Facilitation on your own issue, by a certified trainer-coach.
Your team is stuck on something that keeps coming back, and you want to tackle it methodically. A certified partner of Vraagstuk Studio facilitates your team or organization in Issue-Focused Working (VGW), with or without Metis. Partners work independently, each from their own business and in their own sector.
How a program runs
In the workbook: the route, p. 7. In the book: chapters 3, 13, and 15
- Exploratory conversation. Forty-five minutes with the partner of your choice. They listen to what is going on, not to the symptom but to the pattern, and together you assess whether the method fits. You then receive a proposal with a timeline and the investment.
- The kickoff day. Check-in, getting to know each other better, and the Team Pulse: everyone writes down for themselves what is going on. Together the team chooses a first issue and who takes it on, preferably an issue team of four to six people.
- VGW sessions on the issue. Steps 2 through 7, in one or more sessions. At the end of every session the team updates the Current Shared Picture: the one overview with key points, action list, and discussion record. The trainer-coach facilitates the process, guards the steps and the pace, and stays away from the content. The manager takes part as a team member.
- Team Pitstops. Every three to four weeks, as often as needed: what have we learned, and what do we do with it? Actions are reported back; the team learns from what it does.
- The next round, more and more on your own. After closing an issue, the team picks up the issue list from the Team Pulse again. Round after round the trainer-coach does less and the team more, until it masters the steps itself. Then the facilitation is done.
A partner can also start smaller: an interactive talk to bring the thinking into your organization, or a workshop in which a team experiences the first steps on an issue of its own in one half-day.
What a session looks like
What happens in a session, how much time it takes, and what is asked of the manager.
What is on the table
A session begins with a check-in and with the Current Shared Picture from last time: where do we stand, what has been done since? Then the issue team works on the step it is in. In picture-forming it only asks the presenter judgment-free questions. In opinion-forming everyone first writes their own HPID in silence (current situation, problem, ideal situation, goal). In judgment-forming the team arrives at one problem statement, and in decision-making at a choice. Every step is closed out: everyone is asked whether they can move on with this. The session ends with updating the Current Shared Picture and a check-out.
Who sits at the table
The issue team of four to six people, the trainer-coach as facilitator of the process, and with a Metis subscription, Metis on a shared screen. The manager takes part as a team member, not as facilitator and not as assessor. For a team that still has to get used to the method, that is deliberate; only when both team and manager are experienced can the manager take over the facilitation.
How much time it takes
- Per session. A team that is just starting often takes a full day for an issue, spread over one or more sessions; an experienced team goes through the steps in an hour. A step gets the time the team needs, but is never skipped or cut short.
- Rhythm. A Team Pitstop every three to four weeks, so that actions are reported back before they fade.
- Number of sessions. That depends on the issue and on how experienced the team is; it is in the proposal you receive after the exploratory conversation. Count on a kickoff day and several follow-up sessions for the first issue, and on a period of months before a team holds on to it independently.
- Preparation. Little. The presenter knows why the issue matters to them; the rest happens in the session. No minutes to write up at home: the Current Shared Picture is updated in the session.
What the method delivers, and when
Decisions that hold, actions with an owner, and a team that closes its issues. Results only appear after a team has logged enough flying hours; a partner who promises them after one session does not speak for the book.
Does this fit our team?
The method is not tied to a sector or to the size of an organization; partners each work in their own sector. Whether it takes depends on three team characteristics.
Size
Four to six people work around an issue. A larger team works with a delegation; a team of three is possible but misses perspectives.
Interdependence
The team members need one another to do the work. A group that happens to share the same manager but works separately gains little from joint decisions.
A shared task
There is something the team wants to achieve together and is held accountable for together. Without a shared task there is no shared issue.
Want to test it yourself first? Do the pre-phase advice (five minutes, nine questions: whether the method fits your team, and in which form) or the diagnostic tool (three minutes: what keeps the same issue in place?). You receive the result by e-mail and can bring it to the exploratory conversation. When the method is not a fit is explained on the method page.
Being offered Issue-Focused Working? This is what you can expect
From every certified partner, in every sector. Use it as a checklist in your conversation.
From the trainer-coach
- A VGW certificate earned on a theory test, a practical test with a real team, and a situational interview. If the partner works independently with Metis at your organization, they hold the VGW Professional level, or work together with a partner who does.
- Facilitation of the process, not of the content. The solution comes from your team, not from the facilitator.
- All eight steps, in the fixed order, for every issue. No step is skipped or cut short; tailoring is in the exercises around them.
- After every session an updated Current Shared Picture: key points, action list, and discussion record, even when a session is cut short.
- Consent at every transition: everyone is asked whether they can move on with this. Agreement is never inferred from silence.
- No assessment of people. Not by the trainer-coach, not by Metis. The Team Pitstop is about result, process, and collaboration.
- Their own fee for coaching and training, which you agree directly with the partner.
- Openness about what the method delivers: as a direction, not as a proven result. Whoever promises you numbers does not speak for the book.
From Metis, if you take out a Metis subscription
- The same monthly fee with every partner. Metis is never a reason to choose one partner over another.
- Your own, shielded environment. Only your organization has access to your data; neither Vraagstuk Studio nor the partner does.
- Metis takes no decision, judges no one, and never infers agreement from silence. The four limits.
- Your own people are equipped to work with Metis independently as well. Use grows with what your organization can handle itself.
- Without a Metis subscription, the partner works with the method on paper or digitally. The steps are identical.
Client experiences
From organizations that worked with partner Vraagstukgerichtwerken.com, in Dutch healthcare.
The first few times it took effort, but the moment you get it, you reach the right conversation very quickly. It teaches staff to approach an issue from as many perspectives as possible.Anja Stunnenberg, executive, Markenheem
The solution is often the simple end result of a carefully mapped issue. Frank Campman creates that clarity by training teams in asking judgment-free, sincere questions.Annette Kroon, HR advisor, Directzorg
What characterizes Frank Campman’s facilitation is that he is open, listens well, and adjusts the approach where needed. His stance lets people dare to be vulnerable.Mieke Zemmelink, executive, Azora
We want to become a self-managing organization. Issue-Focused Working is a fine method for having a real conversation with one another and for letting the undercurrent and the surface communicate.Eelco Wobben, care manager, Thuisteam Twente
What one client saw. A manager of care, treatment, and innovation, whose organization has worked with the method for several years, described two things in the book: the quality of the decisions around residents and the collaboration between disciplines. And a warning: his organization had underestimated how much time, coaching, and anchoring are needed before teams hold on to this independently. The choice to train their own coaches he called, in hindsight, the most important success factor. That is why a good offer also includes the training program for your own people.
Our partners
Certified partners of Vraagstuk Studio. Each works from their own business, in their own sector and region.
Developer of the method and author of Stop Solving. Healthcare and education; works in Dutch and English.
The Netherlands; works in Dutch.
What to choose on: not the price of Metis, which is fixed. Rather on who fits your organization: sector, experience, and whether there is a click. An exploratory conversation with the partner of your choice is the way to test that. If you want to follow the impact with a baseline, interim, and effect measurement, that runs through your partner, with the measurement instruments.
The conversation takes forty-five minutes and commits you to nothing. Afterward you hear whether the method fits what is going on, and if so, what a program asks.
Start on your own
The book Stop Solving, the workbook, and the eight reflection tools are available directly, to everyone and without a partner. The workbook translates every step into practice, on paper or digitally.
Book and workbookWhen is this not a fit?
Not at the moment of an acute crisis itself; afterward it is, in the Team Pitstop. For a decision that legally rests with one person, the team can still do the picture-forming together, but the decision stays with that person. And in a team where nothing is broken, the method is not needed. More on tailoring and limits.