Learning Event Game Plan Toolkit

I was asked by colleagues to provide a workshop on developing a game plan for delivering a learning event. The concept of “game planning” got me immediately thinking about coaches for sports teams and how they use a whiteboard to develop their strategies and convey information to the team. The x’s and o’s of players along with arrows demonstrating plays and formations.

I got to work on developing a toolkit that could be used in a similar manner. After several iterations across various tools and delivery mechanisms, I landed on creating an interactive PDF form that could easily be sharable and would not require any special licenses or learning curve for the end user to implement.

A version of this was presented to association professionals seeking input as they play-tested the prototype and the first version was also shared across several communities of practice seeking input. This second version has reorganized several elements mainly to place assessment strategy toward the beginning of the planning process rather than the end, the idea is that in strategizing events, it is best to think of the beginning and the end and keep funneling toward the middle from the macro (organizational) view to the micro (event) view in developing the plan.

This toolkit provides a strategic methodology for planning a professional development event that assists with brainstorming the event or events from the macro, organizational level to the micro, tasks and results levels assuring connection between the organization’s mission, vision, and values to every element of event planning, production, and post-production to maximize knowledge transfer and return on investment.