Benefits and advantages of Chai Board

Chai Board is the tool we use in facilitating DNA crafting (strategy Development). Flip charts and the marker pens are the usual tools that we use in the facilitation process. We have observed that this simple process brings certain significant and important value to the key players who are participating in the Chai Boards (DNA sessions).  

Some of the conspicuous ones are….

It brings Focus: Because everyone is looking at one display: the flip charts, the key players do not have many different versions inside their own imaginations. Slowly shared awareness and understanding is built. This shared understanding forms the basis for future social capital needed for the business growth.

It promotes camaraderie: The participants begin to feel they are part of one team. The provocative, interactive, engaging qualities of working with flipcharts and dialoging are found to be more effective at supporting relationship building, trust, and participation than pushy PPT presentations and lectures.

It prevents fragmentation: Fragmentation suggests a condition in which the people involved see themselves as more separate than united, and in which direction and focus are scattered. It is a phenomenon that pulls apart business that is whole. We have found that fragmentation is hidden, intangible and people in the organization do not even realize that there are incompatible tacit assumptions about the business and each key person believes that his or her understanding is complete and is shared by all.  Our flip chart display is a direct support to common findings, and allows the key players to aggregate and analyze the issues on a common platform. Most of the outputs that the key players are making in understanding the dynamics of their business are from displaying on flipcharts and dialoguing on the issue. This process prevents fragmentation but enhances shared understanding. This is key to business growth, without this it is less probable.

It allows easy follow-through: Connecting everyone’s activity over time is essential to producing anything. The difference between relying on everyone’s individual perception and having a shared schedule and road map everyone buys-in is night and day. The output flipcharts allow the key players to brief themselves, remind, repeat the matters of business, support after-action reviews, and document key outputs for broadcasting to others in the organization.

Contributed by Sasikanth Prabhu

Characteristics of Strategy meetings with the key people of an organisation (Part 1)

By now I have facilitated more than 100 sessions on development of Business strategy and I see some common occurings / patterns in most of the sessions. The observations and experiences are given below.......

• The development of suitable / appropriate strategic options often require novel perspective. Catching the novel perspective sometimes is the most difficult and time consuming part in strategy devlopment


• Many in the organisation view strategy and execution are two different and sometimes even go to the extent that they cannot co-exist.


• Real strategy making requires inputs and contributions from various members of the team. But the top management has the tendency to act as an apex body and take a stand point 'do as I/we say ". This disconnects many employees from the business.


• Strategic information is often forgotten amidst new information pertaining to daily operations. This makes people to be fire fighting than doing the important.


• Many times it requires the key people to make difficult decisions, which they postpone thinking better decision can come as time passes by.


• Many important key points need to be taken into account from the business perspective. But many key people think only in specific functions such as finance, production, accounts, sales , HR etc. They think of doing the job well and not winning the business.


• There is gross disagreement exists among key players on basic assumptions regarding the future of their business.


• The strategy need to be communicated to the employees convincingly, but little time and effort is spent on making the strategy simple to communicate.


• Difference of opinion among the key players regarding the strategy escalates into personal conflicts at a later stage.


• The key players fail to help the employees feel that strategy is something worthwhile to pursue, to identify and to feel proud of.

contributed by : Sasikanth Prabhu