Making your next offsite more valuable

As we’re slowly starting to meet in-person again, you’re probably starting to think of your next offsite with your team. On top of encouraging alignment on your strategic priorities, offsites promote team cohesion, so it’s natural to consider planning one. As I was going through my materials and tools for offsite planning and facilitation, I thought I’d share what I’ve learned over the past 10 years.

Here are 6 things you should consider doing to make your next offsite better in terms of format, content, and output:

1. don’t reuse the agenda from your last offsite. Routine kills creativity, while unexpected experiences generate greater outcomes.

There’s more than one way to achieve the results you’re seeking, and you shouldn’t do things the same way you did them last time. Move away from traditional 9-to-5 presentations and roundtables. Try these ideas instead:

• Go beyond Post-its and PowerPoint presentations! Explore other mediums to facilitate conversations. Create something immersive like a walking conversation, a brainstorming session using painting, a challenge, etc.
• Change the usual timing: start earlier in the day, plan multiple active breaks and non-business activities, etc.

2. Invite external and diverse participants. 

Step out of your comfort zone! Invite speakers from different industries, artists, clients, and suppliers—it’s a way to add new perspectives around the table. Learn from their experiences and discover new perspectives that could be applied to your industry. The speakers don’t have to be present at your offsite; they could participate in a brainstorming session instead.

If confidentiality is a concern, speakers can sign an NDA or participate only in activities that don’t involve confidential or sensitive notions. The more perspectives you bring in, the more impressive the outcome will be. Trust me—I saw this in action two weeks ago when we launched the Chamber of Beautiful Business of Montreal.

3. Improve the quality and relevance of your input to increase the quality of the conversations and output.

Take the time to gather new insights for the meeting. The important word here is NEW: don’t reuse an old trend report and don’t present your latest diagnostics for the tenth time—create something fresh especially for this offsite:

• Conduct 10‒15 interviews with stakeholders to gain perspectives on trends, your current performance, coming opportunities and challenges, and your drivers for success.
• Find/build a powerful megatrend presentation.
• Survey participants well in advance to collect and integrate their insights into conversations and activities.
• Bring new topics to the table, and let them live for a moment before discarding them—they may be a source of inspiration for something else.

4. Make preparation mandatory.

Make sure your team receives the preparation materials at least one week in advance, and ensure they’re complete and relevant. Why not complement those materials with some field observation homework? Ask your team members to observe your clients or front-line operations for a few hours.

General rule of thumb: your participants may need a day or so to prepare for an offsite (reading material, field observations, intervention preparation, etc.) Why not block off a preparation day in your participants’ agendas the week before your offsite so they come prepared?

5. Have your team imagine the future for a while—go farther than a vision board.

Plan a scenario-building exercise (read my article on scenarios). It doesn’t have to be perfect or scientific to generate a powerful outcome. Consider potential alternative worlds you might have to operate in the future. Split your participants into groups and give each group a set of characteristics to use to define a scenario. Use the inputs described in point 3 to define them. Provide participants with tools and materials to illustrate and describe the scenario (other than PowerPoint). Give them some time to work on this (maybe 3‒4 hours or a night) and have each group present their scenario and its implications the next day.

Next, sit back and look at the commonalities across each scenario. Then, define your vision and identify key challenges and priorities, as well as orientations and action plans to reach it.

6. Commit on something together

Conclude your offsite with a team milestone to attain together in the next 6‒9 months. It doesn’t have to be business related. It could be getting ready for a sports competition, raising funds for a foundation, etc. Plan an event to mark the milestone. Use the future event to follow up on your plan while recognizing the hard work that was done to get there.

In conclusion

With the right level of preparation and the ingredients described above, your next offsite will be worth the time and investment.

I miss planning real in-person offsites with you. I have the time, energy, and passion to create something unique and productive. Reach out to me so we can plan your next offsite together!