Never change a winning team

Be careful with changes in the objectives and design of the workshop, when you are already half way. Recently - on the evening of the second day - I found the organizers and some of the participants by the pool of the hotel. For the last few hours they had been heavily discussing a complete re-design of the workshop. The face of the facilitator was getting desperate. When it was my turn to say something, I said: “Of course we have to be flexible, but never change a winning team! Our facilitator has spent a lot of time on the design of this workshop. It is better to provide her with some feedback on her ideas how to fill in the time slots of the last two days, than to try to restructure the whole workshop”. It all had started from the fact that the first two days of this workshop had been planned in much detail. The last two days on action planning, recommendations and agreements had been only roughly designed. As the steps of action planning and recommendations always follow certain principles, they can be designed in advance. This way you minimize the need for improvisation. Workshop flow and participants already give you enough to adapt to!