Interesting Projects
Blue Chalk Series
We designed, prepared and facilitated a series of 20 biannual events at Group Vice
President Level of a top FTSE 100 company. These focused on senior people and
giving them time out to learn, collaborate and innovate with input from external
companies; and free flowing discussion resulting in agreeing technology to be
applied globally and changes in capability today which address challenges five
years hence.
Collaborators and organisations involved included John Leggate (CIO BP); Scott
McNealy (Chairman & CEO, Sun Microsystems), Larry Ellison (Chairman & CEO
Oracle), Olivier Gouin (CIO, Nestle) Professor Edward Tufte (Professor Emeritus
of Statistics, Information Design, Interface Design and Political Economy at Yale
University), Ed Leonard (CTO, Dreamworks), Jeff Liedel (Director Technology,
Ford Motor Group), Eric Bonabeau (CEO and Chief Scientific Officer, Icosystem),
Clay Shirky (Adjunct Professor at NYU, consultant, teacher and writer on the social
and economic effects of internet technologies).
Our involvement in the design of the events resulted in a meeting structure which
encouraged sharing of diverse opinions and wide ranging discussion among
participants. Working closely with speakers before and during the event
maintained focus on specific business examples and options and not generic or
theoretical perspectives.
Pat’s ability to synthesise large amounts of complex data and conflicting themes
and summarise the input from day one, at the start of the discussions on day two
became an integral part of the process enabling rich and focused conversations
to take part in break out groups. The output captured in these sessions is
available through an externally hosted subscription knowledgebase – in detail
and summarised – and keynotes were also videoed and edited by our team.
The overall approach to this series of meetings has been filmed and presented to
postgraduate students and professors at MIT as an outstanding example of a
corporate innovation process.
Music Business Strategy
Working within the world’s leading independent music company (which operates
directly in 50 countries, with licensees in a further 20 and employs around 5,500
people), we were asked by the Managing Director of a division to design and
facilitate a strategy awayday themed on ‘Adapting to Change’. This went beyond
a traditional approach and involved the entire organisation (50 people) in a one
day offsite event (from MD down to junior A&R people).
The challenge here was to design a strategic conversation which held the attention
of the media and entrepreneurial participants, was fun and enjoyable, but still
engaged them in the creation of the strategy and generated the required business
outcome.
Our experience of working with diverse groups, and awareness of a range of tools
and devices to generate the right sort of conversation enabled him to create
and facilitate a successful day. The group worked together in plenary and broke
into smaller groups for discussion and identifying experiments to test the
implementation of the strategy.
Previous attempts at similar sessions (without our help) had not succeeded as
they had either not taken into account the nature of the music business and were
too ‘corporate’, or had degenerated into a party instead of a working event. The
successful outcome of this event fed into a programme of quick wins and
integrated longer term activity, and the increased connectedness of the group
made ongoing communication simpler.
World Health Organisation
The WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United
Nations system. The Roll Back Malaria Forum conducted a Partners Forum in
Yaoundé Cameroon to assess the activities to date and identify areas where the
global malaria response could be optimised and optimally coordinated to fully
support and respond to the needs of at-risk populations. The forum provided a
platform for dialogue and outlined the response required from the community over
the next ten years to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
The facilitator of the event recognised a need to do something differently to the
traditional ‘panel question and answer’ session and contacted us for input to
the design and support with the process. A plan was developed to use an
innovative online approach which would allow every participant at the event to
input their own comments and point of view, which would then be reviewed,
moderated and collated.
When we arrived in Cameroon we found out that the 400 participants planned for
the conference had increased to 600 as country presidents, politicians from around
the world and tribal leaders had elected to attend; and that 150 journalists
were also to participate in the sessions. The process which had been designed
was scalable to accommodate the extra numbers, and still maintain the intent of
allowing everyone to have a voice in the discussion. The only snag was that the
internet satellite had ‘gone down’ and there was no online access, so the team
reverted to a manual process involving the 750 delegates and simultaneous
translation. Onwards and upwards!
At the end of the event the core team produced a draft document which was presented
to the panel dignitaries as ‘the voice of the Forum’. This was agreed and adopted as
the “Declaration of Yaoundé”. This was a unique achievement for the United
Nations as it had truly been created as a collaborative document and would not
have been possible without our input and innovative process design.
The Meetings Audit
ForthRoad were invited to undertake a study of the meetings that went on in
a major international oil exploration company. We firmly believe that meetings
are a microcosm of an organisation, and that the way they use meetings can
tell us a lot about the way they perform as a company.
Over the course of three weeks we observed as wide a cross section of
meetings as we could, at all levels of the company and on a huge range of
topics.
The patterns that emerged from this study were so strong that it gave us some
startling insights into their culture, and we were able to make recommendations
for improving their business (not just their meetings!) that they could really relate
to, and would be effective throughout their organisation.
Learning at Work Event
Three weeks notice for a one-day event for 1500 people which will be
both thought provoking and practical? No problem!
ForthRoad project managed the production of the largest Learning at Work
event in the UK. Using our own expertise and the contacts we have built up
over a number of years we secured a world class speaker and 14 different
marketplace stalls from practical speed reading skills to exploring learning
through art.
Absorption of New Corporate Governance Requirements
While we were designing a workshop to train a blue chip oil clients employees
in a new system of internal control we realised that there was a very simple
way to get across a consistent message each time we ran the workshop –
create a video!
After agreeing the brief with the client we began work on a ten minute introduction
piece which would be distributed in advance of the workshops – and also
available to people who could not attend in person.
We created a storyboard and interviewed one of the senior team members in the
client organisation. This ‘talking head shot’ was combined with original music
and text and graphics to create a short film to introduce the topic. The format was
consistent with the clients own branding and created in both CD and DVD
formats, which could also be streamed over their intranet.
Not only does is this an innovate way to introduce a workshop, it is also a great
way to get a corporate message distributed uniformly through the organisation
in a way that is flexible for each employee to use at their convenience. Much
better than another memo!
Things to do
Travel Diaries
The Boathouse as a Venue
The Boathouse is getting busier as more and more people find out about it – download the pdf and get in touch to book your off-site meeting before all the dates are full!
Weather at The Boathouse
What's In The Forth?
Client Logins
Files for Downloading
- Boathouse Introduction
- ForthRoad Brand Story