Services

Meeting facilitation

Using an independent facilitator to run your meeting means that you can be free to participate. You can focus on the topic at hand without being worried about keeping the meeting on track, managing different participants or being unfairly judged as having too much influence or bias on the process.

Using an independent facilitator also ensures that:

• You have a process design that identifies a clear purpose and outcomes
• All participants have the opportunity to contribute
• Your assumptions are ‘tested’ through having the situation viewed from a ‘fresh perspective’

Recent experience in meeting facilitation

Australian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council (AFAC)

AFAC National Knowledge Network Forum – Information sharing and network development forum to improve research utilisation within Australian and New Zealand fire and emergency services.

Australian Wine Research Institute

Regional Program Planning Workshop. Industry workshop to identify research and development priorities for the Western Australia wine industry.

Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development

Value Chain Planning Workshop. State-wide workshop to develop a grass-fed beef product value chain pilot for Western Australia.

Main Roads WA

Environment Priorities Workshop – Team workshop to identify environment objectives, targets and indicators for the Environment Branch, aligned with their EMS obligations.

Strategic planning

Undertaking strategic planning provides you and your team with the time and space to consider ‘why’ you’re doing what you’re doing. Then consider ‘what’s possible’ and identify how you’ll make it happen. Importantly – as my colleague, Bevan Bessen, says – it’s all about transformation.

When undertaking strategic planning, we’ll help you to:

• Gain clarity and agreement on what you’re really aiming to achieve and the legacy you want to leave
• Test the assumptions about your current situation and the key influencers of this
• Gain clarity on the BIG challenges that you’ll need to address
• Develop a realistic and accountable pathway to achieve your goals

Practical experience in strategic planning

Mingenew Irwin Group

Review of performance using dashboard indicators. Review, update and development of objectives, strategies and tactics to guide the Board over the coming three years. Undertaken with the board of one of Australia’s most innovative farmer-led independent research and development groups.

Foundation for Regional and Rural Renewal

Strategic planning workshops – held with the leadership team focusing on staff and client relationship management

Charles Sturt University (Muresk)

Review of strategic priorities; refine alignment with CSU priorities; clarify communication plan

Team awareness

As you know, it’s vital that your team members have a strong self-awareness along with a good understanding of each other.

The CLICK! colours toolkit is a simple tool that produces fantastic results for your team. Andrew is an accredited CLICK! Facilitator and has used the toolkit to work with teams to help them to improve their performance, understand their strengths and identify areas to work on.

It’s also a great tool for improving the way people connect with and look after their clients. Get in touch to discuss a short, intensive workshop for your team.

Clients who have benefited from the CLICK! Colours include:

• Birchip Cropping Group
• City of Karratha
• Family Worker Training and Development Program
• Fremantle Ports Authority
• St John of God Hospital, Murdoch

Team function, roles and responsibilities

You’ve probably been to numerous ‘team building’ programs. We get plenty of requests to run them, and that’s OK. However, we firmly believe in the value of a team developing a better understanding of each other and committing to higher levels of accountability and delivery.

Sure, it will still involve the ‘F-word’ (fun), but we’ll make sure that you get ongoing value from getting your team together.

We’ve worked with teams and organisations at a project, organisational and national level to help them to identify ways to support each other and work more collaboratively together.

Practical experience in building teams

Australian Dairy Leaders Alumni Summit.

National gathering of leaders from across the Australian dairy industry. The summit enabled participants to identify how they’d invest in their community, their industry and importantly – themselves.  Involved facilitation of interactive, speaker, panel and workshop sessions and a program debrief with the planning team.

Western Australian Community Health Service

Two day team development and strategic planning workshop for staff of the Eastern Pilbara Drug and Alcohol Unit.

Anglican Board of Mission

Leadership team development program for staff and bishops of the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea.

Effective community engagement requires a planned approach that identified the key stakeholders, their needs and the benefits to them from participating in the process.

As a member of the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2)  I’m serious about meaningful community engagement processes. Open and transparent processes are paramount. I have been involved in the coordination of a range of consultation-based projects over several years. These include:

• Stakeholder engagement planning and implementation as part of the preparation of the WA Forestry Industry Development Plan (Forest Products Commission)
• Community forums to provide input into the development of an integrated management plan for local waterways. (City of Busselton)
• Stakeholder workshop to provide input into the East Kimberley Strategic Community Plan. (Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley)
• Citizens Jury on Nuclear Waste. Member of facilitation team throughout the six day deliberation process of 350 jurors to provide recommendations to the South Australian government re the storage and disposal of nuclear waste. (Democracy Co)
• Facilitator of the Stakeholder Reference Group to review Alcoa Australia’s Long Term Residue Management Strategy at their Pinjarra refinery. (Alcoa)

Innovation in stakeholder engagement

Recent innovations in consultation reporting by the team include:

• The use of web based software such as GroupMap and Google Docs at selected times during workshops to enable participants to use supplied (or their own) tablets, iPads or laptops to input their responses to focus questions and see real time results (no more butchers paper!)
• The opportunity for stakeholders to participate remotely online through platforms such as Zoom and Group Map
• A concise workshop summary in infographic format for more ‘real time’ community dissemination and reflection of the key themes from the workshops (See the example here from the ‘Smart Cities’ workshop)

These innovations will deliver greater involvement and a sense of cutting edge, which will address the possibility of ‘consultation fatigue’ and ‘butchers paper syndrome’ amongst key stakeholders.

Check out this short video on how to design a simple community engagement process

Planning your engagement process

You may need an independent person to help with the development of stakeholder engagement plan. This should include:

• The purpose and outcomes of the engagement process
• The scope of the plan – the issues around which engagement will occur
• Stakeholder identification and mapping
• Identification of the level of engagement – using the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Spectrum of Public Participation
• Engagement and consultation strategy
  • Scoping – identifying decision points, stakeholders and the negotiable issues
  • Planning – defining success for stakeholders and identifying risks
  • Implementation – outlining the engagement and communication activities
  • Evaluation – describing the monitoring and evaluation of the process.

Implementing your engagement process

Or you may be ready to actively engage your target audience. This may include:

• Key stakeholder workshops or information sessions
• Utilising your website or Youtube channel
• Development of video updates for the project
• A set of FAQ to provide responses to
• Development of a project information pack
• A tailored information package for media

Our experience in working with government and community stakeholders throughout Australia means we’re able to deliver a tailored product and process that provides ongoing value for you, your project and your stakeholders long after the engagement process has been completed.

Our training and coaching programs focus on the essential communication skills that your people will need to work effectively together and with your clients.

Here is an outline of all our professional development and training programs.