oversees operations during real-time crisis events and complex emergency simulations.
  • With a reputation for fostering collaboration and delivering results under pressure, Alf Inge has been instrumental in driving the success of OFFB’s crisis management approach.

Alf Inge emphasizes, “Crisis situations demand clarity, collaboration, and precision. Our team’s ability to achieve these depends on having tools like GroupMap that make it easier to manage complexity.”

Challenges Faced by OFFB

In the oil and gas sector, crises have far-reaching implications for multiple stakeholders, including employees, contractors, and government agencies. Like other emergency response organizations, OFFB experienced that the ripple effect in emergency response situations presented challenges:

  • Stakeholder Complexity: Creating comprehensive, accurate stakeholder maps for offshore and onshore hazards.
  • Geographical Disparity: Collaborating effectively with teams dispersed across various sites.
  • Dynamic Situations: Adjusting stakeholder analyses and communication strategies to real-time developments during crises.

Alf Inge shared, “The biggest hurdle was finding a tool that was not only effective but also dynamic and accessible to multiple team members, often working on different locations. GroupMap has proven to be a good choice for our needs.”

Strengthened and Simplified Collaboration Through GroupMap

OFFB discovered GroupMap through recommendations from other crisis management professionals. Recognized for its ability to represent complex data and prioritize stakeholder needs visually, GroupMap quickly proved to be the ideal solution for OFFB’s unique challenges.

GroupMap became an integral tool in OFFB’s strategic crisis management processes. Using the platform’s customizable Power and Interest Matrix in the Stakeholder Map Template, OFFB is able to:

  1. Visualize Stakeholder Relationships: Identify and prioritize stakeholders’ needs and concerns during crises.
  2. Conduct Real-Time Adjustments: Dynamically update and refine stakeholder maps during emergency situations.
  3. Simulate Crisis Scenarios: Support the organization’s 100+ annual emergency drills with tailored stakeholder analyses.

Alf Inge explained, “We actively use GroupMap to create stakeholder maps for various defined hazard and accident situations. These maps are indispensable when we need to react quickly and accurately during an emergency.”

He added, “The ability to adjust stakeholder maps dynamically in real-time is crucial. With GroupMap, we’re able to align everyone on the team, no matter where they’re located, and ensure we’re always making informed decisions.”

For OFFB, GroupMap stands out due to its:

  • Reliability: Stable and dependable during high-pressure situations.
  • Intuitive Design: User-friendly interface accessible to all team members.
  • Flexibility: Adaptable templates for diverse crisis scenarios.

Alf Inge commented, “It’s not just about the features—it’s about how easily those features integrate into our workflow. GroupMap gives us the stability and usability we need in the moments that matter most.”

Outcomes and Benefits

Adopting GroupMap has led to transformative improvements for OFFB:

  • Enhanced Decision-Making: Clearer insights into stakeholder priorities allow faster and more strategic responses.
  • Improved Collaboration: Enables seamless teamwork across geographical locations.
  • Reduced Stress: Provides a structured approach that eases pressure during emergency simulations and real crises.

“GroupMap has helped us focus on what matters most—effective communication and engagement during critical moments,” Alf Inge shared.

He continued, “The feedback from our team has been overwhelmingly positive. They appreciate how intuitive the platform is and how it effectively enhances our ability to visualize stakeholder priorities.”

Alf Inge recommends GroupMap to any organization managing complex stakeholder relationships, particularly in high-pressure scenarios. His advice:

“Use tools like GroupMap to visualize and prioritize your stakeholders. It’s an invaluable resource for building effective communication strategies and fostering team collaboration.”

He added, “Whether you’re in a crisis or running a training simulation, having the right tools can make all the difference. GroupMap has become a cornerstone of our stakeholder management process.”

Ready to help your team improve collaboration and decision making?  Visit GroupMap today.

Creating Processes for Change with Effective Facilitation

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Effective facilitation plays a crucial role in driving transformation and fostering collaboration. With hybrid and remote work here to stay, online facilitation tools have become indispensable for professionals like Rachel Gooen. Rachel works with mission-driven organizations that focus on developing healthy people, healthy ecosystems and healthy communities. To do this she facilitates transformative processes to deliver change. She has found great success in curating those processes with the help of GroupMap. Here we delve into Rachel’s experience as a client of GroupMap. We explore her use of the tool and the impact it has had on her facilitation process. By harnessing the power of online facilitation, Rachel creates engaging, inclusive, and transformative experiences for diverse groups seeking change.

Facilitation for the better

Rachel’s journey as a facilitator began with her realization that communities and individuals often require support and guidance to navigate change effectively.

“I … [wanted to]…bring all the voices together so they could hear each other and we could come up with the direction or solution to what they are talking about.”

Armed with qualifications in both environmental science and social work, Rachel embarked on a mission to understand the intricacies of change management and facilitate transformative processes.

Discovering GroupMap

Rachel first encountered GroupMap during the COVID-19 pandemic when the world transitioned to remote work. 

Seeking tools she could use in the online facilitation space, Rachel explored various options and found GroupMap. While other tools seemed overly complex, with participants sometimes struggling to navigate them effectively, GroupMap provided a seamless user experience, allowing participants to easily contribute their thoughts and ideas. 

The role of process design in facilitation

For Rachel, the process is everything; and with GroupMap, she had a tool that took the effort out of building it.

“Having a well-designed process allows people to be comfortable, safe and be able to share what they want to share.”

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As a facilitator, her key considerations when building her process is the ease of use for participants. “I don’t want to make something with too many steps or too many complex motions.  I also think about visual appeal and simplicity.  The goal is to help people have an easy time entering their thoughts.”

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She often uses

Brainstorm-Vote-Results

Brainstorm-Action-Results when shaping her maps.

Rachel finds the range of templates available in GroupMap particularly useful.

Unlike other online facilitation tools that may require extensive setup, GroupMap’s simplicity and pre-designed templates were game-changers. Importantly, the templates helped save Rachel time.

Saving time

In addition to the ready-to-use templates, Rachel observed the time-saving effect of a number of other features. 

Firstly, the intuitive, user-friendly nature of the tool eliminated the need to allocate training time to her sessions. Participants can easily navigate the platform, contributing their ideas and feedback without any technical difficulties or learning curves. 

Next, GroupMap eliminates the need for Rachel to spend time manually writing details up on a whiteboard. Instead, ideas are simultaneously added by each participant, and the platform captures and organizes them in real-time. This not only saves time but also ensures that all ideas are captured accurately. 

The ability to export ideas via the report feature is incredibly useful for facilitators like Rachel. They can easily compile summaries of their sessions eliminating the tedious task of transcribing hundreds of post-it notes at its end. This streamlined process of capturing and exporting ideas can enable facilitators to report efficiently, providing valuable insights and outcomes to an organization.

Enhancing collaboration and engagement

The use of GroupMap has enabled Rachel to gather more information from her participants than face-to-face facilitation tends to deliver. Participants seem to know intuitively how to use the online collaboration tool. They appear to happily use it to contribute their ideas because it’s just so simple to do so.

Rachel shared an example of a meeting with a group discussing  invasive aquatic species. By using GroupMap, participants were able to provide input that surpassed the level of engagement achieved in previous in-person meetings.

“…they all felt like we got more information than we would have if we’d just had a discussion.”

The tool facilitated a more efficient and productive session, resulting in a wealth of ideas and perspectives that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

GroupMap also helped Rachel deliver an ‘a-ha’ moment that couldn’t have otherwise happened. With the word cloud feature in mind, she used a simple map, and invited participants to quickly offer their thoughts.

“I made a single column map, titled it “Wish it forward!”  and gave these instructions:   Type in a one word wish for the future WMCC to help them get off to a great start.”

Within a minute, they had created a word cloud. The largest word ‘focus’ appeared at the center. Under it was “collaborate’. Surrounding these were words of encouragement and support.

“… everyone in the room gasped. It was a little bit of magic, and something I could not do in person.”

The moment had such a positive impact on the group that it was agreed the word cloud would be framed and presented to the new incumbents.

Adapting to hybrid environments

Rachel has used GroupMap in the hybrid space. 

In a recent meeting, she incorporated GroupMap into the session to accommodate both in-person and online participants. It also happened to be a meeting for which a number of in-person participants arrived without a laptop. 

Once the spare computers were allocated, there was no need to panic. Rachel was able to guide participants to access GroupMap on their mobile devices.

Again, Rachel’s observation was that GroupMap increased participation levels. This time pointing to the tool’s effectiveness in hybrid settings.

Creating a safe space

Rachel is a fan of the levels of anonymity the tool can offer as it tends to give people the courage to offer their input with greater ease; even among individuals who might have been hesitant to speak up in a traditional setting. 

She shared an example of the importance of anonymity with a mindset mapping warm up exercise. Participants were invited to nominate which one of four mindsets they most identified at that point in time. They were to choose from – 

  • An Innovator, that is they were ready to think creatively and think outside the box.

  • A Relater, that is they were ready to connect with others and build relationships.

  • A Challenger, that is, they were prepared to take on a challenge and push the group to achieve.

  • An Observer  meant they were in the mood to watch and analyse from the sideline.

The group consisted of two Innovators, one Relater, three Challengers and the rest (the majority of the group) identified as Observers. The anonymous nature of their input allowed participants to feel safe enough to honestly share their current mind-set.

Knowing she had so many Observers in the room meant Rachel could tailor her facilitation methods to better connect with the group.

Final thoughts

“GroupMap has made my online and hybrid sessions flow smoothly.  It is an intuitive platform that takes little to no training for my participants.  People in my facilitated meetings have commented that it is the best platform they have used. So not only do my clients get great information from the meeting, I have a tool that makes my process successful.” 

Thanks to our contributor, Rachel Gooen, Facilitator, Trainer and Coach. Through her consultancy, Rachel connects people and organizations with their purpose.

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NFP Develops a Strategic Roadmap through Collaboration in Online Meetings

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Non-profit, Strategies for Children needed to collaborate with their community to deliver on their ambitious strategic plan. To do so, they included GroupMap in their tool kit to help them build their roadmap toward an integrated and accessible system of support.

Titus DosRemedios and Marisa Fear share how they used GroupMap and the change it helped to deliver.

Who we are

Strategies for Children (SFC) is a small nonprofit organization based in Boston, Massachusetts (USA). It works to ensure that Massachusetts invests the resources needed for all children, from birth to age five, to access high-quality early education programs that prepare them for success in school and life.  

We focus on state policy, and work with coalitions, grassroots advocates, state agency partners, researchers, and philanthropy to achieve systemic change.

We needed to build a roadmap

In our four-year strategic plan adopted in 2021, we were charged with taking our advocacy work to the next level. By convening all early childhood partners in our state to create a unified agenda for early childhood, that would result in systemic change for more positive outcomes for young children, families, communities, and early childhood professionals. 

To achieve this, we launched the Early Childhood Agenda in October 2022. 

The COVID-19 pandemic shone an important light on the early childhood ecosystem in Massachusetts and created opportunities for systemic change. Early childhood issues are interdependent and can’t be developed effectively in silos.

The Early Childhood Agenda was conceived as a series of convenings, taking a whole-child approach, working across sectors for better policy development and to identify effective solutions that may not be visible from one sector’s viewpoint. 

Together, we would build a roadmap – an Early Childhood Agenda to ensure that Massachusetts has an integrated and accessible system of support for children from prenatal through age eight and their families.

Why we chose GroupMap

The Early Childhood Agenda convenings were virtual – held on Zoom over six meetings, with working groups engaged in content creation during and between meetings. 

There were more than 150 active participants, and a larger community of 400 interested partners.

Our team realized very early on that we would need new tools to effectively communicate, collaborate, and prioritize ideas. 

We chose BaseCamp for a virtual home-base of operations, including archived meeting videos and discussion threads. 

We then chose GroupMap as the primary tool and platform for our Agenda content creation. We had experimented with Google docs and sheets, Jamboard, and other tools for allowing multiple participants to generate content during Zoom meetings. We liked GroupMap’s features, layout, and settings, and decided to try GroupMap for this project. 

We hosted 100 attendees at our first Early Childhood Agenda convening on Zoom. We used GroupMap to review and edit Vision, Principles, Values, House Rules, and Guidelines (see below)

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Our audience of participants responded well to GroupMap, so we felt comfortable using it again at subsequent meetings. 

For the second and third meetings we broke into five themed working groups, and each developed a GroupMap of the top challenges in our field. Our staff pre-populated the GroupMaps with initial examples, then all attendee participants joined the GroupMap to type in their own ideas. 

Brainstorming was very successful, and led to grouping, reviewing, editing, then voting. This took place over subsequent meetings and in-between meetings, prompted by emails and BaseCamp instructions.

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In the final meeting, we went into working groups again, to discuss solutions. Our team pre-populated these GroupMaps with solutions that corresponded to the top vote-getting challenges from the previous GroupMap. They also pre-populated a few ideas for “lead advocates / state partners” in the bottom row. Then in the meeting, participants added their own ideas. 

As you can see from the examples above, we enjoyed all aspects of GroupMap, especially brainstorming and voting.

GroupMap as a meeting facilitation tool

We wanted our participants to feel heard, valued, empowered, and that they are making active contributions to the discussion and the overall process. This is much harder in traditional meeting settings where only a few people get to speak. 

With GroupMap, everyone can make their contribution simultaneously, and even offline after the meeting ends.

People who join the process late can catch up, and we have an archive for future reference. 

GroupMap allowed us to meaningfully engage with a much larger audience than we ever had in previous convenings.

The Early Childhood Agenda project required substantial community brainstorm, review, debate, voting, and consensus. 

GroupMap enabled us to effectively meet our goals at each step of the process. We had a quick 3-month project timeline: October – December, 2022. GroupMap allowed us to accomplish all our goals and reduced the amount of staff time it would have taken to facilitate this process using other methods.

Our team at Strategies for Children achieved the impossible – building a cohesive community of early childhood advocates online using Zoom, BaseCamp, and of course GroupMap.

We generated far more (and far better!) content from our partners using GroupMap than we would have with traditional discussion or other online tools. 

Thank you GroupMap team for creating this innovative product. Nonprofit organizations, advocacy coalitions, and other community conveners will find GroupMap an essential tool in their toolkit for achieving social change. 

Thanks to our writers – 

Titus DosRemedios, Deputy Director at Strategies for Children. Titus manages the internal team, contractors, and interns, as well as supports fundraising, policy and advocacy, and external partnerships. 

Marisa Fear, Associate Director of Research and Policy at Strategies for Children. Marisa is the project manager for the Early Childhood Agenda, and leads early childhood policy, research, and data analytics.

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Transitioning to Native AWS Services, December 2022.

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Current State

As you may be aware, GroupMap is currently hosted on the Salesforce Heroku Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), which in turn is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) in Amazon’s Northern Virginia (us-east-1) and Frankfurt (eu-central-1) data-centres.  

While the Heroku platform has served us well over the last few years, GroupMap has reached a point where we’ve outgrown it and we are looking to set ourselves up for future growth and to improve our product services and security. 

Migrating to AWS Native Services

We are planning to transition off Heroku to AWS-equivalent native service platforms (within the same data centres) in late December 2022. This migration will be transparent to you, although we hope you notice the improved performance and availability. As part of this migration:
  • Heroku Server Dynos will be replaced with AWS ECS Fargate services
  • Heroku Postgres will be migrated to AWS RDS Aurora Postgres clusters
  • Heroku Redis will be migrated to AWS Elasticache clusters
To further reduce our data footprint we’ll be replacing a number of current third-party processors with their AWS equivalents.
  • Sqreen (DataDog Inc.) Web Application Firewall will be replaced with AWS Web Application Firewall
  • ImgIX (Zebrafish Labs Inc.) Asset resizing and CDN will be replaced with AWS S3 + AWS CloudFront

Preparation

Over the last two months we’ve been shaking and performance testing the new AWS environments in parallel to maintaining our existing Heroku environments. 

We’d like to thank our friends at Mechanical Rock Inc and Amazon Web Services for their assistance in the planning and implementation of this migration!

Migration process

Migration will be completed outside of business hours over a weekend, and will involve approximately 2 hours of planned downtime as data is transferred. Advance notice of this scheduled outage will be sent to account owners 48 hours prior to commencement.

Questions

If you have any questions – please let us know at info@groupmap.com 

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The SMARTEN Project: Building Digital Readiness for European Water-Related Higher Education

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The SMARTEN Project is an exercise in preparedness in the truest sense of the word. Its overall goal is to build the digital readiness of water-related European higher education and lifelong learning. 

The outputs of the project aren’t the only elements designed with preparedness in view. Its delivery was crafted with agility in mind. The project has been shaped to achieve its objectives while building the responsiveness, adaptability and flexibility of educational activities against external disruptors such as the COVID-19 crisis.

It’s fair to say that SMARTEN walks the preparedness talk.

SMARTEN is a creative acronym for an equally creative project that was publicly launched on 18  March 2021 during Water Knowledge Europe. It stands for Serious gaMes for digitAl Readiness of waTer EducatioN. It focuses on innovative practices based on serious games in education, as it explores the subject of water. The project aligns with the European goals on environment and climate. 

In order to deliver its goal, the project strives to support and enhance digital transitions in the fast-evolving education and water resource sectors. This is done to better adapt to pandemic and post-pandemic working conditions. 

Those benefiting from SMARTEN represent quite a range of people. From students of water-related programs, and young water professionals, through to water educators in academia and industry, water society and the European community at large.

One of the intellectual outputs of SMARTEN is the Augmented Collaboration Toolkit. Naomi Timmer, the Director of H2O People, led its design. 

“GroupMap was included in the Toolkit as it supports the experience of both the facilitator and the participant,” offered Naomi. 

“From the facilitator’s perspective, which is where I am most involved, the interface is simple and user friendly. This makes it accessible and easy to navigate.”

“The available templates are versatile and easy to customize. They are handy and can help to plan workshops as well as engage participants. The reporting process is performed automatically and communicates all phases of the workshop.”

“Using GroupMap is a real-time process that starts from an individual brainstorming to a group discussion to a final collective decision. This pathway promotes the bottom-up approach for decision making that is quite relevant to the pressing environmental and climate issues.” 

From a user’s perspective, GroupMap leverages the participants’ voices and uses them as a base to move forward with the discussion to reach a final vision or decision. It is fun and interesting to see the different views converge or diverge in the grouping phase. GroupMap is a dynamic and interactive environment that maintains the participant’s attention.”

“All of these features encouraged us to incorporate GroupMap in the SMARTEN Augmented Collaboration Toolkit.”

In June 2021 Naomi led the online event Human Capital: Collaboration in Digital Space. The digital workshop showcased the range of collaborative tools included in the toolkit including GroupMap which was used in support of an exploration of the transformations needed in the water sector.

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“The workshop was rich in interactive features,’ shared Naomi. “It leveraged digital collaboration for a more engaging, seamless experience to match live events.” 

“It promoted the SMARTEN Augmented Collaboration Toolkit. Different digital tools were used to discuss topics related to online facilitation: Water-Food-Energy Nexus, and Deep Democracy.” 

“GroupMap was used as a tool to facilitate collaborative brainstorming on leadership in the water sector which revealed the different needs and perspectives on this concept.”

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Written with the kind support of Naomi Timmer – H2O People

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Supporting ComTeam Group Foster Success Through Change

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When it comes to online collaboration, having a tool that caters to the needs of both participants and facilitators can be a challenge. Add in higher level requirements such as security, privacy and reliability, finding the right tool can be even harder. ComTeam needed to run virtual strategy workshops and to facilitate online meetings with their team. So they started a search to find a tool that was structured, easy to use and secure. They found GroupMap.

It was a recommendation from a colleague that convinced the ComTeam Group’s Philipp Zeikat to try GroupMap.

As a user of the online collaboration tool, Philipp’s colleague had firsthand experience of the benefits GroupMap offered. They had seen how little time was needed during a workshop for participants to familiarize themselves with the tool. They had also accessed and used the existing template library, and noted GroupMap’s templates offered a near-perfect match with the topics they were facilitating for clients.

With that in mind, Philipp signed up for a free trial to explore what more the tool had to offer. The rest, as they say, is history.

Neither Philipp nor ComTeam are strangers to the facilitation space. Far from it!  ComTeam Group is a consulting and training company with subsidiaries in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Great Britain. They offer an impressive range of tailor made services designed to deliver effective change at both the corporate and personal levels. With its origins in facilitation and personal development, ComTeam are experts in leadership, change management, and cultural development. Their coaching and facilitation services include communication, decision-making processes, change projects, conflict resolution, leadership development and personal growth. They cater to a wide range of clients from public organizations through to leading medium-sized and large commercial enterprises.

Before GroupMap

Prior to their adoption of GroupMap, ComTeam had identified opportunities for change with regard to their virtual sessions.

“For notetaking and brainstorming during online-workshops we were using shared documents, mostly based on the Office-365 suite,” offered Philipp. “So we wanted a tool that would ensure a transparent and up-to-date distribution of information during, and after the workshops. We also wanted to avoid the linear and versioned distribution of documents that can happen with email.”

Another requirement was an easy and cohesive way of creating separate workspaces for recurring events.

“The most important factor,” noted Philipp. “was the tool’s usability for both creators and clients. We didn’t want to have to spend a lot of time training participants on the ins and outs of the tool. We also wanted our creators to have a well-structured pool of resources they could use along with access control.”

GroupMap delivered on all of these requirements. Starting with virtual sessions and growing to include hybrid contexts, it’s the online brainstorming and collaboration tool ComTeam uses regularly to support client consultations and training, as well as internal strategy and brainstorming sessions.

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A highly intuitive tool

Compared to other online collaborative tools, Philipp notes that GroupMap offers a highly intuitive user interface. This is great news for facilitators who, with only seconds of explaining, are able to induct their clients as to how to use the tool. This means the focus of the session remains on the topic at hand.

Indeed, ComTeam’s facilitators adapted quickly to GroupMap. Used predominantly to support clients’ brainstorming sessions, when it came to using other features (such as grouping and voting) learning how to do so was quick and easy.

Delivering workshop value

ComTeam’s online client workshops address a variety of issues. What they have in common is they all require a tool that supports the creation of solutions to complex problems.

ComTeam curates a workspace of templates designed to foster high-level conversations around strategy. Using those templates, facilitators guide clients through brainstorming and small group collaborative sessions to explore constructive approaches to individual cases.

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GroupMap is also used to support the delivery of ComTeam’s internal strategy meetings. DIfferent features such as color coding and voting features  are used to support the different aims of the meeting.

Delivering client value

Both ComTeam and their clients have benefited from GroupMap’s reporting feature.

“This is especially useful,” said Philipp. “It gives our clients a record of exactly what they agreed on; what they said they would do, without us needing to compile an extra document. The proceedings of the workshop are generated by the workshop!”

Written with the kind collaboration of Philipp Zeikat, Project Manager ComTeam.

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Human Centred Stakeholder Workshops Excel Online with The Right Collaboration Tool

Derby Silk Mill is widely regarded as the site of the world’s first modern factory.

Hannah Fox is the Director of Projects and Programmes for Derby Museums, an organization that manages 3 public museums of art, history and natural history located in Derby, United Kingdom: The Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Pickford’s House, and their latest project, the Museum of Making located at Derby Silk Mill, an £18 Million development due to open in Spring 2021!

As an organization, Derby Museums uses human-centred design (design thinking) and co-production approaches to develop their projects, programmes and activities with their communities.

To learn more about this approach you can read DERBY MUSEUMS Human-Centred Design Handbook.

They also deliver online training for other cultural organizations that are interested in using human centred design and co-production approaches.

Facilitating Collaboration Online

Collaboration is at the heart of Derby Museums’ projects. They work together internally as well as with external parties and use design-thinking tools to capture and prioritise the desires and needs of their communities and stakeholders.

 
Before the pandemic, most of Derby Museums’ development sessions and workshops took place face to face and were facilitated through flip charts and post-it-notes… lots of post-it-notes!

As many companies have in recent times, Hannah needed to take Derby Museums’ activities into the digital space and required a platform where they could facilitate their sessions online. The need to transition to a new modality for what had been outcomes driven by human contact meant that processes had to be re-engineered and meeting tools used to ensure that the values, outcomes and methodologies of Derby could be maintained, if not enhanced.

Finding the Right Collaboration Tool for Remote Teams

It was important for Hannah to find a platform that could offer a choice of tools for collaborative human-centred design brainstorming and thinking. She also needed the collaboration tool to be intuitive, flexible and able to provide a great experience for both the facilitator and participants, with the massive price tags and steep learning curve.

Before finding GroupMap she had tried other collaboration tools, but found they were either too restrictive, with limited ways to engage, or too open, which led to participants interrupting each other’s contributions and as a result the experience became messy and the session less effective.

‘I’ve been looking for a great digital platform that allows us to do similar things online as we do in person – brainstorming, empathy mapping, journey mapping etc. and have tried several – Miro, Mural, Google Jamboard etc. and I think GroupMap is by far the best user experience‘. – Hannah Fox

Workshop Facilitation Tools and Techniques

Derby Museums have been using GroupMap to support them in their Museum of Making project. 

They have conducted a wide range of collaborative development sessions with staff, volunteers, and stakeholders in groups of between 10 to 50 people. These sessions were conducted through a range of virtual meetings and workshops and a range of activities and techniques were supported.

These included:

  • General Brainstorming
  • Empathy Mapping
  • Value Proposition
  • Stakeholder Mapping
  • Programme Design
  • Project Development
  • Teaching
Empathy Map with GroupMap

Hannah's GroupMap Experience

‘GroupMap provided an invaluable collaborative tool that allowed facilitators to plan and deliver sessions effectively, enabling the journey mapping of sessions ahead of time and creating ways to run a workshop and gather insights that seamlessly enabled collaborative thinking. The participant experience was enjoyable, interesting and fun!‘ – Hannah Fox

Hannah was impressed by the abundance of templates GroupMap provides to help get you started, noting that they were very relevant and hugely useful. 

Hannah also reflected that the ability for the group to brainstorm and generate lots of ideas quickly in GroupMap had been particularly useful. 

As a facilitator, being able to see who is contributing enabled her to offer prompts to support the quieter contributors to increase overall engagement and participation.

She received great feedback from the participants of her development sessions with the most common compliments being how intuitive and easy it was to use the platform.

‘Really enjoyed the session you ran using GroupMap – it was a fantastic way to collaborate!’ – Meeting participant

Value Proposition with GroupMap

GroupMap: Supporting Organizational Outcomes

For Derby Museums, GroupMap has been a huge success, helping them achieve their organizational outcomes of:

  • Collaborative planning
  • Human-centred design and co-production activities
  • Sector teaching opportunities

‘At last, a platform that supports the way we think and gives us a fantastic digital space to develop ideas and collaborate with others! It helped us take our normal project planning and in person activities online during the pandemic, but will continue to be a hugely useful addition to our resources once a little bit of normality returns.’- Hannah Fox

Derby Museums will be continuing to use GroupMap for planning and developing their internal projects, as well as externally to engage with partners and communities in developing ideas, gathering data and for delivering workshops and activities. These partners include corporations like Rolls-Royce, as well as museum organisations internationally.

Want to try GroupMap as an online brainstorm tool? 

Schedule a demo with a GroupMap team member at a day and time that suits you best or have a go of our easy to use, supported online brainstorm tool for FREE for 14 days today.