One of my favourite ways of kicking off a  larger gathering.

Why use this process

Impromptu Networking, also known as Speed Connection Pairs, gets people connecting with each other and the topic.

In ten minutes a group of 100 can make 150 connections and collective intelligence quickly starts to emerge.

Loose yet powerful connections are formed by asking engaging questions and everyone contributes to shaping the work and noticing patterns.

Set up

• Mingle and chat in pairs.
• Needs a large unobstructed space or plenty of space around tables.
• Works best as three  to five rounds over 10 to 20 minutes.

 

Participants get to mill around the room, meet other people, and have a brief chat in pairs based on a guiding question.

At the start of a session I tend to use the Liberating Structures question: “What do you hope to give to and get from the group today?” and sometimes add, “What challenge are you bringing?”

Flow

The virtue of this process is its simplicity. It doesn’t need much by way of instructions but I tend to share the following with the group:

• Find someone new to talk to if possible – outside your organisation or function
• Do quick introductions (but don’t take too long)
• Listen to each other uninterrupted rather than trading back and forth.So Person A gets 90 seconds to answer the question – then ring a bell – and then Person B gets 90 seconds
• In total each round will be about four minutes – 2 minutes each way.
• As the rounds go on I note that people have permission to talk about the same thing or something new or  inspired by something you just heard.
  
  

Discussion

I like to ask people to report back on what they heard (rather than what they said) .

This way of structuring the discussion encourages and collective sensing, and pattern recognition.

Question variations

You can use this at any time and ask any question – it’s not just for kicking off a session. For example:

• What do you want to see happening (end of meeting/ 3 years time) 
• What are you inspired to do now?
• What problem are you trying to solve?
• What challenge lingers from our last meeting?
• What hunch are you trying to confirm?
• What are your best hopes / worst fears from this gathering?
• Can you identify a 10 gain or 15% Solution?