National School Reform Faculty

Planning/Visioning
Date: March 16-18, 2004
Listserv: Coaches

Tuesday, March 16, 2004 9:35 AM
From Bob at America's Choice...any thoughts out there?:

Gene,
Do you have any thoughts about an appropriate protocol for school teams to envision what they want to look like a few years down the road--and then talk about how to get there? I've used the Futures Protocol a few times (usually in a modified version) but didn't know if anything else comes to mind? If the Futures Protocol makes sense, is there a version any newer than 1/2003--the one I've used. Bob

Gene, MA

Tuesday, March 16, 2004 6:05 PM
I think the Multiple Perspectives Protocol could be useful if you ask the right question(s). We used it recently to talk about grade promotion and it really helped us to see what skills our students needed to have in order to be ready to go on to the next grade.
Jill, CA

Tuesday, March 16, 2004 6:14 PM
Bob, I'm not sure how long you have to do this, but Appreciative Inquiry and Future Search are sound multiple day models for strategic planning.

If time is short than the discovery and dream sections of an Appreciative Inquiry might work for you.

Let me know if you would like more information.
Chris, PA

Tuesday, March 16, 2004 11:55 PM
Hello folks
I just wanted to share a few modifications with the Futures Protocol as I have been using it recently. I used it with a middle school staff of 50 that was struggling with an understanding around direction. In using the protocol, I had table groups script their future vision three years out and then had them give feedback one table at a time until the ideas were out and charted in the front of the room. They generated about 25. To make the process more practical, we then prioritized the list of 25 before going further by using a "Focus Four" strategy that widdled the list down to 10 (the focus four is part of Adaptive Schools - Garmston/Wellman). You could use any collaborative decision making process, but the key here was that we then did the rest of the protocol working very directly on behalf of just the 10 "future" state ideas. As a result, the part of "how did we get there" had much more direct connection from who we were to who we are now. It was a suggestion from a participant a while back and it really worked well! The list of "how" was directly connected and teams are at work on them as we speak:).

Another way I've modified is to have the groups "chart" the future state and then I facilitate the teams in a "gallery walk" so they see what others are saying and what their vision is. I usually guide the gallery walk with a few questions and time them as they move in teams from poster to poster. The key here is synthesis, so that when they return to their poster, the question is "what do we collectively believe about our future" or something like that. We then chart those statements together and moved right to the how might we make them happen. It seemed to be beneficial to have the walk around time in the early stages, because we really picked up steam after that.

My discoveries of late have been that the more you can narrow the future state and get it pretty tight in categories or ideas, the more productive the action planning tends to be.
I'd love to hear how others are modifying and using other strategies (or combining them) to help folks vision out their organization and teams. Best of luck. Let me know either on the listserv or to my own email if you have been using the Future Protocol with modifications that have been successful. Thanks a bunch!
Scott, CO- designer of the "futures protocol"

Wednesday, March 17, 2004 11:44 AM
Betty and Frances debuted a new draft protocol called Inquiry Circles based on Appreciative Inquiry and the Success protocol at the winter meeting. It was very promising! I adapted it for a visioning and action planning process for our school-improvement project team.
Erica, VT

Wednesday, March 17, 2004 4:25 PM
Jill, and others: Thanks for pointing me to the Multiple Perspective protocol--I'm thinking of trying it, but I don't understand why procedure 2 doesn't come before procedure 1, which says that participants are encouraged to select their identifying perspective "according to the group's purpose."

So they need to know the purpose first. The point of view a person may want to take will most likely depend on the question at hand--what one will be viewing. Would you agree? Why was it set up this way? Am I missing something important? Thanks.
Alec, MA

Thursday, March 18, 2004 4:32 PM
--- You wrote:
My discoveries of late have been that the more you can narrow the future
state and get it pretty tight in categories or ideas, the more productive the
action planning tends to be.
--- end of quote ---

I agree entirely, Scott, and this was borne out at a successful faculty meeting yesterday at the middle school where I teach in Hanover, NH.

The school is moving to a brand new building in Fall of '05, and we see this move as both a physical and symbolic opportunity to create a new school. (Preserving what is good, while working on what needs improvement.)

We did the preliminary work for this eventual process over two meetings. First we did a Chalk Talk as a staff, with four prompts ("Logistical concerns I have about the actual move,"; "Things that excite me about a new building..." ; "Things about our school I want to make sure we preserve..."; "New opportunities...") spread around in the hallways, and faculty informally moving back and forth during the twenty minutes of time, adding their thoughts, reading new ones, etc.

The CFG coaches in the building then took some time to collate all of the various responses, and we brought four topics distilled from the Chalk Talk to a staff meeting yesterday. For this meeting, the eight CFG coaches paired up, and each pair hosted a Futures Protocol discussion on "their" topic." The staff divided themselves up among the four different rooms (by area of personal interest, but also with an eye to not having any room have fewer than ten people), and the next 45 minutes was spent focusing on the "Future," "Past," and "How we got there" sections of the protocol. Afterwards, the papers were posted in the hallway for a Gallery Walk, and a brief discussion as a whole staff.

To connect back to your point about specificity often being a good idea with the Futures Protocol, each room did the protocol on their specific area (for example, mine was "school community"), and this focus seemed to be a very nice way of ensuring some actual specificity in the action steps proposed back to the entire faculty.

It was an exciting process, and the steps used seemed to many to be immediately transferable to other school issues as well.

Thanks for the protocol Scott, and cheers to all of the rest of you out there involved in this great work,
Jay, NH