Case Study: Tuna Blue Uses Innovative Facilitation Tools to Engage Stakeholders

Tuna Blue Facilitation supports groups to make their best decisions together by providing tailored facilitation processes paired with innovative digital technology.

Group Map Case Study – Tuna Blue Facilitation

Who is Tuna Blue?

Tuna Blue Facilitation supports groups to make their best decisions together by providing tailored facilitation processes paired with innovative digital technology. It’s an approach they call Long Haul Facilitation and it’s been refined in 1,300+ workshops with Government, community, and corporate groups in a diverse range of sectors. Always ready for the long haul, Will and Bevan at Tuna Blue have worked across Australia and the Asia Pacific to help groups get the buy-in and engagement they deserve.

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1. What was the event, meeting, or objective you were using GroupMap to resolve?

Stakeholder review of the Model of Care for Palliative Care in Western Australia.

2. What were the details of the event in terms of size, name, and location? Is there a link we can refer to?

Over 100 passionate stakeholders (primary and specialist care, allied health, consumers, etc.) at a one-day forum in Perth, WA plus a further 13 regional and remote representatives via Webinar later in the month.

3. What was the main challenge you wanted to resolve?

How to gain really focused and pragmatic input on changes to the Models of Care from a diverse range of expert stakeholders in a way that allowed everyone to have a voice but reached some pretty clear consensus before 4 pm.

4. In what way/s did you use GroupMap?

We created a number of maps for the different workshop sessions throughout the day:

  • A ‘Burning Issues’ session straight upfront, within 3 mins of the forum beginning.
  • A service delivery ‘Gaps and Solutions’ session with the solutions specifically linked to particular gaps through the use of the comment function.
  • A ‘world café’ style session focused on the 5 priority areas for review within the Models of Care, and
  • A shared 10 year Vision session.

5. What was the response from the audience?

We worked in collaborative mode and the participants loved the ability to discuss and enter their views in small groups plus build on other groups’ input. Most of all though, they were astonished that a level of consensus could be reached with 100 people present and that they could leave at 4 pm with a good idea of the overall strategic direction and a clear head. The sponsor closed the forum by saying ‘after running things this way, I don’t think we can ever go back to butchers’ paper and texts, this absolutely changes how engage’.

6. What outcomes/output did you achieve from using GroupMap?

With the wealth of input from the GroupMap sessions and plenaries, we developed a detailed Outcomes Report for the client to guide their review of the Models of Care with the smaller Steering Group. At a deeper level, the stakeholder group was engaged and felt a greater sense of ownership over the changes to the Models of Care that will affect their daily work and their patients.

7. Is there anything else you want to say to people considering using GroupMap for themselves?

We always stress to participants that GroupMap is the technology but the discussion between people is the really catalytic part, where change will occur. So make sure you’ve designed some robust facilitation processes to coincide with GroupMap and you’ll be sweet!

Read more about Tuna Blue’s mission statement here!

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“GroupMap has fundamentally changed the way we do business. As a facilitation consultancy that spent the last 20 years on butchers’ paper, GroupMap has met a real need for ourselves and our clients. Plus it’s made us review and refresh the way we facilitate workshops.”

Will Bessen, Tuna Blue Facilitation[vc_single_image image=”17221″ img_size=”800×400″ alignment=”center”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]

5 activities for creating engaging workshops with impact

Creating engaging workshops is hard work, with research showing that our capacity for attention is lower than a goldfish!

In addition to this, the digital noise around us can be so loud that only something almost extreme can get through, that we expect so much more from movies, a brand or products to get our attention. 

Likewise, we expect no less from our trainers and/or facilitators. 

Here at GroupMap, creating innovation to make workshops, meetings and ideas more collaborative, engaging and have impact excites us. 

When you need the most creative ideas, honest answers or innovative solutions, GroupMap lets you create anonymous brainstorming sessions. Individual (or silent) brainstorming means that everyone can add their ideas and concepts without being influenced by others, including the boss! 

Share inspirations, pictures, hand-drawn images or notes without fear, production blocks or bias.

Here’s five activities suggestions using our workshop tools to more effectively facilitate amazing conversations!

 

Activity 1: Set your team culture to start an engaging workshop 

Start your workshop by setting and validating your team culture. This means getting shared agreement on expectations, objectives and also the ever so important house rules! 

You can easily do this using the Team Canvas ready to use template in GroupMap. The team canvas has been developed to create team alignment, minimize conflict and build a productive culture. 

Engaging workshops with team canvas

Activity 2: Define problems  

Have you ever heard of the saying that a problem defined is half solved? Create engaging workshops with impact by getting participants to brainstorm through solutions, ideas, and alternatives to defined problems. 

Then engage them even more by asking participants to rank and decide on the best possible outcomes. 

GroupMap’s Problem Solving template can help guide a group from defining a problem to deciding on solutions and measuring results. You can then use dot votes to indicate the key points in each step. 

Define problems
A simple 5 step approach that takes people from problem definition through to solutions.

Activity 3: Use the impact effort matrix

Once you have brainstormed solutions to the defined problem/s, you can further engage workshop participants by getting them involved in the process of prioritising ideas and actions based on impact and effort 

GroupMap’s Impact Effort Matrix template is a time saving technique that helps your team prioritize what to do next. 

Here you can rank activities to discover quick wins through to major projects. 

Define impact for engaging workshops
Prioritise projects and initiatives based on impact and effort.

Activity 4: Risk mapping and stakeholder mapping 

Once you and your workshop participants have prioritized actions, you might need to look through what are the risks associated with each action and which stakeholders do you need to consider with each action. 

We recommend creating engaging workshops in this phase by using two methods:

  • Map risks: position risks based on likelihood and impact. Using our template you can dot vote on key risks and decide how actions can be taken. The results here can be used to develop a risk management plan. 
  • Map your stakeholders : improve your communication strategy by deciding who you need to monitor and who you need to manage closely. You can do this easily using our Stakeholder Map template. 

stakeholder-mapping

Activity 5: End an engaging workshop with a retrospective 

At the end of your workshop, it’s important to get feedback on what they think was great and what can be improved. It also helps with recording what needs to be done next (aka an action list) and what still needs to be addressed. 

Using a template such as the WRAP retrospective in GroupMap you can use a technique or game that helps your participants form original ideas by sharing what their Wishes are for an ideal sprint, their Appreciation of what has happened, any Risks they foresee and Puzzles that remain unsolved. 

WRAP up an engaging workshop
Reflect on what went well for the meeting as well as what you could do to improve next time.

Try these five activities with GroupMap today!

Want to try these five inspirations to create more engaging workshops with impact at your next workshop? 

You can today with 14 days free trial. 

Also, check out some of our 60+ group decision-making templates, some of which we’ve mentioned here.