Andy Carroll
Andy Carroll is senior program director at Exponent Philanthropy in Washington, DC.
Before presenters speak at your conferences, it’s important that they know the audience and how to best engage them. A look at how one association trained and supported 40 external conference session designers by implementing a session design coaching program.
After planning successful biennial conferences for 20 years, why would our association change the content-development process?
Exponent Philanthropy’s National Conference brings together 900 people for more than 65 sessions and workshops. Historically, we designed the sessions in-house to uphold quality, relying on staff experienced in our field, while paying close attention to audience needs, adult learning theory, and data from past evaluations.
We developed a set of design principles that call for each session to have
Session evaluations had consistently averaged “very good” to “excellent.” Our members came to expect practical and relevant content, new ideas and inspiration, and the opportunity to learn from peers.
In 2017, we stepped back to look at our session design process, which was requiring considerable staff time. We had two opportunities: First, our members increasingly expressed interest in engaging a broader range of experienced practitioners and thought leaders in the planning. How could we involve them? Second, our senior program staff had a combined 40 years of session design experience. How could we leverage their expertise?
In fall 2017, we hosted our first-ever call for sessions, meaning people beyond our staff would design two-thirds of our conference program. To train and support 40 external session designers and maintain quality, we inaugurated a session design coaching program. We gave designers a written Session Design Guide, which documented effective principles and practices, and we asked them to sign an agreement committing to a series of tasks and deadlines over eight months. A webinar kicked off the training.
The core of the program was coaching with our two senior program staff. Our staff coaches put into practice training we developed for members on peer coaching, emphasizing skills of active listening, making observations, and asking follow-up questions. The coaches’ role was to help the session designers be as successful as possible with our audience. Each designer was asked to schedule two 30- to 60-minute phone calls with a staff coach.
The coaches’ role was to help the session designers be as successful as possible with our audience.
The goals of the first coaching session were:
Careful listening and clarifying questions by our staff coaches made a difference. As a solid foundation was built for each session, with specific takeaways for participants, the designer could complete the rest of the planning with greater clarity and ease.
The goals of the second coaching session were:
More than 20 designers voluntarily checked back with their session coach a third or fourth time to review developing plans.
The result? Sessions were rated just as high as those of our previous conferences, and we received positive feedback about the process. A couple session designers who were experienced conference presenters told us that our guidance and coaching helped them up their game as well. More importantly, we learned we could engage more people and more voices in our conference—if we invested in providing individual, personalized support along the way.