Pivotal: the facilitators

Sheryl’s workshop @ IAF Oceania Conference Melbourne

Sheryl — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:32:07 +0000

I’m off to Melbourne at the end of the week. Will be attending the inaugural IAF Oceania Conference in Melbourne. I’m running a strategy planning workshop on the very first afternoon. If you’re interested, you can hear a brief overview by following this link Building For Success: A Facilitation Approach.

I’m so looking forward to connecting up with my facilitator colleagues – NZ, Australia, Asia, UK, USA and Canada – and possibly others that I haven’t heard from I always learn so much and come away feeling totally invigorated!! Cheers Sheryl

Survey Monkey – Key lesson learnt

Sheryl — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 01:07:18 +0000

Yes, I already knew this BUT it’s not till you do it and have to deal with it that it really is something you know and will not repeat.

Be very cautious in encouraging narrative responses!! You get wonderful rich feedback that will make everyone happy except the person who has to analyse it!! In this instance it was me and more than 8 hours later before the wonderful feedback from only 9 questions was collated, key themes identified etc.

New Website launched

Sheryl — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:04:32 +0000

New Website launched

Finally made it!
We’ve wanted to refocus and freshen Pivotal’s website for some time. The initial site was to be transitional only – and how long ago was that?
Wow those years have flown!

What’s prompted us to turn plans into action? Well, we gave ourselves some of our own medicine – a bit of internal consultancy!
We realised we were not answering potential clients’ fundamental question – Why Pivotal?

We hope our revitalised website will explain much better who we are and what we do and let you see what’s in it for you if you work with us.

Have we achieved this?
Does it work for you? We’d love your feedback.

New Learning for Online Meetings continued

Sheryl — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:06:20 +0000

I’ve found a couple of ‘free’ websites that have reduced markedly my time and effort in working across time zones. Each has far more capabilities than I’ve outlined below. I have simply covered the functions that have been invaluable for me.

TimeAndDate
This website lets me include a link in meeting invites giving the equivalent time and date for each time zone. I have also set up a Personal World Clock using the time zones that are relevant for me. It also has an Event Planner tool. I can determine best meeting times etc. The information is colour coded for ease of seeing usual ‘working’, ‘awake but may not be working’ and ‘sleeping’ hours.

Doodle
With Doodle I can check out the availability of essential personnel before establishing a meeting time. The beauty of it is I don’t need to convert my time into the equivalent time in each of the other participant’s time zones – it does it for us! Also, I get notified when people respond, I see graphically how many people ‘can’, ‘could if need necessary’, or ‘can’t’ make a certain time and also what is the most popular time.

Learning New Online Meeting Skills

Sheryl — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:02:39 +0000

I have learnt so much in the last few months about working across time zones to make things happen. In my Director role with the International Association of Facilitators,
I have global Professional Development accountabilities. This has resulted in me having to transition from being a participant in multi-participant online meetings to facilitating them. My sense is that I’m not on my own with this steep learning curve. If you’re interested, I plan to share some of my learnings as I go along. Today I share some of my learnings about simply getting ready for the event. And believe me, even with wonderful support from experienced colleagues, I’ve still learnt the hard way!

Prepare; prepare; prepare!! It’s always important to prepare for a meeting and even more so for online meetings.

What is your purpose? Is this the best way to achieve it? Could some of your requirements be met better in another way to free up more time for those matters that are essential to address together online?
What can be shared prior to the meeting so that all participants are well informed?
How will it be most effective for participants to contribute during the meeting – verbally, writing responses to posted questions, voting in polls, a mixture of processes
Ideally, the type of presentation and participant contribution you need will determine the distance platform you will use. The practical reality may be the other way round. What can the available platform do? Get as familiar as you can with the capabilities and foibles of your available platform?
Does everyone have access to the necessary technology – 2 way headset; fast broadband etc?
Who will manage any technical glitches or difficulties participants may experience in logging into the meeting or once online? And you can be pretty certain they will
happen!
Be clear about how long before the meeting commences you need participants to log in to ensure the technology is working okay?
With a meeting of participants who know each other already, do you need to make explicit that the ‘catch up chat’ should occur prior to the commencement of the formal agenda?
It is essential to make meeting protocol explicit e.g. How do you signal you want to contribute?
How will you capture and share meeting outcomes when multi-media contributions are used?

Good luck with your online meeting facilitation journey and I’ll continue to share my experiences.

New Pivotal Logo

Sheryl — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:58:44 +0000

Pivotal’s new logo was inspired by one of our daughter Kate Smail’s designer necklaces. Multi-coloured and multi-layered it shouts energy, uniqueness and flair. Expert design skills coupled with specialist techniques and creativity transformed individual buttons – a mix of everyday and extraordinary – into a work of wearable art much greater than the sum of its parts. What a beautiful metaphor for the role of a facilitator!

The button works also as a metaphor on other levels too – helping separate parts come together; joining; closing; making secure. Buttons are also something you press to get
action – a web icon; the lift button; the ‘reset’ button.

We also desired an image with a strong sense of forward momentum to reflect our intense focus on helping clients get crystal clear about their requirements then working with them to achieve desired results.