Practical Support for Collaborative Working
Why this training?
Initiatives that involve a range of organisations and sectors are becoming the norm. The more cross-cutting and difficult the issue, the more likely it is that solutions will depend on collaborative approaches.
This is challenging work, requiring those involved to have a range of specific skills and knowledge, and to work in ways that can be very different to what they are used to. Yet few people have all the skills, knowledge and tools to engage in this work to best effect.
The result is the majority have to ‘muddle through’ and therefore poor practice in collaborative working is widespread. This means slow, ineffectual processes, much wasting of time and resources and far less ‘added value’.
This training focuses on building participants’ understanding of and ability to create and use a range of absolutely practical, tangible processes, products and ‘props’ that directly support better quality collaborative working. All of the material covered is entirely generic, ie they will be of use in any collaborative setting.
Who is this training for?
This training will be of help to anyone whose job is wholly or partly about working collaboratively with other organisations, including people:
- who work with organisations from their own sector, or in settings where public, voluntary and private sectors need to work together.
- involved in collaborative approaches ranging from ‘light touch’ networks, through to full partnerships
- engaged in collaborative work at either strategic and / or practical levels.
- seeking to improve ‘joined up’ working within their own organisation.
The day is aimed specifically at people who already have some experience of collaborative working and who wish to increase their effectiveness in such work. It will be of particular interest to people who already have some understanding/experience of working with facilitated and participative approaches at meetings, as one area of focus is how to get more out of the meetings of collaborative alliances.
Format of the day
The day comprises a stimulating mix of content input and ‘learning by doing’. There are opportunities for participants to reflect and work on their own real issues.
What will the training cover?
The focus of the day will be 100% on what we believe to be the important but much neglected practical actions and ‘props’ that underpin successful collaborative working. The material springs directly from our extensive experience of working to support collaboration in multi-agency settings. We will highlight the kinds of things that we repeatedly see being done wrong, or not being done at all, yet that are relatively simple to get right.
The training will to some extent also increase participants’ understanding of why the practical actions are so necessary, so they leave better equipped to analyse situations rather than just respond to them. It will cover:
- Using visioning and ‘backcasting’ techniques to help people reach agreement on goals and on how to reach those goals
- Why paying attention to the ‘human level’ of any collaborative alliance or project is so important and how to do it
- The importance of communication, of all kinds, at all levels and practical tips on making good communication a reality
- Considering the various ways that work actually gets done within collaborative projects and how to support the most effective approaches
- Why documents and presentations for meetings are so important and how to make them support effective dialogue
- Making meeting agendas and minutes useful, relevant (and interesting!) documents, that positively support collaborative working.
Download our Practical support for collaborative working information sheet (PDF document, 56K)