Thoughts on CARE's Start-Up Workshop

 

For CARE, the start-up workshop followed a few days of meetings for members of the emergency working group.  This was both an opportunity and risk - an opportunity to directly link ECB to annual and strategic plans, but a risk as fatigue was beginning to set in.  What helped was an energetic facilitator who asked a lot of questions to clarify a lot of assumptions and assertions.  We really enjoyed the informal, non-judgmental, yet structured approach to facilitation.  Best of all, he kept us well within schedule.

 

There was solid contribution of the advisors, and visible presence and participation of senior management (e.g., VP for Program Quality and VP for Global Operations).  They shared their thoughts on how ECB will contribute, recommendations of additional things to consider, and their concerns as well.  Overall, their support was welcomed. 

 

A concern I had was that ECB could become overwhelming, and particularly so where staff were busy with their 'regular' jobs.  Having full-time ownership of ECB management within CARE will help tremendously as follow up to discussions and plans developed in the workshop will be key.  However, valuable quick wins were identified (and in many ways already funded) - so ECB was set for blast off!!

 

Key lesson:  invite comment and critique from senior management.

 

Stuart