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Frequently
Asked Questions About CollaborWriting-Planning
Q - What technical experience is required on the part of
the participants?
A - Very little! The groupware is intuitive, easy to use and participants
are up and running in minutes. Access is as simple as logging into
a website from any high-speed Internet access. At a pharmaceutical
management conference we worked successfully with sixty CEOs of
Managed Care organizations. Basic typing skills were all that was
necessary for them to actively participate. We observed a high level
of engagement by all the CEOs. The evaluation comments were very
positive, and ratings in the final conference evaluation on the
CollaborWriting session were the highest for any of the activities
at the overall event.
Q How many attendees should participate in CollaborWriting-Planning?
A The short answer is between 12 & 40. CollaborWriting-Planning
was designed to help in situations where several large topics of
great complexity require multiple decisions moving forward. One
of the greatest values of collaboration is the ability to focus
many minds against tough problems. To that end, the process was
designed with a divide & conquer' approach that employs sub-teams
to work on behalf of the larger group to shape and refine decisions.
These sub-teams must have enough content knowledge to successfully
represent the larger group. In a perfect world, these teams are
no smaller than 4 people and not larger than 8. Depending on the
scope of the planning work, it is sometimes appropriate to have
a larger group. Each situation is different and with a better understanding
of your objectives we can coach you to determine an optimal mix
of attendees.
Q How much lead-time is required to get a planning session
up and running?
A Generally, very little time is required in advance.
We try to keep our work with leadership in preparation to between
2 and 3 hours total. We generally coach to avoid pre-work as it
tends to burden attendees and sets a negative tone coming into the
session. Usually the greatest amount of lead-time is clearing the
schedules of those who will attend. To help with this, we have a
collection of ready-made invitations that we share with our clients
to fast track the invitation process. If we have availability and
you have objectives, we can react in as little as one week from
our first conversation.
Q Will I need to involve my technical support group in
setting up for the session?
A No. We handle all aspects of the technology set-up
and do not require any outside assistance. For face-to-face meetings
do require the use of a computer printer and projector to be provided
by our clients. Usually these are available in-house or can be easily
rented. Rooms must be equipped with internet access for all attending.
Q What other staff and responsibilities will be involved
from the client-side in setting up?
A It is useful to have someone from inside the organization
organize the logistics like, scheduling for web-based meetings.
For face-to-face meetings we will need help securing a meeting room,
ordering food and any travel arrangements. It is also important
that someone act as a conduit for communications such as invitations
and updates prior to the event with attendees. Macro Thinking Inc.
takes care of all arrangements with those in charge of the meeting
room or conference center. All we need is the name of the person
who will be setting up the room and we take it from there.
Q Does this entire meeting take place in front of computers
without any verbal discussion? What about those who like to talk?
A CollaborWriting-Planning was carefully designed to
strike a balance between many personality styles in order to make
certain that all leave the session feeling fully expressed'. More
than 60% of the process is dedicated to verbal discussion and we
rarely receive complaints that someone felt that there was not enough
talking. With that said, there are times in the process when the
use of the computers is the most efficient way to get the work done.
This is particularly true of Idea Generation, use of real-time evaluation
metrics such as Rating and when feeding back to others on proposed
solutions. Part of the fun that people have in these sessions is
the huge productivity gain and lack of wasted time. Most often,
people consider this a refreshing approach when compared to traditional
all verbal sessions that support grandstanding and other counterproductive
behavior.
Q What about using CollaborWriting-Planning in foreign
countries or with global teams?
A We have extensive experience delivering face-to-face
services in the UK, France, Canada, Japan & Singapore. In most
of these situations, the attendees have been a mix of professionals
based around the world coming together for annual or quarterly management
planning. Typically, many of those in attendance have English as
a second language and often their reading and writing skills are
better than their verbal skills. Because CollaborWriting uses web-connected
computers to express ideas and real-time metrics for idea evaluation,
the pace is tempered and the playing field leveled. We often receive
enthusiastic comments that this is a much better method than all-verbal
approaches. In today's cost/travel constrained climate, web-based
CollaborWriting has been successfully applied to unite global teams.
A recent 4-day planning session included 35 people from Bangalore
India with 7 people attending from New Jersey, which saved the client
10s of thousands of dollars in travel expense.
Do you have other questions? Please contact
us. We would be happy to share more about how we have served our
clients with CollaborWriting!
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