[Ailist] Organization wide AI summit question

[Mary-Alice Arthur]

Hi from Kiwiland!

When I facilitated the merger of two telecommunication organisations (one of
600 and the other of 700), we used 4 hour 'Forum Sessions' to bring like
parts of the two organisations together.

We introduced the merger, then AI and asked each participant to find someone
with the same colour name badge (indicating work area) but the other company
logo.  Pairs interviewed each other (a full 7 question interview guide),
filled in a summary sheet and then groups of 6 downloaded stories and
created icons of the 3 - 5 positive core results and presented them.

This created a continual build of information and stories across the
organisation, as well as 'patterning the space' as participants told about
their experiences back in their groups.  Information was continually
reported on the organisation's intranet site.  Our goal was 1/3 of all staff
participating in the Forums, across two countries and 7 cities.  We got 27%.

The Summit was a three day, 200+ person event, also drawn from a cross
section of the organisations.  Prior to the Summit, each participant was
told they represented 4 others within the wider system and asked to conduct
4 shorter interviews with people from their team and bring their notes with
them.  People were seated in mixed teams of 8 and also interviewed someone
at their table on Day 1.

We made sure quotes from interviews and photos of our Forum sessions were up
in the venue.  The Advisory Team also reported on their synthesis of our
prior work during the Summit.  (we had logged all our summary sheets and
read through all the comments -- as did the General Manager!)

At the end of the Summit, each participant exchanged their list of 4 names
with someone else at their table and reported back to those four people --
once again, an attempt to generate more links within the business.

During the Summit we had a live blog up with streaming media of the speakers
and had about 1200 hits.  Everyone seemed to know what we were up to.  The
energy was massive.

Happy to share more if you wish.

Best wishes!

Mary Alice



Mary-Alice Arthur
SOAR
PO Box 10-868
Wellington
New Zealand
mobile:  +64-21-687-627
email:  mary-alice at getsoaring.com
web:  http://www.getsoaring.com




on 2/21/09 3:35 AM, Susan_Duff at ssmhc.com at Susan_Duff at ssmhc.com wrote:

> I have a question; we are planning an AI summit later this year, and had
> the idea of having people who would actually attend the summit facilitate
> a "mini" AI session in their department, and bring data from interviews to
> the summit, with the idea that everyone's voice is heard.  Has anyone ever
> done something like this? I'm open to thoughts/ideas regarding gargantuan
> data collection, opening of the summit itself--use the same set of
> questions for opening interviews?  If the summit participants bring
> collected data from their department, the benefit will be themes specific
> to departments, but I'm afraid we'll lose the benefit of
> "cross-pollination" and sharing of ideas that sparks creativity. Thoughts,
> anyone? 
> 
> Thank you! 
> Susan Duff
> Organization Development Consultant
> SSM Health Care - St. Louis Network
> 
> 
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