{"id":993,"date":"2013-12-30T12:49:57","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T12:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/?p=993"},"modified":"2016-10-19T11:10:23","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T10:10:23","slug":"10-tips-for-running-a-successful-pause-reflect-debrief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/?p=993","title":{"rendered":"10 tips for running a successful Pause & Reflect debrief"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Gurteen<\/a> rang me just before Christmas.\u00a0 He’d read my recent blog post about the\u00a0 Pause & Reflect<\/em> (P&R) debrief session<\/a> I was running for the Brighton Food Waste Colllective<\/a> and wanted to understand how it differed from an After Action Review <\/em>(AAR).<\/p>\n

Here’s what I told him and via this link his observations on the technique:<\/a><\/p>\n

In a P&R debrief the team (with the help of the Facilitator) is attempting to go beyond the questions posed by an AAR: what was supposed to happen; what did actually happen; what went well; and what might we do differently next time?<\/p>\n

While these are valid areas of investigation they tend not to address the how or why an event succeeded or failed and overlook aspects of behaviour, space and culture.<\/p>\n

P&R sessions look at all of these through the use of timelines and objects by recreating what happened formally and informally, before the event, during the event and after the event.<\/p>\n

The technique I like to use is an A3 version of the Narrative Grid about which I’ve written before<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By way of an example (and with the kind permission of Vera, Mei-Weh and Saskia) I’d like to draw on the recent P&R session in Brighton.<\/p>\n

Food Waste Collective Pause & Reflect:<\/h2>\n

We met informally at a quirky venue (Blue Man Bar) in Brighton. Despite background noise the team were able to raise and openly discuss the event. Here’s what I asked them to think about in advance:<\/p>\n

The aim is to identify learning\u2019s from the recent Food Collective Event that you might apply to current and future events. This session is best done with a timeline \/narrative grid and I will ask these questions for each stage (Before\/During\/After):<\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What was expected to happen?<\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What actually occurred?<\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What went well and why?<\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What can be improved and how? And finally,<\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What behaviours in others did you most admire \/ find most useful?<\/p>\n

I will take notes so you just need to bring along your keen minds, memories, observations and most importantly a photo or object from the event<\/span>.<\/p>\n

some key outcomes:<\/h2>\n

The session designed primarily as a capacity building\/knowledge transfer session lasted but an hour.\u00a0 In that time a couple of key outcomes emerged and each of the team was able to highlight behaviours in others that made a real difference.\u00a0 It underpinned my belief that by being appreciative in the approach to debriefs and focusing on events a lot more emerges.<\/p>\n

Here’s an extract from the notes I took:<\/p>\n

\"P&R<\/a><\/p>\n

when, where and how to use a Pause & Reflect?<\/h2>\n

Here are 10 suggestions on how to make it work:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. use it to conduct a debrief on an event or decision that has taken place in the last month<\/li>\n
  2. use pictures and objects from the event or decision to amplify key moments and trigger memories – brief them about the need to bring something along<\/li>\n
  3. get people to fill in the narrative grid \/ timeline as they go and if you have different cultures involved ask different groups to fill in their own timelines – in the process of comparing you will discover much<\/li>\n
  4. probe by asking for examples – in the above case the need to get volunteers on a Thursday to help unload FareShare vans emerged only by going through the event step by step<\/li>\n
  5. when someone makes a comment such as ‘it was so organised when I arrived’ get them to elaborate and contrast – it will generate a story that becomes an important narrative of the event<\/li>\n
  6. make the session informal (and reflective of the organisational culture) but do have an agenda and stick to it – be clear about the roles each one is playing at the P&R<\/li>\n
  7. get participants to talk about the environment and location where the event or decision you are holding a P&R about took place<\/li>\n
  8. don’t be afraid to let the silence hang in sticky moments – behaviours (most admired which might have made an event successful) often emerge slowly<\/li>\n
  9. ensure (with permissions) that you take photos of the P&R and include them in the write up<\/li>\n
  10. finally, don’t be too ambitious: 3 hours is the maximum I’ve found works and look at 1 event or decision not a whole project.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    David Gurteen rang me just before Christmas.\u00a0 He’d read my recent blog post about the\u00a0 Pause & Reflect (P&R) debrief session I was running for the Brighton Food Waste Colllective and wanted to understand how it differed from an After … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[591,597,599],"tags":[332,265,38,484,281,331,172],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blue-sky-left-field-ideas-pro-bono-activities","category-knowledge-capture","category-knowledge-techniques-technologies","tag-after-action-review","tag-brighton-food-waste-collective","tag-david-gurteen","tag-making-use-of-surplus-food","tag-narrative-grid","tag-pause-reflect","tag-plan-zheroes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2079,"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions\/2079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knowledgeetal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}