Join me learning Dialogue Mapping in the UK/Ireland in September

Hi all

I will be in the UK in the first week of September for various matters (like watching Kate Bush in concert) and while I am there will be running a 2 day Dialogue Mapping introductory class. If you liked Heretics Guide to Best Practices, or If you simply want to learn a great collaborative approach to help groups solve complex problems, then this is a great opportunity to add a powerful and practical technique to your arsenal.

Dialogue Mapping has had a massive impact on me professionally and personally, and in this intimate, face-to-face class I’ll be covering all of my learnings and insights in applying this technique in hundreds of different workshops. Just to be clear, this is not a SharePoint, nor an IT class. It is open to anybody of any discipline and is very activity driven, to help you acquire a hugely valuable life skill. Not only does it only equip you with a great technique for tasks like business analysis, requirements elicitation and design thinking, but also allows you to get involved with more complex problem solving scenarios like strategic planning and team development work.

Where, when and how much?

Plans are still being finalised, but at this point I can confirm that one class will be held in Dublin thanks to my old friends at Storm Technology. Storm are Ireland’s leading Microsoft Business Technology Consultancy and are well known for their expertise with Microsoft technologies. Storm have great team of consultants who really understand how to harness  information- structured, unstructured, digital and tacit – to create transformation business solutions for clients. Thanks to Storm’s help, I am very pleased to be able to bring this class to you at less than half the usual cost. As a result, this 2 day class will be around £420GBP instead of the usual price of £995.00.

I also hope to get a London class off the ground, and will let you know as soon as I have confirmation. No matter that the city, if you are interested in attending this class, it is super-important to let me know. Part of the reason we can bring it to you at such as great price is we have access to some great facilities, but numbers are limited. So please register your interest as soon as you can at this site. More information on the class, and Dialogue Mapping itself check out the resources and information below…

Why Dialogue Mapping?

• Maps decision and detailed rationale behind decision-making; maps the thinking process of the group
• Concentrates on pros and cons to an idea, encourages and explores all view
• Promotes greater shared understanding of the problem at hand
• Represents and clarifies diverse points of view, conflicting interpretations and goals, inconsistent information and other forms of complexity
• Opportunity for all to be heard, contributions acknowledged
• Keeps participants on topic – they can see the progress of the discussion visually, the bigger picture can be absorbed better and they can appreciate the validity and value of a larger perspective
• Helps participants come up with better ideas and avoids jumping to simplistic answers and superficial conclusions
• Promotes deeper reasoning, rigor and crowd wisdom
• Supporting information (such as documents and images) can easily be attached to map to back up group reasoning
• Participants can see the effectiveness of mapping and genuinely will try to make the discussion more productive

Class audience

Perfectly suited to both IT and non-IT audience; those involved in highly complex projects, including:

• Leaders
• Consultants
• Facilitators
• Strategic planners
• Organisational development professionals
• Business analysts
• Change agents
• Managers and engineers

Class aims and outcomes

• Create great maps – clear, coherent and inviting
• Immediately start mapping effectively in your work and life; the class will focus on practical experience and map building
• Command a rich range of options for publishing and sharing maps
• Lead with maps; create direction, momentum and energy with dialogue maps
• Quickly and effectively do critical analysis in dynamic situations
• Organise unstructured information and discover patterns and connections within it
• Make critical thinking visible for inspection and analysis
• Recognise early, the symptoms of wicked problems and the forces behind group divergence
• Start capturing the rationale leading up to the decisions by using IBIS and Compendium software
• Recognise the importance of capturing the rationale behind decisions, as well as the decisions themselves
• Rethink the traditional approach to meetings and decision making
• Gain a deeper understanding of:

• The fundamentals of IBIS and Compendium
• The structural patterns that give clarity and power to dialogue  maps
• How decision rationale is represented in a map

How Seven Sigma uses Dialogue Mapping

• Strategic planning workshops
• Envisioning workshops
• Goal alignment workshops
• Requirements gathering
• User engagement/ User adoption
• Training
• Internal meetings
• Client status meetings
• … and more

Class requirements

This class will be hands on. Please bring your own laptop with Compendium software installed (we will help you with this).

Class duration

2 intense days with homework after the first day and optional homework after course completion

What’s included

The Issue Mapping manual, morning/afternoon tea breaks, lunch, tea/coffee throughout the day.

Cancellation Policy

Event cancelled by Seven Sigma:

A full ticket refund will be given, minus the registration fee. The class will be confirmed 21 days prior to the event date. Should you be flying over for the event, we advise that you leave flight and accommodation bookings ’til we send you the confirmation as these bookings will not be covered by Seven Sigma should we cancel the class.

Booking cancelled by the registrant:

(a) 14 working days prior to the event, 50% refund given

(b) within 14 days of the event, and no shows – no refund given.