A skilled facilitator is crucial to delivering a successful meeting or event. The Alder Group has provided expert facilitation services since its inception, and as a group, our facilitators have run thousands of meetings, consultations, workshops, training courses, and a wide variety of events. Our depth of expertise enables our team to also offer highly specialized training in facilitation techniques.
What sets The Alder Group apart is our ability to balance the objectives of the meeting with the needs of the participants – and to do so with a level of eloquence, professionalism and tact that gains buy-in from everyone in the room. We have consistently received praise from our most demanding, high profile clients, who cannot afford to have a meeting go sour.
Our approach, while always customized to your needs, has one central goal in mind: helping you meet your objectives during the event, and in the long term.
Whether you need help planning and facilitating a multi-day, national or regional consultation, or a short group planning session, rely on The Alder Group for your facilitation needs.
Clients tell us it is our depth of expertise and proactive approach that sets us apart from other firms specializing in consultations and events. We recognize that time is precious and that many stakeholders suffer from “consultation fatigue”. They quickly identify approaches that are insincere or ineffective.
The Alder Group fosters a culture of openness, transparency and respect. We help clients to set realistic goals, share lessons learned about complex issues, and avoid forcing a rigid process. We believe that good will and enthusiasm must be maintained to result in lasting positive change.
From small meetings to complex, national consultations, we apply the same fundamental skills: Attention to detail, creativity, flexibility and resourcefulness. Every event brings its own set of challenges and opportunities. Clients tell us they can rely on the Alder Group for a highly focused, experienced team that will ensure a sound process, quality interaction, and solid outcomes achieved.
Trusting a firm to carry out the many tasks involved in planning and managing an event should not be a leap of faith. Our consultation planning is extremely detailed. The Alder Group has successfully delivered high-profile pan-Canadian consultations and events from inception to the final stages. We work with clients to ensure risks are strategically identified, planned for and managed with professionalism. Conflicting stakeholders are facilitated with proficiency and tact. Logistics are handled with every detail addressed proactively and with care.
Our consultations and events expertise includes:
Planning and managementNational, provincial and local, including objective setting, design, work planning and budgeting; and managing the consultation process.
LogisticsVenue liaison and negotiations, menu planning, special requirement arrangements, display space, invitations and follow-up, hotel reservations, event registration (including online), and on-site management.
Program developmentConceptual planning, agenda setting, small group tasks, plenary discussions, material and resource development including background materials, complex workbooks and small group work sheets, speaker identification and selection, preparation of opening and closing remarks and speeches.
FacilitationWe value the importance of using research to help our clients make difficult decisions. Using a client-focused approach, we employ a range of methodologies to gather the evidence our clients need to inform the decision-making process. This includes online and telephone surveys, interviews, focus groups, various delphi techniques, roundtables, analysis of administrative data sets, environmental scans and synthesis writing. Our in-house research, evaluation and performance measurement capacity is complemented by a network of leading experts, and supported by skilled project management. We have carried out a wide range of program and policy-related evaluation assignments, using both innovative and traditional methodologies. We tailor our approach and select the appropriate methodologies to meet the needs of our clients.
The Principals and Associates at The Alder Group have planned, designed and delivered an impressive range of training courses and workshops for private sector, government, and NGO clients. Our training design and delivery services span the area of management training, evidence-informed decision making and custom programs delivered on behalf of dozens of public- and private-sector clients.
Our Training Needs Analysis Process can help ensure that your professional development initiative is highly focused and targeted to the needs of your organization and participants. A select list of past courses and workshops offered include:
In addition, there are numerous courses and modules clustered under each of these offerings that clients can focus on, depending on their needs and availability of time.
The Alder Group has successfully managed hundreds of projects – large and small – on budget and on time, even under the tightest deadlines. We take a strong conceptual approach, so that we find the right methodologies to meet the specific goals unique to your project. Managing a project is much more than simply providing oversight. It’s about setting realistic expectations and managing them. It’s about clear, ongoing communications, both internally and externally. It requires identifying difficulties in advance, and guiding the project through the inevitable unforeseen challenges. Finally, it’s visualizing how external factors impact on the coming together of all the project’s components. At the front end of every project, The Alder Group managers place a strong emphasis on working with clients to strategically analyze and refine the project’s objectives.
Reports make a strong first impression and create a lasting statement about organizations. That’s why quality is imperative in undertaking any report writing assignment – large or small. The Alder Group has written hundreds of reports over the years, from content-specific technical reports, to plain language adaptations for targeted audiences, to highlights and organizational annual reports.
Measurable outcomes for each objective identified at the outset are tracked and reported on regularly with all our report writing assignments. Our writers excel at drafting informative and engaging content in the right tone, using the correct level of language, aimed at the right audience. Our writing team also benefits from access to a range of content experts that carry out any relevant research, share their insights, and assist with overall guiding of the writing process.
Take your vision and your drive, and you’ll have results. Add a clear, achievable plan, and you’ll have a road map to success. It sounds simple, but for many decision-makers, strategic planning can seem daunting.
As a strategic “thinking” firm, The Alder Group often asks clients to consider planning objectives in light of both organizational (internal) strategic directions, and broader external issues in the public environment landscape. Many of our strategic planning projects follow tried, tested and true techniques while others have required a more creative, tailored approach. Our experience shows that one size, or one approach, does not fit all projects or clients. In the end, we tailor our work according to your needs. We help you define your desired end goal, and assist with developing solutions to ensure that you achieve that result.
The Alder Group has the talent to help you develop an achievable plan. We have the leadership skills to identify the issues with you and help you achieve a clear vision of the best direction to set, and course of action to take.
The Alder Group leverages its strength in strategic planning to deliver communications services that generate maximum results. We understand and apply best practices in health communications and patient education. We approach all assignments with a strong methodology focused on identifying objectives, understanding the audiences and crafting effective and efficient communications solutions.
Our approach is to work in partnership with our clients. We carefully assemble an experienced communications team to ensure exactly the right mix of experience and subject matter expertise. To each assignment, we bring a great breadth and depth of knowledge and capacity in the following areas:
The Alder Group works with organizations so that they can successfully incorporate new knowledge – evidence – into their decision-making processes. Among many other services, we build capacity for organizations so that they can continue to achieve their desired goals through the increased use of evidence (see below).
A major focus of health and social service organizations these days is to use more evidence to inform their decision-making. The use of research evidence provides health care executives with a secure basis for decision-making, especially in public organizations where accountability is essential. Healthcare executives facilitate change in their organizations if they foster a culture that promotes research use, encourages staff to participate in research as a way to make it more relevant to these individuals; and promotes the implementation of “decision supports” emanating from evidence.
Knowledge translation refers to the exchange, synthesis, and application of knowledge (Davison, 2009). Kitson and Bisby (2008) define knowledge translation (KT) as “the generic term that is increasingly coming to be used to describe the processes by which new knowledge is put into action – whether that is new policies, products, practices or protocols. KT has emerged out of a rich interdisciplinary mix of theories and methods and the task in front of policy makers, researchers and many other stakeholders is to work out how to make this process (or these processes) more effective. The logic is that the KT process will become more effective as we learn how to apply the evidence we know already about what works and what doesn’t and how we identify, prioritise and fund relevant KT research that will generate new knowledge to inform our actions.”
Our team has a strong background in the area of knowledge transfer and exchange. Numerous models have been put forward to conceptually situate and explain the knowledge transfer and exchange function. We provide services and support to assist organizations with transferring knowledge internally (within their organization) and externally (with other organizations and governments). We do so in the context of the knowledge transfer continuum, focusing on the following five core considerations:
We work with organizations through this five-stage continuum and also provide support to organizations as they focus on some or just one of these considerations. In all the work we do, we use the most relevant research evidence to bear in order to maximize the effectiveness of the projects that clients bring to us. The over-riding theme of our work is that we seek to support and enhance the decision-making environment through the use of evidence.
The Alder Group works with organizations through:
Effective KT is multi-dimensional, requires interaction, and can take many forms. It can be made explicit as strategy or may also be relatively informal; the key point is that there is a recognized need to get the research knowledge “out” and understood so it can be applied to improve, ultimately, the health outcomes of individuals.