Case Study: Planning and team development
'How we increased engagement and buy-in and agreed our annual plan’
Project: To facilitate five separate conversations with each of the five Primary Care Networks in Hounslow to help them develop realistic and deliverable annual plans with focus and buy-in.
A key plank of good governance is having clear objectives and a realistic plan to achieve them. When a group of GPs in West London started thinking about how they were going to respond to the new GP contract and how to work together to deliver it and improve services to their patients, they wanted to make a leap forward and engaged Governance Coach UK to help make it happen.
“We were working with Governance Coach UK on leadership development and we discussed with Ben what we were after,” says Rosalyn King, Chief Officer of the Consortium of five Primary Care Networks. “Each Network was at a different stage of development and we wanted them all to take a big stride forward – producing annual plans rooted in what the member Practices knew would make a difference and in line with the new GP contract was essential.” Dr Su Roy, chair of the Heart of Hounslow Network, picks up the thread. “As a group of practices we knew we needed a vision, a set of values, priority projects, and a greater commitment from colleagues to contribute more to a system approach rather than practice by practice. We had an afternoon workshop booked to achieve this. Ben helped us think through what we needed and helped us shape what was achievable in the time available in order to make a credible and significant step forward.
“We agreed a set of outputs for the workshop and, with Ben’s help, we agreed activities to help achieve them. What became apparent during this important design phase was that the workshop was as much about team building as it was about planning. Well written plans are no good if you don’t have the team behaviours to make them a reality.”
Dr Roy was unable to be at the workshop and handed over that responsibility to a newly appointed deputy, Dr Akhil Mayor. Each Network had its own dedicated facilitator. The Heart of Hounslow workshop was facilitated by Dan Barnfield, an experienced facilitator and trainer and Associate of Governance Coach UK. Dan spent time with Akhil before the event to make sure he had been fully briefed and was comfortable with the format and process and that roles and responsibilities were really clear.
“It was a bit of a step into the unknown and Dan asked me all the right questions to make sure I was fully prepared for the event,” said Dr Mayor.
The event itself took place at The Stoop, home of Harlequins Rugby Club in Twickenham. The office team supporting the Networks took care of all the logistics and the turnout was excellent. Having a clear objective for the afternoon and clear division of tasks between the various contributors helped things run very smoothly. Across the five Networks there were over 200 delegates.
“Dan was great,” added Akhil. “We spent time at the start as a group agreeing a ‘contract’ for the afternoon so we knew what behaviours to expect of each other, things like exercising respect and empathy, acknowledging that everyone has a voice and will be heard, as well as practical things like good time-keeping. This was the first time we had attempted an event like this so setting off on the right foot with a common understanding was essential. We’re going to use this ‘contract’ for all our meetings from this point and use it to start a discussion on our values later in the year.
“We had a lively debate on national and local priorities then we identified everything we could do. We prioritised the list down to the things we thought we could realistically achieve as a group that would be of most benefit, things like: social prescribing, and improving the use of telephone triage and home visiting.
“We used the World Café approach and, in tables, added detail to the agreed priorities. The best thing about the event was how the facilitator encouraged participation and challenged our thinking, helping to engage the wider group.”
At Governance Coach UK we make it a priority to work with clients to help get to the nub of the problem they are trying to solve. We tend to find that what the client articulates at the start is not necessarily the thing that will make the right difference, so this initial coaching style discussion is a crucial part of the process. We then design a bespoke approach to help the client solve the problem in an engaging way.
“The planning workshop was well thought through, brilliantly organised, and expertly facilitated. We now have a clear written down plan, buy-in from more people, greater engagement, and have made a genuine leap forward in the maturity of our Network. We can’t wait to get stuck in and do what we’ve all agreed.” Akhil Mayor
We will be running similar sessions from November - if you'd like to book a workshop for your team, get in touch.
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