Partner’s Retreat An Overview to Facilitating Your Retreat

 Careful preparation is critical to a smooth flowing retreat.  Your role as organizer is to follow on the from the analysis undertaken so far, compile the results, identify barriers or potential conflicts, and prepare for the session.  Your role is then to get agreement within the partner group and determine an action plan moving forward. Core Concepts

Steps 2. Read Notes on the Art of Facilitation. 1. Collate all working papers. 3. Finalize the Agenda. 5. Hold the Retreat. 4. Review the Practice Development modules on the Principa web site. 6. Hold Team Meeting to Communicate outcome and action plan.

Collate Working Papers  The working papers you should have in your binder are:  Implementation schedule  Identify owner goals questionnaires  Lifecycle analysis  Financial Analysis (benchmarks & Practice Planning Questionnaire summary report)  SWOT analysis  Client Base analysis  Vision and Mission statements

Notes on Facilitation  Facilitation simply means to make things easier. The most important point to remember is that 2 issues— process and content—need to be watched and nurtured in a group environment.  The facilitator at a partners retreat is a process champion. He or she watches the flow of conversation and the roles people are adopting and decides whether the communication is following the required structure.

Finalize the Agenda  An agenda is provided for you.  Though each practice will have items that are specific to them and these should be added to ensure each is addressed.  Distribute the agenda to each person attending the retreat and ask for their feedback before finalizing the agenda.

Review Practice Development Material  The purpose of the retreat is to develop an action plan for the practice. As various issues and ideas are discussed, it will be beneficial for you to be aware of what resources Principa has to help you.  Review the Practice Development modules and knowledge base and print out the Practice Development flow chart and have that with you for the retreat.

Hold the Retreat  With the preparation behind you, it is time for the retreat.  Stay close to the agenda, though allow flexibility on topics that generate discussion.  During the session, put key points, ideas and actions on the flip chart, and tape them to the walls around the room. This provides a good visual of what has been discussed.  At the end of the session you must begin to prioritize the action plan and agree on the next steps forward.

Team Meeting  The Team Meeting should outline your future plans for the practice.  Take your team through the action plan and seek their feedback.  Ask them to give suggestions on what activities might bring some early wins and help create momentum.

Tools  notes_art _facilitation.doc  practice_development_flow_chart.pdf  Practice_development_implementation_schedule.doc  partners_retreat_agenda.doc The following tools have been designed specifically for use with this module. You can access these worksheets in the Tools section of the Partners Retreat in the D4 Practice System at