Stage 2: Identifying your themes

Your ‘reporting out’ in Stage 1 should help to start the conversation of recognising the emerging themes from your story statements. In this section of the workshop your aim is to explore the themes further to develop your ‘Why’ into something more cohesive, but also to consider your ‘How’.

Discovery

Agree the emerging themes, and list these – is anything missing?

Ask participants to:

• Discuss the contribution they can make to others in relation to the themes
• What are the most interesting and impactful stories from your participants in relation to the themes?
• What inspires them, and did they feel they could share their own story because of it – what was their story?

Developing the themes:

• What do the themes mean in reality – ask participants to reshare their stories but focus on:
  • Why they did it.
  • How they did it.
  • What they did.
• What themes emerge from sharing the stories? Focus on the reasons and what was involved?
• As a group rewrite the stories and emerging themes as action statements, e.g., ‘to include all’, ‘to inspire innovation’.

Ensure these are captured to refer back to for reporting out Stage 2.

Reporting out Stage 2

Review and discuss the outputs.

• How do participants feel?
• What has been the impact on them?
• What else do they want to know?
• What else do they want to share?
• Is this what they expected?

Then take the action statements and collate these into similar themes and discuss which might be the most relevant to your current focus and those that might be important for the future.