Creative methods

You can only reach all the way when everyone is on board!

When strategic objectives and processes need to change, one success factor is to get everyone concerned in the organization involved and to participate. Once your people is committed and engaged to change it is important to channel the creativity into plans, monitor the progress over time and actively follow up the result and readjust when necessary. It takes perseverance to manage change; an activity plan that extends over time is therefore required. This also sends strong signals to the organization that management takes the change seriously.

During the change process, methods are required that lead the process forward and facilitate ideas and discussions towards a concrete result.

Below are examples of some of the methods that Advantum Progress uses:

• Forum for dialogue - simply necessary
• Dialogdukar® - stimulates and teaches
• Interactive theater - provides useful insight
• Workshop - as a forum
• Advantum Express - practicing new ways in familiar situations
• Support for managers to master change processes at to follow up

Forum for dialog - Simply necessary

To invite each individual in a discussion helps to absorb and really understand a new directive and also to translate it to theindividual work situation. When goals, common values, new processes in the organization or other significant changes are to be implemented it is ofgreat importance that the management team makes plans for dialog. The dialog adds value in itself by making room for useful ideas. It creates also the engagement necessary for everyone involved in a successful change.

Advantum Process has a solid experience in creating successful forums for dialog, from small groups to large groups consisting of several hundreds of people. By using stimulating methods- for example workshops, educational techniques for large groups and Open Space - great results are achieved.

Dialogdukar© (Dialog-charts) - stimulates and teaches

Simple games are often stimulating for most people. The use ofDilalog-charts combines effectively competing with rewarding discussions around a topic of interest for the organization. How tosolve this problem? What is the best way of meeting thecustomer in this situation? What is a commonvalue as "respect" in another situation? What areour individual rolls, who will do what when this happens, etc?

Advantum Process designs and uses Dialog-charts or logical games that will reflect one or several specific situations for an organization. We actively use the fun of participating in a game as a learning technique!

Interactive theatre - provides useful insight

By using interactive theatre, new challenging situations can easily be illustrated with humor and engagement. The actors perform a scene that is reflecting a situation of importance in the organization. The scene illustrates what can happen if something gets really wrong. Then the scene is played a second time but this time the actors are directed by the audience and using the behavior we prefer in our organization. When new routines, new structures and new collaborations are required, interactive theatre gives a good picture on how the proposed changes will be conceived by the organization and how each individuals daily work is affected.

Workshop - as a forum

A workshop is a forum for a number of people to create something together. There are many examples of meetings that would be more powerful and successful if they were conducted according to workshop principles. A workshop is based on principles for turning creativity to result and follows a clear structure using methods to achieve the required objectives. Our consultants support you by leading the process or as educators of workshop techniques. They can in a short time turn meetings or teams to be much more effective.

Using workshop techniques are also excellent to get people involved and engaged into change such as new goals, common values etc. In the workshop the participants will define how the changes will affect their daily work. What it takes from each individual to mange change successfully and achieve the required result.

Advantum Express© - practicing new ways in familiar situations

Most things sounds easy and crystal clear in theory but in reality it is often much more difficult. When we need to change our behavior we need to practice new ways of working. For example when we aim to be more customer oriented, act in a more consultancy way as advisors or manage objections etc.

Advantum Express© is the name of our proven method that will train new ways of act and behave in working situations. In a normally two days boot camp we will execute an exercise based on a customer specific situation chosen from a real business case. The result is great with a lasting effect due to trial and error and lots of feedback from our consultants and the other participants. It is great fun and a very effective way of prepare for new situations or improve old ones.

Support for managers to manage change processes and to follow up

We take often for granted that individual managers can manage change in their respective teams. But, do they have the right qualifications? Do they have the right knowledge in managing change, to stimulate discussions and to facilitate all the useful ideas that will be produced in their teams? It is not unusual that many managers use their authority position in fear of openly discuss change and handle objections. A better way is to handle objections and resistance openly when it appears rather than to get comments behind your back when absent. Conclusion, even the manager needs to be prepared to manage the situation.

Advantum Progress has a toolbox of different methods. Educate the managers, design useful presentaion material which focus on key areas, train internal instructors to facilitate the process while the managers can focus to participate in the discussions in the team.

It is often necessary to follow up the result during the change process. This is an issue for the managers and must be addressed in the planning process. Is there sufficient time scheduled to follow up the work in process? Are we on track? To prepare the managers is a critical success factor!