Maximizing Team Productivity: The Power of Liftoff for Teams

Transform Your Team's Performance from Day One

Are you tired of ineffective project kickoffs that leave your team confused and misaligned? Discover the game-changing Liftoff Program, based on the groundbreaking work of Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies.

What is Liftoff?

A Liftoff is a carefully designed collaborative workshop that helps teams start projects and initiatives with clarity, alignment, and momentum. Developed by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies, it replaces traditional kickoff meetings with a more comprehensive and effective approach.

Unlike one-hour, slide-deck kickoffs, Liftoff creates a shared understanding and strong foundation that propels teams toward success from day one.

The Benefits of Liftoff for Organizations

The Liftoff process is critical because it helps a team establish a shared alignment on the goals; working toward a common vision. This ensures that everyone is on the same page from the start and sets a strong foundation for success.

New Mindset: Shift your organization's perspective away from a slide-deck, one-hour kickoffs to a more cohesive, value-based Liftoff.
Immediate Impact: Maximize productivity and cohesiveness from day one, improving overall team efficiency.
Organizational Alignment: Define purpose, alignment, and context while promoting the value of team collaboration.
Organizational Growth: Promote success with purposeful, value-based strategies and improvements in team culture.
Facilitation Expertise: Learn how to facilitate Liftoffs and create your own customizable guide for future use.

Who Should Attend the Liftoff Program?

Team leads looking to start new projects with clarity and alignment
Project/program managers seeking to enhance their toolkit with powerful start-up techniques
Agile coaches aiming to improve project success rates and team cohesion
Organizations wanting to build high-performing, collaborative teams from day one

What You'll Learn/Do

In this program, you'll master the three essential elements of a successful Liftoff:

Purpose: Clarify your project's vision and mission
Alignment: Establish team values and working agreements
Context: Understand the broader landscape and possibilities

Through interactive workshops, role-playing exercises, and guided practice, you'll develop the skills to confidently facilitate Liftoffs for any team or project.

Program Objectives

✓ Articulate the key elements of a successful team liftoff and their impact on team performance
✓ Design a customized liftoff agenda based on your team's unique context and goals
✓ Facilitate engaging liftoff conversations and activities that build shared understanding and commitment
✓ Apply a range of tools and techniques for defining team purpose, alignment, and context
✓ Identify common liftoff pitfalls and strategies for overcoming them
✓ Integrate liftoff practices into your ongoing team rhythms and rituals
✓ Measure the impact of liftoff on your team's performance and continuous improvement

Program Structure

Participants will first go through a Liftoff as a team to learn the components and then work on their facilitation skills and build a program for their organization.
Module 1: Liftoff Overview
Module 2: Purpose in Practice
Module 3: Alignment in Action
Module 4: Context in Context
Module 5: Group Coaching
Module 6: Facilitating for Safety
Module 7: Designing Your Liftoff
Module 8: Practicing Liftoff Facilitation

Photo of a group of 5 colleagues giving high five. Two are seated on the sofa and 3 are standing behind the sofa in an office space

Group of people of varying backgrounds and sizes walking down a hall together

Why It Matters

The way a team starts sets the trajectory for how they'll work together. Yet most teams rush into execution without taking the time to build a foundation of shared understanding and agreement.

Liftoff offers a structured approach to launching (or re-launching) teams that maximizes their chance of success. Through thoughtful conversations and aligning activities, teams align on their purpose, define their culture, and gain broader context - in a matter of days not weeks.

Whether you're kicking off a new project, onboarding new members, or looking to boost the performance of an existing team, this training will give you the tools to facilitate a game-changing liftoff. The result: a team that's focused, energized and equipped to deliver value right out of the gate.

Don't let your next project start on shaky ground. Equip yourself with the power of Liftoff and set your team up for unprecedented success.

Real-World Impact

THE CONTEXT

A large company within the financial sector realized that their silos were preventing them from keeping pace with the industry, but more importantly rendering them unable to respond to changes in laws that were coming in a year. The goal was to work in teams as opposed to silos but this was a completely new concept for the organization.

THE CHALLENGES

Historically everyone worked in an office in silos with little to no standardization between current offices. This team was going to work nationally, not regionally and needed to form a pilot team to demonstrate the concept was going to work before scaling across the org.

THE APPROACH

The all-remote team was selected by using a hiring method based on values and attributed. The team was comprised of 15 year veterans and entry level members who brought innovation and teamwork skills. A one-week Liftoff was conducted enabling them to tackle the challenges of new process, tools, and teamwork in the weeks ahead. Using what they learned in the first week, the team was able to tackle a plethora of challenges, create and test new process and tools, create a training program, and establish a plan for scaling.