Road to Hyderabad: Lesson # 6

The Road to Hyderabad: Lesson #6 Lay the Groundwork

One of the most successful things we've done in our recent Ashoka Tech collaboration gatherings is actually something that happens well before anyone arrives for the meeting.  Before anyone ever gets on a plane, we send out a short, pointed questionnaire to all of the participants related to the topic they are coming together to discuss.  After receiving responses back from as many participants as possible, we compile them into a packet of pre-meeting reading material that gets sent to all of the Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows participating at least one week before the event.

Seems pretty simple right?  Perhaps you've even done something similar.  I'll give an example.  For the meeting we are holding soon on reaching remote populations, I sent out this questionnaire to all particpiants:

1.What technologies and innovations have had the greatest impact on your work and your clients in the last 5 years?  How has the impact of these innovations been similar or different for you versus your clients?
2.What particular skills or techniques do you have that make you particularly good at what you do?
3.What are the areas of greatest inefficiency for you as a social entrepreneur serving rural populations?  What are your areas of greatest efficiency? 
4.In what ways are rural areas changing right now, especially in terms of familiarity with and access to technology?  How will rural India and rural populations be different in 5 or 10 years time?  What impact will this have on your work and the work of others serving or marketing to rural populations?

Now these aren't necessarily easy questions to answer, but that's not the point.  The goal is to get everyone who is coming to the event thinking deeply on the topic and on their relationship to it.

In sending out similar questions to the participants that attended our Nairobi and Sao Paolo meetings, we've learned a few things:

1. Not everyone will answer the questions you send and get them back to you in time, but that doesn't mean the don't still find the exercise valuable.  A few Fellows in Nairobi (who shall remain nameless :) ) told us that even though they weren't able to make the time to send responses, just reading through the questions helped them focus their thoughts and clarify their goals for the meeting.  For Fellows who might have thought they were a little removed from the topic at hand, the questions helped them realize how much the topic related to their work or could play a significant role in their work in the future.

2. While getting everyone to think about the event topic is great, the real power in this exercise lies in circulating everyone's responses in a pre-meeting reading packet.  Doing so allows the participants to get a head start on understanding one another.  Reading one another's perspectives can help prevent potential misunderstandings and define important key concepts for the meeting without having to take time at the event to do so.  Plus, learning about each other's work and perspectives before the event can help participants decide who they want to make time to meet with individually.

3. From a logistics standpoint: timing is important.  Working with busy people means that if you wait to long, you will likely not receive responses in time.  If you send things to early, they might be forgotten before the event.  I think soliciting survey responses 3 weeks before an event and circulating the responses 1-2 weeks before the meeting is ideal for a small gathering of 8-10.

Beyond surveys and in-depth questionnaires, there are many other ways to prep partcipants for a really productive meeting.  Look for future Road to Hyderabad posts to find other tips for engaging collaboration participants before they ever get on a plane.

Click here to check out The Road to Hyderabad series.

Photo by: flickr/SFAnitti