The Innovation SpeakerMario A. Brückner Check a date
Occasion · Team workshop and strategy day

Impulse for a team workshop and strategy day.

at the end there is a decided plan, not a photograph of the pinboard.

full-day strategy day or half-day workshop of 3 to 4 hours · up to about 50 participants · preliminary call and agreement on the structure

A strategy day is not booked because somebody wants to hear a talk. It is booked because a group goes into the day with open questions and should come out of it in the evening with decisions.

That is a different job from a keynote. On a stage, what carries is setting out a thesis and holding it. On a strategy day, what carries is letting the group work and stepping in only where it starts going in circles.

At the end there is a decided plan. Three to five actions, each with a name, a date and a recognisable result after three months. No photograph of the pinboard, no minutes full of items to be examined.

What that means for who takes part

There is one hard condition: the people who can decide on the actions have to be in the room. If the group concludes at the end that somebody else still has to agree, the day was a workshop. That can be the right thing too — it should just be called that beforehand.

Everything else can be arranged. Up to about fifty participants the work is done in small groups and brought together in plenary; below twenty, in plenary throughout. Mixed groups of leadership and specialists work well as long as decision-making authority is clear.

Which questions suit the day

  • Where do we use artificial intelligence first — and where deliberately not? As long as this question is open, every area tries its own answer and the effort disperses.
  • What held us up last time? For organisations that already have one attempt behind them. Usually the answer does not lie in the technology.
  • Which decisions will we take differently in future? When the subject is less a single initiative than the way the organisation works.
  • What does our strategy mean concretely for the next twelve months? When the direction is settled but the translation is missing.

What is on paper at the end

  • Three to five actions, prioritised, with owners and dates.
  • For each action, one sentence on how you will tell in three months whether it worked.
  • An explicit “not now” list, so that what was discarded does not carry on as a silent instruction.
  • The points left open, with who will resolve them and by when.

Four steps to a confirmed date

  • Enquiry with date, location and number of participants. Answer usually within 24 hours.
  • Preliminary call of about 30 minutes on the starting position: which decisions are open, who can take them.
  • Offer, in writing, with format, duration, fee and travel costs.
  • A short alignment shortly before the date on the structure and the guiding question of the day.

What the organiser provides

A room in which tables can be rearranged, a projector or LED wall with an HDMI connection, pinboards or writable surfaces and a connection for his own laptop. In large rooms, additionally a headset or lapel microphone — not a handheld. Who records the results is agreed at the start of the day.

Structure

How the day is built.

1. Impulse

45 to 60 minutes. It creates the shared starting position — without it the group debates different assumptions without noticing.

2. Working session

The longest part. In small groups or in plenary, depending on size. Here facilitation moves to the front and the speaker steps back.

3. Narrowing down

Many ideas become few. The most uncomfortable part of the day, and the one that decides whether anything stands at the end of it.

4. Decision

Actions, owners, dates, ways to measure — and an explicit list of what will not be done now.

Details for procurement

  • Contracting party: CALADE GmbH, Naabstraße 18, 93188 Pielenhofen, Germany
  • Regensburg district court, HRB 17029, VAT ID DE320517461
  • Written offer before the order; order by purchase order or countersignature
  • Invoice after the engagement, showing VAT separately
  • Travel from Düsseldorf, with an overnight stay the evening before where needed; travel costs against receipts, given as a range in the offer
  • Postponement free of charge up to four weeks before the date if a replacement date is found; for short-notice cancellation the conditions stated in the offer apply
  • Public liability insurance in place, proof on request
  • Supplier declarations, codes of conduct and data processing agreements are reviewed and signed
  • Framework agreements and supplier portals are possible

The fee depends on format, duration, preparation effort and travel. Non-profit organisations, chambers and educational institutions receive separate conditions.

References

What clients say.

An exceptional, highly professional and sincere character. Open-minded, inspiring, grounded in practice and full of creative sparks. He connects people, ideas and things.
Portrait of Ricardo Benites, Volkswagen Ricardo BenitesHead of LACE SAFe
Volkswagen
Mario gives the right impulses to look beyond the boundaries of your own company, to explore and to innovate.
Portrait of Luis Arturo Hernández Salmerón, E.ON SE Luis Arturo Hernández SalmerónHead of Decentral Energy System Innovation
E.ON SE
Mario shows a new world, new perspectives. Disruptive force for change!
Portrait of Dr Charlotte Beissel, Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG Dr. Charlotte BeisselHead of Human Resources
Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG
Frequent questions

What clients ask before booking.

What does “a decided plan at the end” mean concretely?

At the end of the day there is a paper with three to five actions on it, each with a name, a date and a statement of how you will tell in three months whether it worked. No more than that — but no less either.

It is deliberately kept short. A list of twenty points is not a plan but a collection of good intentions. What does not make the list is explicitly recorded as “not now”, so that it does not carry on as a silent instruction.

Who has to be in the room for that?

The people who can decide on the actions. If the group says at the end that somebody else has to approve this first, the day was a workshop and not a strategy day.

That is the only hard condition. It is clarified in the preliminary call, and if it cannot be arranged, a different format is the more honest one.

How large can the group be?

For working sessions that produce a result the limit is about fifty people. Above that you can still give an impulse talk, but you can no longer facilitate a group in which every voice is heard.

Between twenty and fifty the work is done in small groups and brought together in plenary. Below twenty it can be done in plenary throughout.

Is this a talk or a facilitation?

Both, and in that order. The impulse at the beginning creates the shared starting position — without it the group debates different assumptions. After that, facilitation is in the foreground and the speaker steps back.

That is the difference from a pure keynote: here the talk is a means, not the purpose. Anyone who only needs the impulse is better served by one of the other occasion formats.

How much preparation is needed?

More than for a keynote. A preliminary call of about 30 minutes clarifies the starting position and the open decisions; for a full-day format a second, shorter alignment shortly before the date is sensible.

Lead time is usually six to eight weeks. Without that preparation the day becomes a general workshop, and the result correspondingly general.

What documents does procurement receive?

The contracting party is CALADE GmbH, Naabstraße 18, 93188 Pielenhofen, Germany, Regensburg district court HRB 17029, VAT ID DE320517461. There is a written offer before the order; the invoice follows after the engagement, showing VAT separately, with travel costs against receipts. Public liability insurance is in place and proof is sent on request. Supplier declarations, codes of conduct and data processing agreements are reviewed and signed. Framework agreements and supplier portals are possible.

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