When I first announced to my wife that a crucial part of quenable would be a session called the "Commitment Ceremony", she confusingly asked me "What is this, the Bachelor?". Firstly, to put your minds at rest, there are no roses involved. Parking that let's talk about what the commitment ceremony is, and why it's important.
I've you been through this site, you'll have picked up the fact that quenable is underpinned by three components:
The Backlog to capture a common understanding of the what and why of our initiative;
The Team Model to establish the right people to be involved; and
The Manifesto that outlines if you like an agreed mindset that the Team enters into.
Inside of a quenable initiative, the Team Model is formed through a collection of your staff and ours. We are a part of your success and therefore we're all tied to the success or failure of the initiative. As much as you don't want to be reporting a failed initiative to your stakeholders, nor do we want to be missing the opportunity to have you provide us with an outstanding testimonial for the world to see.
For this reason, on the first day of our quenable engagement, after we get the basics in place by explaining the project, mapping out a vision statement and assigning a team, you're quenabler will ask a vital question to finish the day "With everything we have learnt, with everything we know (right now), do we as a quenable team commit to moving forward with this initiative". In the spirit of "Speak now or forever hold your peace" at a wedding, this is the chance to out any concerns and for the team to commit.
But what happens if the answer is no? Well, it happens, and often for the best. quenable does insist on a fairly rigid set of rules, rules we believe that create success. In us going through this process, should you decide the approach is not going to work either for you as an organisation or just for this initiative, we will agree to part ways. Contractually, we allow for this to be the case, and should we split, we'll only charge for the time spent that day.
What does this commitment entail? Well, it's not blood, but it is a team commitment to work together for the 6weeks under an agreed manifesto. These manifestoes are largely templated but each one is customised for each engagement...why? Because every engagement is different.
In a little bit of an old skool move, we do ask that these manifestoes be physically signed by the team. We believe that the act of signing creates a different commitment experience to responding with "Yes" in an email, and highlights further to your team mates that you're all on board. It's not so intense that you'll need a lawyer present and as you will see we make it fun, but we do want to make sure that for everyone being in together, the Commitment Ceremony is the perfect start to the quenable process.
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