5.8 Co-Designing Strategies for a Sustainable Future: Conducting a Retrospective

On the second on-demand week of this module, we're giving you access to more on-demand content and activities to continue understanding how you can co-design your destination's sustainability strategy.

The aim is that you apply the learnings from the Programme to your destination's sustainability strategy, whether overall or a specific project

The aim is that you apply the learnings from the Programme to your destination's sustainability strategy, whether overall or a specific project

This activity will allow you to take stock of everything you have learnt through the Sustainability Leadership Programme by conducting a retrospective on what your strengths are and what’s holding you back, looking at how you can overcome these barriers.

The aim is that you apply the learnings from the Programme to your destination's sustainability strategy, whether overall or a specific project or area within it, to evaluate where you can best implement all of them to help you further your achievements.

Are you ready to get started? You can complete this activity by downloading the template that you will find by clicking on the MURAL link or this PDF at the bottom of this page. 👀👇

Conducting a Retrospective.pdf

To start working on this activity, we recommend you to gather your Diverse Empowered Team. The idea is that you have diverse perspectives when completing this template, as it will allow you to identify all strengths and weaknesses of your strategy more clearly.

In addition, make sure to keep in mind all the learnings from the Sustainability Leadership Programme, as this might help you find solutions to some of your challenges.

To establish a direction for the activity, start by reflecting on the current and future state of your destination. Then, identify a team, area or initiative of your destination's sustainability strategy (or all of it if you are feeling adventurous!) and start ideating on the following four areas:

1. Wind in our sails

In this part of the template, focus on adding all those things that have encouraged to pursue your sustainability objectives and all those initiatives that have already proved successful in furthering your efforts towards transforming the destination.

You can guide yourselves by many other questions, but the three questions we have proposed for you are:

What has helped us move forward our sustainability efforts?

What has been successful so far?

What has excited or motivated us and our stakeholders?

2. Anchors holding us back

The second part of the template requires you to look back and think of all the things that have held you back from achieving your objectives so far. Think of things that you would like to do differently looking forward and things that you still haven't figured out but that are a pressing need. This will allow you to identify those areas where attention is required to move forward smoothly.

Some of the questions that you can use to explore this area of the template are:

What is dragging us down? How can it be solved?

What has kept us from making progress? How has affected our sustainability goals?

When did we fail or flounder? Why did it happen?

3. Beacons in the horizon

In the third part of the template, think of your objectives for the future and what motivates you to develop the destination's sustainability strategy and lead its transformation. Think of your resources and whether there is anything you are missing that would be key to implement in order to achieve your goals (think back to everything we have explored in the Programme 👀).

The questions we have proposed for you to navigate this area are:

What milestones can we work toward?

What goals do we have? Do we have what is required to achieve them?

What can we get excited about? Is there anything we are already succeeding at and that we can further?

4. Barriers we see ahead

In the last part of the template, the aim is that you explore any obstacles that you might face in the future. Reflecting on what might stand in the way of us achieving our goals and preparing for it will reduce the chances of these obstacles negatively impacting our goals. Furthermore, it will allow you to identify if there is a need to improve our resources to cover for those possible challenges.

Some of the questions that you can use to explore this area of the template are:

What will we need to navigate around possible challenges?

Where might we get stuck? Think about the destination's stakeholders.

What problems might get worse? Is there anything we can do yo prevent this?

The aim is that you apply the learnings from the Programme to your destination's sustainability strategy, whether overall or a specific project

This activity will allow you to take stock of everything you have learnt through the Sustainability Leadership Programme by conducting a retrospective on what your strengths are and what’s holding you back, looking at how you can overcome these barriers.

The aim is that you apply the learnings from the Programme to your destination's sustainability strategy, whether overall or a specific project or area within it, to evaluate where you can best implement all of them to help you further your achievements.

Are you ready to get started? You can complete this activity by downloading the template that you will find by clicking on the MURAL link or this PDF at the bottom of this page. 👀👇

Conducting a Retrospective.pdf

To start working on this activity, we recommend you to gather your Diverse Empowered Team. The idea is that you have diverse perspectives when completing this template, as it will allow you to identify all strengths and weaknesses of your strategy more clearly.

In addition, make sure to keep in mind all the learnings from the Sustainability Leadership Programme, as this might help you find solutions to some of your challenges.

To establish a direction for the activity, start by reflecting on the current and future state of your destination. Then, identify a team, area or initiative of your destination's sustainability strategy (or all of it if you are feeling adventurous!) and start ideating on the following four areas:

1. Wind in our sails

In this part of the template, focus on adding all those things that have encouraged to pursue your sustainability objectives and all those initiatives that have already proved successful in furthering your efforts towards transforming the destination.

You can guide yourselves by many other questions, but the three questions we have proposed for you are:

What has helped us move forward our sustainability efforts?

What has been successful so far?

What has excited or motivated us and our stakeholders?

2. Anchors holding us back

The second part of the template requires you to look back and think of all the things that have held you back from achieving your objectives so far. Think of things that you would like to do differently looking forward and things that you still haven't figured out but that are a pressing need. This will allow you to identify those areas where attention is required to move forward smoothly.

Some of the questions that you can use to explore this area of the template are:

What is dragging us down? How can it be solved?

What has kept us from making progress? How has affected our sustainability goals?

When did we fail or flounder? Why did it happen?

3. Beacons in the horizon

In the third part of the template, think of your objectives for the future and what motivates you to develop the destination's sustainability strategy and lead its transformation. Think of your resources and whether there is anything you are missing that would be key to implement in order to achieve your goals (think back to everything we have explored in the Programme 👀).

The questions we have proposed for you to navigate this area are:

What milestones can we work toward?

What goals do we have? Do we have what is required to achieve them?

What can we get excited about? Is there anything we are already succeeding at and that we can further?

4. Barriers we see ahead

In the last part of the template, the aim is that you explore any obstacles that you might face in the future. Reflecting on what might stand in the way of us achieving our goals and preparing for it will reduce the chances of these obstacles negatively impacting our goals. Furthermore, it will allow you to identify if there is a need to improve our resources to cover for those possible challenges.

Some of the questions that you can use to explore this area of the template are:

What will we need to navigate around possible challenges?

Where might we get stuck? Think about the destination's stakeholders.

What problems might get worse? Is there anything we can do yo prevent this?