My Basketball Coach
I have always been tall and husky. I was my current height, 6 foot 7 inches, in my freshman year of high school, and I was a basketball player and… Read more My Basketball Coach →
Collaborating to Understand Collaboration; A New Tool
I imagine the majority of us value collaboration. We believe that doing it increases impact, fosters innovation, and is especially called for when it comes to effecting large-scale systemic change… Read more Collaborating to Understand Collaboration; A New Tool →
About Collective Impact: Types of Problems, Degrees of Change, Learning Loops, and Methods of Thinking
Collective Impact is multi-sector approach to large-scale collaboration that is authentically inclusive of citizens in its development and implementation – in particular citizens who have life-experience with the big problems… Read more About Collective Impact: Types of Problems, Degrees of Change, Learning Loops, and Methods of Thinking →
Wiki Sites are Great Engagement Tools
Collective Impact is a long-play on community change. Large scale community change takes time and over the life of a Collective Impact initiative, there will be many documents and lists… Read more Wiki Sites are Great Engagement Tools →
SCALES FOR EVALUATING ENGAGEMENT SATISFACTION
This tool is one I developed for a quick session I taught at Tamarack’s recent learning gathering in Vancouver, Community Engagement: The Next Generation. It provides an overview on the… Read more SCALES FOR EVALUATING ENGAGEMENT SATISFACTION →
Why Strategic Planning Goes Wrong
reprinted by request As a consultant, executive staff member, board director, and teacher, I have had the opportunity to engage in a lot of strategic planning. I think about it, research it, and look for ideas to make it work better than how it tends to work. It has always bothered me to know that more often than not strategic planning efforts go awry. In another article I wrote on this topic, I stated the biggest reason why strategic plans fail is that people don’t do them. While there is… Read more Why Strategic Planning Goes Wrong →
Journey Maps
Journey maps are used often in the private sector to map out a customer’s experience of a product or service. It identifies customer needs and wants, motivations, and interactions with… Read more Journey Maps →
Engaging in Strategic Dialogue
I recently wrote this info sheet on Strategic Dialogue, which is a riff off of the good work of David Bohm. It provides some great guidelines for group thinking and… Read more Engaging in Strategic Dialogue →
Thinking about the Charity Model and Systems Change Debate
There has been a movement afoot for the past 15 to 20 years that evolved out of a growing dissatisfaction with the charitable sector or more to the point, the… Read more Thinking about the Charity Model and Systems Change Debate →
Upside Down Thinking: Disrupting the Status Quo
This is the slide deck from the presentation I did at the Poverty Reduction Summit in Ottawa in May 2015. I give custom workshops on Upside Down Thinking. Contact me… Read more Upside Down Thinking: Disrupting the Status Quo →
Non-Profits and Lean Thinking
I had a conversation recently with my management team about capacity challenges and capacity building. I did so because it is not uncommon for those in our organization (and those in others as well) to “feel” like they are maxed out in terms of the work and challenges facing them. We work pretty hard at Bissell Centre and I can understand how that sentiment can surface. An organization’s capacity is generally expressed in terms of its: Human Resources (how many staff, volunteers, their skills, their knowledge and experience, as well as… Read more Non-Profits and Lean Thinking →
