As part of a consulting engagement or broader enterprise strategy alignment, you can expect to plan and run an offsite at one point of your career. While an offsite can provide a great environment for team building and alignment, planning and running one could be stressful and time-consuming as it involves multiple executive-level stakeholders and there are many moving pieces.
So whether you are running a small executive team offsite, or one for a larger group, here are five tips I’ve used to plan a successful strategy offsite.
1. Be crystal clear about your objectives
Before the offsite, make sure you and your team are clear on what you hope to achieve during the event, as well as how you will measure success after it. Your objectives might include:
- Working together to develop a clear set of strategic priorities and desired measurable outcomes that the team fully commits to.
- Developing a plan for follow-through and accountability with respect to achieving these goals after the event.
- Facilitating a structured and thoughtful discussion on how the team can improve performance.
As you craft your objectives, consider the following questions:
- What do you want the participants to understand, agree to, rally around, and ultimately act on?
- How do you want them to feel after the meeting, and what can you do to drive that?
Tip: Complete the following statement, “I’d be really happy if, by the end of our offsite, we [fill in objectives here]. This clarity will help you set expectations with your team when you discuss the objectives of the offsite beforehand. It will also strengthen their confidence and increase their engagement by allowing them to prepare for the discussion.
2. Think twice about who should be invited
When making your list of invitees, look closely at your objectives and ask yourself, “Am I better off with a large group, or a handful of key people who can work closely to develop a strategy?” While having a larger group may be more inclusive, the productivity of your meeting has the potential to decrease.
Larger groups often require you to engage more people, which can result in a more surface-level discussion. When people with varying levels of authority and skill sets are sitting around a table, there is a greater chance that politics, fear, or personal agendas will throw you off course. This can distract from the real conversations that need to happen for the event to meet your objectives. Inviting a smaller number of key people will allow you to have those conversations more easily.
Tip: Map your attendee list to your objectives and make hard decisions about who to include if you must. It’s usually best to invite the executive-level team first. Get them aligned. Then, once the core team is on the same page, designate some time at the offsite to figure out the best approach for engaging the next level of employees once you return to the office.
3. Develop a detailed agenda
Once you have a clear set of objectives and an invite list, it’s time to create an agenda. Plan for each topic of discussion to last between 45 minutes to two hours maximum. This ensures that topics are neither cut too short nor watered down by having too much time allotted. With these guidelines in mind, you will likely be able to cover four to six topics in a full day. Your agenda planning should include:
- Topics of discussion
- Specific objectives for each topic
- The types of activity or delivery modes you want to use (i.e. small group working sessions, large group facilitated discussions, brainstorms, knowledge presentations, panel discussions, Q&A sessions, games)
- The amount of time you want to designate to each topic
- A plan for the preparation work that needs to be done beforehand — by you, the organizer, or the team
Tip: When you complete your agenda draft, check it against your objectives. You should be able to map each topic and activity back to each objective. Make sure everything lines up before finalizing. It may take a few rounds. You should also try to vary the delivery modes you decide upon. This will keep the energy of the team up and help them stay engaged throughout the meeting.
4. Prepare the logistics, messaging, materials, and templates
While the basic logistics of transportation, food, sleeping arrangements, social events, and the meeting venue will need to be arranged by someone on the team, don’t let this distract you from the more strategic task at hand — planning the higher-level details that will ensure stickiness. Take time well in advance of the event to work on the following:
- Well-thought out messaging – How will you communicate objectives and expectations for the offsite, both prior and during? How will you frame the agenda? If you are assigning pre-work, how will you communicate the purpose and importance of it?
- Quality and vetted communication materials – What presentations or handouts are needed for the sessions you’ve mapped out? Who needs to be involved? What’s the timeline for completing them prior to the offsite?
- Thoughtfully-designed templates – What documents need to be prepared in advance to help you capture the work being done at the event?
Sticky tips: Walk through the agenda to determine what templates you need. Some examples might include:
- KPI dashboard
- Scorecard to capture strategic goals and targeted measurable outcomes
- Meetings template
- Governance plan template
Additionally, create a thoughtful kick off presentation to give at the start of the offsite.
5. At the close of the event, work together to create a team governance plan
To make sure the learnings and strategies you developed during the offsite are acted upon, take some time near the close of the event to discuss, as a team, what each person needs to do to drive the agreed upon plan forward. Then, be sure to schedule enough progress check-ins to ensure success. Outside of high-quality output from your offsite, well-managed follow up meetings are the single most important factor in ensuring stickiness.
As you develop your governance plan, ask the following quetsions:
- How will we hold each other accountable for executing on the plans and decisions agreed to at the offsite?
- What needs to go on the calendar?
- For each required check-in, who needs to be there and what is the agenda?
- How often should these meetings occur, and how much time is needed to accomplish the goals on the agenda?
- Can the meetings be conducted virtually, or do they need to be in-person?
For example, if one of your outcomes from the offsite is to improve the working relationship between sales and delivery, then you may need to schedule regular weekly meetings with those two departments aimed at making that happen.
Tip: Agree on your governance plan at the offsite, and schedule your first few check-in meeting dates with the group while they are present. This will help everyone commit to follow-through, give you a forum to revisit the goals you established, and provide you with an opportunity to course correct if necessary. Don’t be surprised if your team is resistant to more meetings. The key is to emphasize the importance of follow-through while being thoughtful about how many meetings need to happen, how long they need to be, and with whom. Seek to create a plan that drives results but does not waste people’s time.
Conclusion
It’s the combination of thoughtful planning prior to your offsite and mindful follow-through after that will make this annual event productive and well worth the investment. Your team will not only be more engaged, aligned, and prepared to better execute, but also grateful for the time spent. And more importantly, the health and success of the business will be better for it.
Jason Oh is a Senior Associate at Strategy&. Previously, he was part of the Global Wealth & Asset Management Strategy team of a large financial institution and served EY and Novantas in their strategy consulting business with industry focus in the financial services sector.
Image: Unsplash
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