Celebration-5W exercise, version 2.0

Mike Burrows (mike@agendashift.com)
Twitter: @asplake @agendashift #agendashift
Home: agendashift.com
Version 2, March 2019
Copyright © 2016-2019Agendashift (a trading name of Positive Incline Ltd)
Celebration-5W by Mike Burrows of Positive Incline Ltd is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en_US
Celebration-5W
The Agendashift™ workshop kickoff exercise
agendashift.com/celebration-5w

agendashift.com/celebration-5wCopyright © 2016-2019 Agendashift™
Agendashift is a trading name of Positive Incline Ltd
Notes to facilitators (1/4)
• Celebration-5W is a time travel exercise, typically focussed on a celebration several months into the
future. It is typically used at the start of a workshop, retrospective, or chartering exercise to create
some shared business context. Everything else we go on to discuss should in some way help us to
achieve the things we identify here.
• 5W refers to the ”journalistic” fiveWs.To help get people started, the animation on slide 8
recommends that participants start with ‘When’, far enough ahead to scope a meaningfully
challenging ‘What’.The ’Who’ then follows.They should choose an imaginative ‘Where’, a venue that
says something. Finally, the ’Why’ of the whole endeavour, not just the celebration. Facilitators may
want to mention that there is no ‘How’ here.
• Facilitators should encourage both ambition and business relevance.You might mention these real
examples: “Celebrating our millionth customer”, “A billion pounds in turnover”
• Best done in small ‘table groups’. As per the video (see next slide), table groups of 4 people eases
the use of the 1-2-4-all pattern (liberatingstructures.com/1-1-2-4-all/) for the Imagine… part (slide 3)
• Timings vary according to facilitation style and workshop context but 40 minutes is quite typical.
• Equipment: Paper (I use A3 size) and pens; printed templates optional.You might ask table groups
to put their work up on the wall (I bring blue decorator’s tape for the purpose) before they share
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idden

• Original .pptx files and related resources via agendashift.com/celebration-5w
• Watch the video at agendashift.com/15-minute-foto; this exercise starts at 6:10
• Questions? Feedback?Via agendashift.com/slack, join us on Slack. Channel #workshops
• Loads of other great resources at agendashift.com/resources
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Customisations, adaptations, translations, etc are warmly encouraged and you are welcome to
incorporate this exercise with other material, subject to these conditions:
• Except by prior permission, when incorporating this material you must include the original
copyright notices as shown on the front slide
• Except by prior permission, adaptations must acknowledge the source and be distributed under
the same license. For example:
<Your adaptation> is copyright © <year> <owner>. It is based on Celebration-5W
(agendashift.com/celebration-5w) by Mike Burrows of Positive Incline Ltd, copyright © 2016-2018, and as
described in the Agendashift book by the same author.
<Your adaptation> is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
License.To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en_US.
• We recommend that you include the CC-BY-SA logo (as shown above).We like to show it on all
applicable slides
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idden

Picture the scene: It’s some months from now, and
you’re celebrating! Isn’t it wonderful to see
everyone together like this? And you deserve it:
over this period, you, your teams, and your entire
organisation have achieved far more than anyone
would have thought possible. You dared to aim
high, and still you smashed it!
What makes this celebration so special? We’re
going to explore that via some time travel and the
classic journalistic questions of Who, What, When,
Where, and Why, otherwise known as the five W’s.
Agendashift: Outcome-oriented change and
continuous transformation, chapter 1 (Mike Burrows, 2018)
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Imagine…
You’re celebrating!
• Celebrating meaningful accomplishments,
objectives, goals
• Celebrating with everyone who helped make it
happen: colleagues, suppliers, customers, …
• Reminding each other how you were stretched
and why it was all worth it

Slides for basic 5W layout
“Clean sheet of A3, portrait mode,
big bold headings down the page”
See also “circle/quadrants” layout in
later slides
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Put it into context with the FiveWs
Who
What
When
Where
Why
• Large sheet of paper
• Portrait mode
• Five headings, the journalistic Five Ws
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws

Who
is celebrating with you?
What
are you celebrating?
When
Where
Why
is this important?
Organisational scope / identity;
others involved or supporting
Key accomplishments,
objectives, goals
The timeframe required for
this significant challenge
A venue that makes a statement
about how this is valued
The Why of the whole endeavour,
not just the celebration

Prepare to share
Who
is celebrating with you?
What
When
Where
Why
is this important?
• Think about how you are going to
share your work back to the room
• There is no one right way, but if in
doubt, start with Who and work down

Slides for “circle/quadrants” layout, design
by Mike Haber (@michaelthaber)
Recommend A3 or flipchart paper; you may
wish to print or draw templates in advance
Complete anticlockwise from ‘When’
Present in some natural order, typically
clockwise or left-right from ‘Who’
H
idden

Who
WhenWhere
What
Why
Who is celebrating with you?
• Organisational scope /
identity; others involved or
supporting
Where are you celebrating?
• A venue that makes a
statement about how this
work is valued
What are you celebrating?
• Key accomplishments,
objectives, goals
When are you celebrating?
• The timeframe required for
Why is this
important?
• The Why of the
whole endeavour, not
just the celebration
TIP: Start here and
work anticlockwise

Prepare to share, 5W-style
Who
WhenWhere
What
Why
Who is celebrating with you?
• Organisational scope / identity;
others involved or supporting
Where are you celebrating?
• A venue that makes a
statement about how this
work is valued
What are you celebrating?
• Key accomplishments,
objectives, goals
When are you celebrating?
• The timeframe required for
Why is this
important?
• The Why of the
whole endeavour, not
just the celebration

Continue your Discovery…
By design, Celebration-5W doesn’t cover the ‘How’ (eg ways of working) .To complete
Discovery (agendashift.com/discovery), two related exercises:
Both are described in chapter 1, Discovery, of the Agendashift book, agendashift.com/book

More outcome-oriented / values-based resources
agendashift.com/resources
• Agendashift A3 template
• Featureban, Changeban
• 15-minute FOTO
• …and more
agendashift.com/books
agendashift.com/slack
agendashift.com/linkedin
agendashift.com/partner
agendashift.com/partners
Mike Burrows mike@agendashift.com
Twitter: @asplake @agendashift
Profile: agendashift.com/mike
(2019)

Celebration-5W exercise, version 2.0

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