Development Works offers

Preferred Futuring Workshops

Preferred Futuring
"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions."
Albert Einstein

Do you have exciting dreams of your best work, but find that you never seem to get closer to making them a reality?
Do you have great ideas for your organisation, but never seem to get closer to putting them into action?
Does your team go through the motions of strategic planning, but never seems to attain the goals that would move you into higher and better levels of operation?

Year after year, our brightest ideas and plans to work with more purpose, effectiveness and success are shadowed by the day-to-day demands of the job at hand.

Too often, traditional strategic planning interventions offer a frustratingly short-lived insight into what is possible. So many exciting plans fall by the wayside and worthy goals are abandoned as we keep doing the same things in the same ways.

The truth is that traditional planning and goal-setting often employ highly ‘left-brained’ methods that fail to effectively engage the whole human being. Thus we lose the powerful contributions of creativity, imagination and dreaming. The less than inspiring result is that we define future strategies and set future goals based on what we predict we can make happen, rather than what we would prefer to happen.

Preferred Futuring takes a whole-systems approach. This intervention can help your organisation to get more of what you really want – whether this is more sales or services, increased efficiencies or profitability, more innovation or more job satisfaction.

At the workshop, your team will have the opportunity to envision a powerful, intentional Preferred Future and unleash the energy that it takes to get there.

Preferred Futuring is a unique team-building experience that demonstrates the power of collective visioning and planning.

The Benefits of Preferred Futuring include:

The envisioning of a powerful, intentional, long range Preferred Future for your organisation or team
Unleashing the energy it takes to realise a future you really want through values-based, strategic decision-making and planning
The alignment of the pursuit of operational and performance excellence with the organisation’s mission, vision and values
Enabling participants to practice whole-systems thinking
Establishing priorities and revealing breakthrough goals
The promotion of unity and cohesiveness by considering the needs and interests of all participants who impact on the organisation’s success
A refreshing, motivating and inspiring experience for all participants where they are engaged in exploring what they do want, rather than what they don’t want
Practical, ‘do-able’ action plans for the way forward

“By believing passionately in something that does not yet exist, we create it.”
Nikos Kazantzakis

The two-day, highly interactive, Preferred Futuring Workshop is a whole-systems intervention that can be used by teams and organisations to engage members in highly effective, long-term thinking, decision-making and planning. It can be specifically tailored to meet the client’s needs for a meaningful strategic planning workshop, or as an organisational development or change management intervention.

Who should attend?
Preferred Futuring Workshops work best with a maximum of 25 participants. There is no minimum number of participants as it is a highly effective process for the individual. In the case of small organisations or teams, all members impacting on success should be included in the workshop. Larger organisations can engage teams or departments in a number of workshops.

What venue can be used?
The Preferred Futuring Workshop can be facilitated in-house, providing that the client has a suitable meeting room to comfortably accommodate participants in round or u-shaped seating at tables. However, we rather recommend an off-site venue, as this provides a more stimulating and refreshing environment. Clients may choose to book a venue directly or we will manage the logistics of booking a venue that suits your budget.

What does the Preferred Futuring Workshop entail?

Pre-Workshop - Upon receiving a request for a booking, we will set up a briefing meeting with you to gauge your particular needs and expectations. We will also familiarise you with the steps of the Preferred Futuring process. There is minimal preparation on your side for the workshop. However, we do recommend that you make use of an organisational self-assessment tool that we provide. This helps to focus your team on your present overview prior to the workshop. We may also recommend that team members do some scanning of the environment beforehand.
Workshop - The workshop runs for 2 consecutive days. Day one includes the key visioning process and results in the writing and choosing of your Preferred Future. Day two is dedicated to linking images to actions and results in strategic plans.
Post-Workshop – Participants are engaged in a self-reflection exercise. Workshop outputs are compiled by us in a ‘living’ organisational document.

To book a Preferred Futuring Workshop, please contact Lilian at Development Works. Tel: 021 448 2058
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Due to our commitment to help build capacity in the South African development sector, we offer non profit organisations a special rate for Preferred Futuring Workshops.

Preferred Futuring Workshops are brought to you by DEVELOPMENT WORKS and facilitated by Beth Peterson.

Creative Consulting and DEVELOPMENT WORKS is a research, evaluation, facilitation and communications consultancy, servicing nonprofits, businesses, government and funders with innovative solutions in a development context. With a well-earned reputation for its high standards of professionalism and effectiveness, DEVELOPMENT WORKS operates with passion, integrity and ingenuity. DEVELOPMENT WORKS is committed to creative engagement and knowledge sharing. The company believes in working with purpose and contributing to the development of South Africa through the projects it is involved in. DEVELOPMENT WORKS has experience:

Conceptualising and managing the development of programmes and capacity-building initiatives
Designing and planning workshop content and activities
Facilitating group processes, workshops, strategic planning sessions and life-skills education
Facilitating stakeholder engagement and participation campaigns, and
Providing post-facilitation evaluation and feedback

Clients we’ve done facilitation work for include, among others, Western Cape Provincial Government, City of Cape Town, Performing Arts Network of South Africa (PANSA), Mamelani Projects, Trauma Centre, Gender Advocacy Project, NACOSA and Artscape, etc.

Beth Peterson is a communications specialist, strategic consultant, facilitator and coach with 20 years experience in the corporate, development, non profit and arts fields. Inspired by systems-thinking, and passionate about the development of 21st Century literacies, Beth uses the Preferred Futuring process to give people the experience of contributing their creativity and imaginings, skills and talents to the intentional manifestation of more participative, sustainable and fulfilling realities.

Beth is supported by two co-facilitators Susannah Clarke and Lindy Briginshaw who complement the intervention with their experience in process and lifeskills facilitation.