Co-training can add immeasurably to the effectiveness of real time face-to-face workshops, seminars, and conferences. Group activities–based on principles of adult education, and using experiential training methodologies–put a great deal of responsibility on one trainer/facilitator. Co-training can divide this responsibility between two individuals. In this article we define co-training, point out its advantages, and include a guide that co-trainers can use to help make their work together more productive.
Tips for Managing Effective Meetings
Practical tips for meeting facilitation and planning.
Interest-Based Collaboration: An Approach for PEPFAR Teams
Here’s the irony: despite the team’s difficulties working together, everyone in the above situation wants the process to be less painful and more focused on their common goal – reducing the devastating impact of HIV/AIDs. Yet despite the fact that everyone is frustrated by the tense discussions, the team still hasn’t figured out how to break out of the confrontational patterns they’ve developed….
Guidelines for Forming and Sustaining Stakeholder Leadership Groups
It is now well established that developmental dynamics and challenges are far too complex and cut across too many organizational and sectoral lines to be handled by a single entity. In practical terms, a SLG consists of representatives from all of the key entities involved in planning, producing, managing, and supporting a specific activity or…
Strategic Thinking Lenses: Tools for Prioritization and Decision Making
Thinking strategically can be tough enough for one person acting alone… and decision-making in an interagency context characterized by diverse cultures and shared resources can be particularly challenging! This article describes six strategic lenses through which PEPFAR country team members can view – and explain – their strategic thinking processes.
Team Decision Making: The Gradients of Agreement
Facilitating for Consensus Consensus on a decision means that each team member says they buy-in to the decision and actively support its implementation, even if they did not think it was the very best decision. For the PEPFAR country team, consensus is obviously needed during preparation of the Country Operations Plan (COP), the PEPFAR Strategy, and the Partnership Framework (PF), and…
Transitions: The Personal Side of Change
Transition is about letting go of the past and taking up new behaviors or ways of thinking. Planned change is about physically moving office, or installing new equipment, or restructuring. Transition lags behind planned change because it is more complex and harder to achieve. Change is situational and can be planned, whereas transition is psychological and less easy to manage.
– William Bridges, Managing Transitions, Making the Most of Change
Leading Transformational Change: A Framework for PEPFAR Teams
The policy directive was clear: PEPFAR programs need to accelerate country ownership. The change made sense to the PEPFAR coordinator in the (fictitious) country of Abeona, but it was definitely a departure from the way her team had operated in the past. She took a deep breath, looked around the room, and wondered: how would the Abeona team make the transition from providing emergency services to supporting local government ownership of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care?
Planning and Implementing Retreats: A Leader’s Guide
A retreat is an opportunity to engender creativity — a time to remove your nose from the grindstone and look to the hills, a chance to think about what ought to be — and devise steps to get there.