The 33. Metaforum SummerCamp in Italy was quite differently from any other camp, realized since Bernd started the movement in the 1980s. People from all over the world – literally from Germany to Australia – joined a 3-week online congress. Our MDI Solution Developer Dominik Etzl shares with us the “3 Key Takeaways from a 3-week online congress” of this new and major virtual experience.
“Changing the mindset in teams is also successfully possible with a hybrid set-up. The virtual coordination especially requires clarity and structure. We will show you how you can also implement virtual and hybrid trainings using a best-practice story!”
About the author:
Nicole Altenberger, Training & Development Consultant at MDI, shares with us her work experiences with L&D in international companies.
At the beginning of the year, a large customer had decided to change the focus of a team (approx. 25 people) and to encourage a mindset change from problem to solution orientation. The general goal of becoming a high performing team was in the focus and was to be implemented through individual measures (conflict resolution, brainstorming, out of the box thinking, customer focus, prioritization, …) The training was designed to take place in one large seminar room, with two smaller rooms to meet the individual needs of the participants and to provide enough space for exchange.
Like so many other companies, we were faced with the question: what are we postponing, knowing that no one can see into the future and anticipate when the situation will “normalize” again. In contrast to this, however, there are always topics and contents that have an urgency and importance – which should therefore definitely be held within a certain period of time.
Environment meets mind- and skillset – Shaping and leading sustainable dream teams Vol. 01 How can you lead and support teams on the way to the IDEAL Mindset and IDEAL Skillset and ensure the appropriate ENVIRONMENT for this?
Together with the customer we went on a creative search for solutions and created an interactive virtual format, in which the exchange among each other, but also the setting of impulses by the expert is not neglected. The aim was to strengthen the team both virtually and hybridly in the long term.
The hurdle here was the preparation and infrastructure. Since there was a group of 25 people, a total of 3 rooms were needed – 2 physical (in an chair circle in a hotel) and 1 virtual room, with the participants joining in virtually. Additional laptops had to be set up to ensure that the participants could be seen – but also heard – from all sides. With optimal support on site, we scheduled technical rehearsals in advance to test the sound quality from different angles in the room. With joint effort, the first major hybrid training was created – with amazingly positive results.
Planning is half the battle
A hybrid training needs clarity and structure in the preparation. Since contact persons have to be coordinated virtually and on site, a meticulous agenda is advantageous.
Coordination Meetings
should be divided into: Focus Content and Focus Technical Support – as this guarantees that all success components are aligned. A visualization of the hybrid set-up is also very helpful
Clear rules
About a year ago, we at MDI held our first internal Hackathon event and immediately shared our experience with this method.
A lot of time has passed since then. A time that made us and our environment rethink the future of work even faster than we had already planned. Large events, which usually require to gather all people into one room, like a hackathon does, are not possible under today’s conditions. This does not mean, however, that strategically relevant issues, which should be dealt with in a timely and agile manner with the involvement of as many stakeholders as possible, should pause.
Hackathons create an exciting atmosphere for virtual collaboration without boundaries. With this article we show you “How to Hackathon”!
The whole world, and Vienna in particular, is currently in a state of crisis. Many of us are currently exposed to multiple burdens in our daily work lives. With this article we would like to counteract the uncertainty and negative news with a positive. We have therefore consulted our expert Marilena Maris for support and asked her what coping strategies we can currently implement.
We are also looking forward to further input on the topic in order to provide as much inspiration as possible.
Sharing is Caring! We are in this together.
Interview with Mag. Gunther Fürstberger, CEO of MDI Management Development International.
This year OKR proved to be a great method to overcome crisis situations. Therefore, I interviewed our CEO Gunther Fürstberger about the direct impact of OKR on our growth as a consulting and training company and asked an essential question: Does OKR – Objectives and Key results actually pay off?”
Aline: “In many companies across all industries upper management is discussing, whether the implementation of OKR in their company makes sense. For sure, an essential question is: Does OKR pay off”?
Gunther: “Yes I am also hearing these discussions especially in the finance and health industry at the moment.”
Gunther: “In the time before Covid, OKR contributed a lot to our growth path. We grew 76% in 3 years and it had a great impact on commitment in our team. Since Covid the growth party was sadly over. Because almost all our offered solutions had to do with people coming together: seminars, events and renting out apartments to tourists. This year OKR proved to be a great method to overcome crisis situations. Never has it been more important to adjust continually to a dynamic environment. All companies of the Fürstberger Holding survived all setbacks without the need of making any debts.”
This year OKR proved to be a great method to overcome crisis situations. Never has it been more important to adjust continually to a dynamic environment.
Gunther: “Each company is different, and you need to work with assumptions and estimations, but I can share, how I see the costs and benefits at MDI GmbH – a consulting and training company.”
Gunther: “Sure, we are talking about 27 employees, 4 of them in leadership positions. Let’s take 3 months as calculation period and a quarterly revenue of € 1.300.000,-.”
Gunther: “Good, let’s start with costs: For a quarterly planning meeting we need 6 people for 5h i.e. 30 hours altogether. And 27 people spend each 2 hours on formulating team OKRs including listening to the presentation of company goals and presenting afterwards the new quarterly OKRs to each other, that are 54 h.
Then we need to take into consideration the Check in meetings: Each second week 30 minutes for each employee + 2h for 4 leaders = 12h + 8 h = 20 h; 5x in a quarter are 100 h.
In total we come to 154 h per quarter. If we calculate € 50, – per hour we have people costs of € 7.700, -.
As all organisations who did not introduce OKR somehow deal with goals, we must consider that there are always related people costs. Probably in a classical MbO (Management by objectives) -organisation less time for planning is needed, but on the other side lot of time is spent on ad hoc priority talks.
After analysing the direct costs of running OKR, let’s look at the impact:
My estimation is, that 10% of sales is the result of OKR decisions, due to flexibility in creating and offering fitting solutions, better processes, training, marketing. That counts for € 130.000,- per quarter. But for sure, higher sales means also higher costs involved. For € 130.000 higher sales the related costs might be appr. 80%. That leaves an additional gross margin of € 26.000,-.
But OKR influences also productivity and thus the costs. OKR focuses on change, not on the routine tasks. It helps you to think again and again about which routine task can be stopped, started and optimised. This results in automatization and digitalization. OKR helps to drive this faster and smarter. If we reach a productivity growth of 2% per quarter and the competition only 1 %, we could argue that OKR contributes in our example to € 10.400,- cost advantage. Calculation: If we have 80% of sales as needed costs this means in absolute numbers 1% of € 1.040.000,- of means a competitive advantage of € 10.400,-.
Summing up the financial impact of OKR per quarter we get:
The positive impact on the balance sheet of OKR is almost 5 x higher than the related people costs.”
Gunther: “For us, it is definitely a YES!”
We’re all in the same boat right now: Concerns about the Coronavirus and it’s unpredictable upcoming challenges for us and the economy we live and work in, chaotic situations within organisations and this new home office „situation“.
If you’re also stuck in home office lately and remote working is surprising and quite new for you, we’re happy to share some quick tips helping you to be as productive as on your usual office seat.
As the 16-year-old Boyan Slat was diving in Greece in 2011, he discovered more waste than fish. And soon decided to start the Ocean Cleanup project. In the last few years thousands of people joined to support his initiative with providing money, technical solutions, promotion and so on. Although the first bigger cleaning attempt in California did not yet bring the wished results, the motivation of now company leader Boyan Slat stays unbroken and they go on improving their ideas and following their mission-of-heart to free our oceans from plastic waste
Good news first: No, you don’t need to learn coding! While the concept of Hackathons really has its origins in the IT world, it has evolved and become a pretty cool solution finding process, far beyond a classic workshop. Guided by an experienced Hackathon professional, we did a Hackathon ourselves to gather first-hand experience. As a result, here’s an idea of what Hackathons can do for you as a leader and HR professional. (more…)