The participants were managers from Germany and the U.S.A. They came out of business and project management functions.
An added “complication” was that the participants had not been working together as a team for very long, and met personally as a team the first time.

There were thus three main objectives:

• using the collective brainpower in the room to help develop the product strategy
• discussing and anticipating the cultural initiative, which had been decided on by top management
• getting to know each other in order to start acting as a team – across the national boundaries

The group sizes varied from twenty to forty. In order to manage the facilitation in such large varied groups effectively, two teamPRO3 consultants were present at each meeting, one native speaker in German and one in English. The meeting was held in English, and the fact that the facilitators represented both cultural groups in the meeting helped the participants feel at ease.A major success factor for these workshops was the preparation teamPRO3 put into them.  The aims and objectives were discussed thoroughly with the responsible manager well in advance. A small preparation team was established including representatives from the various participant groups. A very detailed agenda was prepared. This helped to ensure that the meeting objectives were achieved.The format of the meeting was designed to give the participants a lot of time in breakout (65% of the time) as well as plenary sessions. This helped the participants both understand fully the topics being discussed and, more importantly, made the results and actions that were decided on “their” actions, rather than something decided upon elsewhere. The positive feedback both the responsible manager and the facilitators received at the end of the workshop were evidence of the success of this approach. CONCLUSION - One way of successfully bringing teams together is: let them work on their day-to-day problems (instead of outdoor-events).