Only a little more than a month to go before we all gather in Bonn for GLOW… It’s natural we are anxious to find out what the agenda will be, how we’ll reach there, who all we will meet etc.
This past week was a watershed in the GLOW preparation process, with the mid-term review done and senior staff approving the proposed plans and programme of the workshop. So the GLOWeb Editor requested the Project Manager (Douglas) to update us about what all happened during the week and at what stage are the preparations right now. Here is what Douglas has to say:
How much can you get out of one week?
Having just said goodbye to Raymond Clark (our external facilitator, who came to spend a week in Bonn helping us in planning the GLOW), it’s the right time to review what this week had promised to be and what it has delivered…
First, this week was a culmination of several weeks of intense work, with a 360-degree overview of all the work done by eight different Functional Teams (FTs). On Tuesday a mid-term review was undertaken where Raymond assessed the project’s progress based on presentations made by all FTs about Stage One deliverables. The aim was to provide a complete view of the project status to everyone, make necessary changes in plans and reach a consensus about the presentation to be made to UNV senior managers the next day.
A Senior Staff Meeting (SSM) was scheduled on Wednesday where the agreed GLOW plans were presented. With the help of the Task Force and the external facilitator, the Project Manager presented the complete workshop plans in a two-hour presentation. The SSM gave their endorsement of the “Zero Draft” agenda (with daily programme and discussion content details) for the Global Workshop. The agenda was complemented with an overview of plans of other activities (such as Share Fair, Social and Fun) designed by different FTs to make it a wholesome event.
This week we also completed a number of significant steps, such as decisions by the Project Mandate Board on issues like the status of the project budget; setting criteria for a final participant’s list from the field and HQs; proposing a list of special guests and keynote speakers and; defining an ad-hoc DSA rate for GLOW participants.
On the parallel, a cross-section of colleagues from different parts of the HQ units participated in a week-long workshop for developing UNV’s corporate communications strategy. Assisted by David Kardish, an external communications consultant, they laid the foundation for the strategy which will be further discussed with field colleagues at GLOW.
Of course, these activities inter-twinned with a number of other activities of normal daily routine. All the Functional Teams continued to devote their time and energy to GLOW preparations in the middle of daily office work and other ongoing activities.
Even before we realized, Friday had arrived upon us! Before the weekend set in, we had a wrap-up meeting with Raymond and the Design Team where we even managed to review an advanced Draft 1 of a “designed” agenda.
This week also began the Stage Two of the GLOW project, with a revised set of work packages given to all FTs, with the focus being on making things simple and get the job done! The teams are now giving finishing touches to their plans, concluding various proposals and finalizing arrangements.
The first GLOW participants – facilitators from the field – will begin to arrive in Bonn on May 8th for one-week orientation. Much hard work still lies ahead for all involved: delivering final outputs and getting the last invitations out. But I can definitely see a big “glow” at the end of this long tunnel of preparations.
Everything is on track and more! I realize that indeed we have got a lot out of a week!!
