3.9.1. Flight Plans#
Flight plans are the key to delivering Better Conversations. We’ve crystallized both the contents and the structure of these over the years, and they reliably deliver a quality outcome for us. Flight plans are effectively a state management tool.
We publish our flight plans so other people can benefit from this work. It also means that, you can see how we work and what we do, and you can see how we are improving over time. Our Experience Courses run to the flight plans we publish or are in the process of testing - which means you know what to expect when you partner with us.
Using this Pattern#
Flight plans are used to deliver a consistent Better Conversations experience for all involved. They ensure:
A common script for the delivery team and Observers to follow and discuss.
The delivery team is well-prepared and have talked before the session starts about how they are going to work together.
The learning objectives are met and the session is focused (we have a lot of content to cover in a short time).
New facilitators or producers are supported in their learning and development.
A basis for continuous improvement, as we review the flight plan after the
session and see what worked and what didn’t.
The drawbacks are that currently they are time-consuming to create and maintain, and they can be seen as constraining. We have to be careful to balance the need for consistency with the need for creativity and flexibility.
The alternative is to not use a flight plan, and to rely on the experience and intuition of the delivery team. This can work, but it is less reliable and makes the faciltator and producer roles much harder. It also makes it harder to bring new people into the team. All these things can significantly degrade the participant experience.
Structure#
Flight plans contain:
All the logistical information for the session, such as date and time, the
Zoom link, who is faciliating, who is producing
Brief notes for the faciliator and producer on how to run the session
Checklists of the key things to prepare and discuss, individually and as a team
The learning objectives for the session, and possible extensions
A detailed time plan with activities for each member of the delivery team
Information for the producer on breakout rooms, and what to put in Zoom chat
A detailed script for the facilitator to follow
The flight plans themselves contain design patterns. We have a design pattern for each of the key components of the flight plan, such as the time plan, the script, the learning objectives, and so on. Each section in the time plan is also a design pattern e.g. the way we facilitate a discussion, the way we check in on state, the way we use a breakout room are all patterns in themselves
This means that we can improve the flight plan by improving the design patterns, and we can use the design patterns in other contexts - which means you can do the same!
Roles and Responsibilities#
Currently, there are a number of roles described in the flight plans:
Facilitator 1 and 2: The people who are co-leading the session. Facilitator 2 is a role we can use to develop new facilitators.
Producer: The person who is running the Zoom session, and who is responsible for the technical aspects of the session.
Observer: The person who is observing the session, usually in preparation for delivering the course, and/or training as a facilitator or producer.
Participants: The people who are attending the session. Also referred as “attendees”.
Sponsor: Responsible for the outcomes of the session, in terms of “Why are we doing this?” and “What are we trying to achieve?”.
For the Foundation, this is generally one of the directors or a Foundation Ambassador.
When a course is delivered in a company it will be the person who comissioned the course, or their delegate.
One thing we have learned is to be very aware of the role(s) we are in, and to be clear about what we are doing in each moment and why.
Of course, not all these roles will apply if you are delivering the session in a different context. For example, if you are delivering a session to a small group, you may not need two facilitators. If you are using the flight plans to coach someone one-to-one, you will not need a producer. If you are delivering a session to a very large group, you may need more than one producer.
Examples#
You can find the latest published flight plans here.
Testing#
We are on a continual learning and improvement loop every time we run a session. We gather observations and feedback from the delivery team and the participants, and we use this to improve the flight plans.
We test updated flight plans by running live sessions, documenting the results and any feedback from the delivery team. We might run test a completely new module with a small group of participants, one faciliator and one producer and one or two observers.
Implementation#
We keep master versions of the flight plans, which only the Foundation team have access to. We make a copy of the master flight plan for each live session. The delivery team all work from the same live flight plan, which is kept in a shared folder.
This is so we have a clear documentation trail between master versions and live flight plans. We can also make changes to the flight plan for that live session without affecting other live sessions or the masters.
This might be overkill for you, but it matters when you are working with different delivery teams, running a lot of sessions and trying to improve the flight plans over time. It also helps when working with different clients, as we can tailor the session to their needs.
Anything else#
We used to include the following sections, but have moved these to other documents and tools. Some of these features have been removed for data protection reasons, as we are now working with external clients:
Participant list to check who is expected to be in the session and who attended
Copies of the flipcharts used in the session (before and after views)
Copies of the breakout room groups
Copies of the chat messages
Observations we made during the session