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Exercises/Context Sharing/Building partnerships
General Collaboration Exercise · Context Sharing

Building partnerships

Building partnerships is a structured group exercise for context sharing: it helps participants share useful personal or project context.

60+ minutesTIME
PairsGROUP SIZE
ActiveENERGY
In person, RemoteSETTING
High cognitive loadCOGNITIVE LOAD
Strengthens Personalization This context sharing exercise strengthens Personalization, one of the eight Gathering Effectiveness pillars.

How to run it

  1. a) Describe the aim or goal of the partnership for your business
  2. b) List what would be ideal partners to work with and why. Organize a post up. Select a top partnership candidate, or multiple candidates.
  3. c) Create (multiples of) 2 teams; 1 representing your business, 1 for a potential partner’s business.
  4. a) Each team identifies their desired assets in their respective partner’s business model
  5. b) Teams sketches out a partnership canvas from their own team’s perspective using stickie notes to define each building block
  6. a) Each team presents their partnership canvas
  7. b) Compare the two partnership canvasses by mirroring the partnership perspectives. Compare between value offers of one team, to desired value of the other team, and whether there is mutual understanding of the transfer activities. Check for a clear fit.
  8. All methods All authors IAF Library Library Building partnerships 25 26 The partnership canvas is a tool that enables visualization of current and/or future partnerships.
  9. It can also be used for early testing of the value creating potential of a partnership between two partnership candidates.
Live facilitator

Run this exercise live

The facilitator console stays in this browser. Its QR handoff is a short-lived participant snapshot containing only public exercise instructions, phase, prompt, and timer state.

Prompts to use +

b) List what would be ideal partners to work with and why. Organize a post up. Select a top partnership candidate, or multiple candidates.

c) Create (multiples of) 2 teams; 1 representing your business, 1 for a potential partner’s business.

a) Each team identifies their desired assets in their respective partner’s business model

b) Compare the two partnership canvasses by mirroring the partnership perspectives. Compare between value offers of one team, to desired value of the other team, and whether there is mutual understanding of the transfer activities. Check for a clear fit.

Run this with your AI assistant +

Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.

Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: Building partnerships. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: b) List what would be ideal partners to work with and why. Organize a post up. Select a top partnership candidate, or multiple candidates.; c) Create (multiples of) 2 teams; 1 representing your business, 1 for a potential partner’s business.; a) Each team identifies their desired assets in their respective partner’s business model; b) Compare the two partnership canvasses by mirroring the partnership perspectives. Compare between value offers of one team, to desired value of the other team, and whether there is mutual understanding of the transfer activities. Check for a clear fit.. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.

Origin unverified

  • Where we observed it: The strongest current observations come from Gamestorming; aggregators are listed as additional observations, not origin proof. (2 sources observed, including Gamestorming, SessionLab.)
  • What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
  • No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
  • Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.

Pairs well with