Planning a session

Scope, who facilitates, who takes part, the medium, and the materials.

This page covers the decisions made before Prepare: the scope, who facilitates, who takes part, whether the board is physical or digital, and what to bring. Time is covered in timing templates.

Define the scope

Decide on these aspects and send them with the invitation, so nobody meets them for the first time on the day:

1. What the tree is about. Specific enough to keep the session focused, broad enough to leave room for discovery: "why large customers are not renewing," not "customers".
2. Name what is out of scope, so the session does not drift into it. Out-of-scope nodes that come up anyway go to the parking lot.
3. Identify the time horizon. The current state, a planning cycle, or the year ahead, for example.

A clear scope is also the first defense against runaway scale.

Who facilitates

Most sessions are run by someone from inside the group: a team lead, a manager, or the person who owns the problem. The first Tree of Influence sessions were co-led by 2 engineering managers from inside the organization, and knowing the domain is a significant advantage: you recognize a shallow arrow, and you know which questions to ask.

A facilitator from inside the group has a stake in the result, so they need a few habits that an outsider would not. They are described in the facilitator's role.

An outside facilitator, or a co-facilitator, helps in a few situations:

• The topic is political, and any insider would be seen as taking a side.
• The facilitator's own area is under scrutiny.
• The facilitator does not know the domain. In that case, co-facilitate with a domain expert, or ask knowledgeable participants to take the role of challenging connections.

Who takes part, and how many

Invite the people who hold the knowledge of the problem space, from as many perspectives as the scope touches. A tree built by one function sees that function's problems.

Group size sets the format:

These are guides, not rules. A small group that is highly aligned can move a lot faster. A larger group with deep disagreements probably needs more time.

Physical or digital

The choice of medium is about group dynamics, not preference. Consider:

• Group size. Physical presence keeps a large group's attention. Screens in front of 20 or more people invite distraction.
• Comfort with the tool. Digital works when everyone is comfortable with it. One uncomfortable participant can break the flow.
• Devices. A digital session needs a device for every participant.
• The tool itself. It must handle real-time collaboration for the whole group.

A small group of up to about 10 people who know the tool usually does best on a digital board: no transcription, and voting and rearranging are easy. A group of 20 or more usually does best on a wall.

A session that starts on a wall moves to a digital board during a break, once the physical part has done its job of volume, energy, and participation. After that, the tree stays digital.

Materials

• On a wall: sticky notes in the 4 node colors and in white, markers, dot stickers for voting, a large wall or whiteboard, and a phone to photograph the result.
• On a digital board: the colors loaded, a legend frame, directional arrows as the default connector, and access for every participant, tested before the session. A starter board has the colors and the legend frame ready.

Example

The renewals session was planned by the customer success lead who later facilitated it:

• Scope: why large customers are not renewing, over the next 2 quarters. Pricing was named as out of scope.
• Participants: 12 leads from 5 functions: engineering (4), support (2), product (2), sales (2), and customer success (2), including herself.
• Format: 1 session of 2.5 hours, with a break after Connect.
• Medium: a digital board. All 12 used it daily, and 3 of them joined remotely.
• Facilitator: herself. Renewals are her number, so she followed the habits in the facilitator's role for facilitating from inside the group.