Spinning the Margolis Wheel

I love adapting the Margolis Wheel activity and seeing what happens!

Recently we facilitated a visioning session with a group whose purpose was to create a new structure that would help shape and support programs and program leadership. After two sessions that looked at values and structures, we used the Margolis Wheel to ensure we’d get what they were aiming for in building the new structure – a monitoring and learning framework of sorts.

This group was together for the first time and although the small group work yielded good opportunity for conversations, the plenary sessions had a few people talking and others mostly silent. The Margolis Wheel changed all that! After each one crafted a ‘research question’ to deepen our understanding of what it would look like if we really got what we intended via the values and structures, we moved into two concentric circles facing each other. ‘Researchers’ formed the inside circle, ‘community members’ stood facing them and the interviews began. Two minutes each round, researchers moving from community member to community member. A lot of information was gathered and synthesized to its essence to identify a diverse set of ‘yet-to-be-discovered’ indicators.

We were able to get a multi-faceted set of indicators and with some practical how-to’s as well as achieving a new level of comfort and trust in the group realizing that each one had something pertinent to offer and that their voice and skills mattered.

See sample description of Margolis Wheel in the resources -facilitation ideas section of our website.

Enjoy!