November 2022, I moderated a Goal Tree building workshop in which 2 teams of 5 built a Goal Tree, in the same session and same meeting room. After a couple of hours spent training about the basics of “Necessity logic”, the rules of building a Goal Tree and the different uses of such a Tree, I split the audience into 2 groups, each with its own Tree to build.

At the end of the 2-day workshop, the 2 trees were built, scrutinized, stress-tested and colored (meaning the current situation is assessed against the prerequisites listed in the Tree), and finally presented to a larger audience for a kind of final testing.

The 2 groups performed very well, with me going from one wall to the other, watching how the analysis and Tree building was going. I am no expert in the client’s business, so I can only react as a layman to what is identified as prerequisites to achieve the Goal and as a Goal Tree expert to support the building.

It wasn’t the first time that I supervised several Trees being built simultaneously. It can be done but it is exhausting for the workshop moderator. My experience tells me that 3 to 5 people working on a tree is optimum. Over 5, there is not enough space to see, move and interact in front of the brown paper on the wall. Over 5, some participants tend to mentally pull out of the exercise or get distracted, chat with others, etc. Two days are also a good format, which is long enough to do a decent job, but short enough to require focus and cadence for building the tree.

As usual, participants were surprised by the outcome and pleased about the interactions they experienced during the analysis. Top management is always surprised as well. Once for all that still must be achieved in order to achieve the Goal, second for the high yet critical spirit the participants display when they present their work.

More Goal Tree Chronicles?