Simon Koolwijk

In early 2015 I conducted a Participatory Strategic Planning for a consultancy business. For this I applied the Participatory Strategic Planning (PSP)  approach, which has been developed by the Institute of Cultural Affairs .  The Strategic Planning consists of six key steps, 0. Intake formulation of the focus question 1.  Formulation / Review  Mission, values/ Trend analysis and environmental scan; 2.  Practical Vision; 3.  Underlying contradictions; 4.  Strategic Directions; 5.  Operational planning. The method Step 0: Intake and formulating the focus question Before step 1 takes place in the strategic planning process, an essential step is necessary, to move forward.  This is the intake and the formulation of the focus question. The ownership of the organizational change starts at the intake. Asking the right questions and getting the right people at the table are crucial conditions for enabling a successful ...

"This course was dynamic, informative, very useful and connected to our work! I can directly apply the tools in my work. I learned a lot from my colleagues. There was room for exchange and the input from the resource persons in the is course had an added value!" From 21 - 22 January 2009, Desk Officers from the development organisation ICCO participated in the second part of the training Capacity Development of Partner Organisations. This training which was facilitated by Simon Koolwijk , provided participants the space to present practical cases on how they had applied their lessons learned during the first training on 18 - 19 November 2008 . Cases where shared about capacity development of partner organisations in the Pacific, Asia and Africa. Desk officers had applied some of the organisational analysis tools to assess the capacities of their partners. Three resource persons; Hettie Walters, Angelica Senders (both from ICCO ) & Ben Haagsma ( IC Consult ) provided...

"It has changed my perspective on how to communicate on a different way with partner organisations!" "Most of the theory was not new, but now I can link it to my own work situation and understand the value of organisational assessment tools..." Ten (Assistent) Desk Officers from the international development organisation ICCO received on the 18th & 19th November 2008 a two-day training on theories and tools for capacity development. Main purpose of the training was to widen and deepen the perspectives of the participants on how to communicate differently with their partners in Asia, Africa, Latin-America and Eastern Europe in regards to developing organisational capacities. Participants got acquainted with organisational assessment tools such as the IC-scan , the Integrated Organisational Model and the ECDPM scan . Planning exercises were done with the HRD/OD/ID model of PSO . Gertrud Wagemans, currently Desk Officer with ICCO, shared her experiences ...

This training was like a hot vegetable soup! A clear training; it helps you to come step-by-step towards a workplan! Very practical! Sometimes the course was like a heavy meal, but it was very interesting! These were some of the comments from 6 starters and volunteers who will be working through Togetthere (an organisation linked to ICCO ) which sends out volunteers and starters for a period of 5 - 10 months in a development country. Main topics of the training were: How to make a workplan when you are going to work for a development organisation in the South? How can I contribute towards strengthening the local capacity? and how to deal with cultural but also workrelated dilemma's when I work there? On the first day Simon Koolwijk took the participants through the steps of problem, goal formulation and assisted the participants in planning their outputs (accomplished products) and workactivities. One of the participants who will be working Israel, will focus on producing an...