HOW DO WE PLAY?

The currency of the Arc5 design system is rooted in collaboration and information design. When collaboration and information design interact with one another in a thoughtful, properly designed manner, they have an exponentially powerful impact on those participating and on the quality of the solutions they can create.

THE ARC5 SYSTEM

We have a system for designing work and the currency of that system is collaboration. Collaboration is the confluence of defining the right purpose for the experience and then getting the right people in the right environment with the right process and content tools to create moments that matter on the road to tangible action.

1. The right pu rpose is the beginning of everything. Without it, organizations can end up solving for the wrong thing. The purpose guides our design and functions as the guardrail to all the work that will be done.

2. The right people are the decision makers, implementers, and influencers - together with our team of designers and process experts - to achieve something special together.

3. We also think about process. Getting people immersed in everything they need to know to build tangible outputs and make key decisions. This allows for real actions based on the collective work achieved as a community throughout the collaboration experience.

4. We believe that the right information (or knowledge) not only supports the experience, but creates opportunities for ideas and solutions to emerge that couldn’t have otherwise.

5. Finally, we believe in environments which enable work: high tech and low-tech custom designed work-spaces to foster ideation and innovation and to accelerate work in a big fun way.

OUR METHOD IS CHARACTERIZED BY THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTS:

Accelerated approach. Quick alignment of large groups of people in very complex design work as well as development of solutions in 1–4 days that would typically take 4–7 months.
Highly collaborative. Bringing together and actively involving up to 500 participants in the development of the solution so that alignment is reached together with real ownership.
Creates change-enabling culture. Creative, engaging approaches to solving complex problems creates excitement and interest due to unique collaboration experiences — instant way to create a room full of change-enablers.
Faster return on investment. Catalyst sessions reduce assess and design phase timelines, allowing for faster implementation and realization of financial benefits.
Adaptive. Used for anything from creating a vision and strategy to developing a new product, re-engineering business processes, generating business requirements or designing an IT architecture.

ARC5 Workshops [2-3 days] may involve 50-150 participants, utilize a temporary digital studio system or a robust analog system for the length of the workshop + one prep day.

ARC5 Design Forums [2-3 days] may involve 10-50 participants, utilize a temporary robust analog system for the length of the forum + one prep day.

ARC5 Design Sessions [1-2 days] may involve 10-50 participants and utilize a robust analog design system for a shorter design period.

ARC5 HUBs [1-36 months] may involve 35-55 participants at a time and are temporary 'semi-permanent' collaboration hubs for organizations who make the investment to have ongoing sessions at regular intervals along a transformation program timeline. Our hubs are resourced with experienced facilitation teams on-demand. These have proven to substantially cut down implementation timelines and prototyping cycles, reducing the overall spend

ARC5 Collaboration Zones are permanently designed collaboration 'on-site' environments for the ultimate culture and organizational change impact on the future of work. Our collaboration zones are technology enabled and include the training and methodology necessary for in-house collaboration.

ARC5 Labs [1-6 months] are a series of sessions at regular intervals focusing on innovation and ideation. These experiences are built for experimentation, rapid failure, rapid iteration, connectivity and research.

ARC5 Summits (Conferences, Town Halls and Roadshows of the Future) are founded on people science principles that draw from our extensive knowledge of collaboration and information design. Both domains figure prominently in these offerings to maximize investment dollars and create memorable, dynamic experiences in arenas which are woefully inadequate.

Discovery Innovation Day - Explore the untapped whitespace. Immerse your organization in the trends and challenges to uncover new areas of investment that will create lasting value. A discovery day session is the perfect place to start when you don't know where to start. Asking yourself the right questions and having a day to focus on what your organization needs to address at this time is a day well spent.

Strategy Workshops - These collaboration experiences are most valuable when they are bundled in sequence for maximum success. To start, you can have a workshop to formulate your strategy to drive revenue through the creation of new products and services. Then give your strategy a vitamin boost with a refresh session to engage your leadership team to leverage new data and information to improve, optimize or course correct and refine your strategy. Finally, put people on the same page with a design session to rapidly align multiple levels of the organization around the strategy to maximize value, increase productivity and galvanize the community behind the collective mission.

Transformation Design Workshops - Transformation Design Workshops can enhance every stage of the transformation lifecycle from beginning to end. The key is to build in collaboration work sessions at the beginning, deciding on the strategic points along the entire transformation lifecycle where a transformation experience will be most valuable. Is it when you are setting your targets and building the business case? Perhaps it's when you need to prioritize initiatives and build a roadmap. You can employ a workshop for the program kick-off, defining the target operating model, gathering requirements or validating the design and finally, prototyping and pilot phase of the transformation.

Implementation Planning and Roadmap - Prepare for go-live. Nail down the nuts and bolts of the implementation plan, from turning on the new ‘system’ to sunsetting old legacy systems and any transition activities along the way. Align the team around core training, communications and change management approaches. Identify and engage change champions to drive the implementation. Identify core culture and behavior changes required to ensure value is realized.

Town Halls, Roadshows and Conferences - Immerse people in a learning environment that is dynamic, collaborative and focused on cultivating the brain trust of the people participating. Re-designing these traditional experiences will amplify everything that is good about networking, connection, community and culture. If you are going to spend the money on such experiences, get the biggest bang for your buck and realize your investment.

Collaboration Environments

It's not as simple as choosing a technology enabled environment from a menu of options. First, we start with the purpose, objectives and desired outcomes that the experience is meant to achieve. Then we back into the inputs--what information do the participants need in order to make informed decisions and solve problems? Once we know what we want to do and what information we need to get it done, then we decide on the number of days it will take and the number of brains in the room needed to do the work.

Designing collaboration is the currency of our expertise and the size of the session only matters when we understand the problems we are solving for and the right inputs and people needed to solve them. For example, we can run a full digital studio system for 20 people and we can run a less complex analog system for 100 people, and vice versa. The environment supports the work and can be configured in many different ways, depending on the objectives.