Aprose Group – business and social offsite / galvanising the team

The weekend at Gleneagles was the first Group-wide business and social event bringing all the companies in The Aprose Group together. One of the companies had held similar events in the past, and some of the staff attending this time had done so previously, there were new staff, new companies and importantly for the business, increased needs to work together for the benefit of all.

 

Event Details:

Date: December 2016

Duration: Extended half day

Where: Gleneagles

Format: Maximillion brings a blend of theory, practice, and experiential learning to support businesses and teams going through change, growth and integration. For the purposes of this event, this comprised interactive, experiential activities and sessions during the afternoon, which were designed to bring all the companies and staff in the Group together for a fun, shared team development experience that linked with the workplace context

Group size: 27

Objectives:

An indoor team development session to deliver:
• A convivial mood and experience to create new and deepen existing relationships and connections across the company group.
• A common understanding of each of the group businesses and how they fit together

Why was this important?
• To create the feeling of belonging to a group of companies with significant potential for growth

This weekend at Gleneagles was the first Group-wide business and social event bringing all the companies together. One of the companies had held similar events in the past, and some of the staff attending this time had done so previously, there were new staff, new companies and importantly for the business, increased needs to work together for the benefit of all.

What we did:

Prior to the event our Lead Facilitator Mike Tierney liaised with the project sponsor to listen to and explore the objectives for the event. This then allowed Mike to develop a programme for the session.

Mike opened proceedings by gaining the commitment of participants to some ground rules for the afternoon – creating a context for the team development session, energising the group and introducing the concept of ‘ developing existing and exploring new relationships across the group’ using the Johari Window model.

Prior to a look back / look forward session led by one of the Directors, and using a live conferencing link to a speaker in London, Mike and the team ran an initial ice breaker/energiser activity, Team Top Trumps in which participants began the process of sharing about self and learning about others.

After the internally-led session, the participants reformed into the same Top Trumps teams and received the detailed task briefing for our Kinetic Connections whole group challenge, for which they had 2 hours to complete.

Participants were engaged to work together as a whole group on a collaborative multi-dimensional project in which they experienced ambiguity, uncertainty and chaos and were required to work collaboratively to achieve success. On completion of the Kinetic Connections task, participants re-formed into their starting teams, to reflect on the most significant lessons they identified that could be taken and applied from the day, and with a view to establishing a commitment to effective behaviours when working in project teams on future assignments. Mike facilitated a brief and high level reflection on the session and captured outputs, which were shared with the client post event.

At the end of the event the completed Kinetic Connections mechanical models took centre stage in the activity finale, where a lever was pulled at one end of the set of kinetic models, setting off a mechanical ‘chain reaction’. The finale gave the team the opportunity to see whether the fruits of their labours and their collaborative efforts had produced a successful outcome. Thankfully on this occasion the ensuing ‘explosive’ climax confirmed the success of their efforts, meaning the team left the event on a high!

Who took part:

27 staff – a multi-disciplinary group comprising, amongst others:
• APROSE Group: Directors and Support Staff
• APROSE are leaders in the field of change management, GB smart metering technology and cyber security & resilience, amongst others
• Founding company ASE Consulting (30 years): 12 consultants and a non-exec director
• 2 New companies in the Group: Aprose Solutions – a software product company (2 years) with 4 consultants, and Aprose Risk – a cyber security company (1 year) with 3 consultants

 

What they said:

“The event was great success and brought our disparate companies together in a way which exceeded expectations – we genuinely could not have asked for more. We certainly achieved all that we wanted to and more. A delight to work with, adaptable, pragmatic and importantly fun!”
Director ASE Consulting

Immediately after the event Mike met with the Group Directors to conduct a ‘hot debrief’ – sharing observation and feedback on the participants performance. This was followed up with a one page, written report, sharing the reflection captured from the teams on the day and highlighting Mike’s main observations and making recommendations for the next stage of development.