Clinics are highly effective and efficient solution-driven workshops for a small group of individuals striving to deal with a specific problem with the focus on identifying and agreeing a plan for resolving the issue.

Clinics can range from a half-day to several days depending on the complexity of the issue and involve the individuals with the responsibility for resolving an issue. Those individuals may be the senior management team, the supplier management team for a particular team or a contracts team looking to develop an approach for a new customer.

Our role is to provide the operational experience and process to support progress in the clinic and to provide a fresh focus and external perspective on issues when those dealing with it on a daily basis find it difficult to step back and see the problem in a new light. We will help generate options, propose alternate views and suggest different scenarios.

The clinics focus on problem definition, agreeing what a good result would look like, generating and evaluating options, exploring risks and implications and identifying and agreeing a way forward.

Clinics we have run have focused on specific contractual issues, breaking negotiation stalemates and identifying a longer-term vision.

Our clinics have been hugely successful. Here is what our clients have said:

• “Excellent use of time – issues we had pushed around for months were dealt with head on in half a day”.

• “Two days well spent – we stopped messing around and focused on the real issues and worked out a way forward. From mapping out the issues to planning and rehearsing the negotiation strategy”

• “Trying to see things differently was hard work but two weeks after the event I feel a weight has been lifted”.

• “I don’t know why we didn’t do it earlier – I feel much more confident and able to do what needs to be done”.