Hot Air Balloon

For each step, add a heading and ask participants to suggest ideas or add post-its to the flipchart or online whiteboard.

Step 1:

Wind

These are all the external forces that can have an impact on the course of our hot air balloon no matter if they’re threats or opportunities. These typically encompass legislative, social or technological changes that we don’t have any control over.

Step 2:

Sandbags

The sandbags are all the internal challenges we are facing and the weaknesses that are literally dragging us down.

Step 3:

Hot Air

The hot air on the other side are all the strengths we have in our organization, our product and anything that we have control over to give us a competitive advantage.

Step 4:

Passengers

These are all the internal stakeholders that have an influence on the direction of our hot air balloon and in this sense our project.

Step 5:

Observers

Observers are all the target audiences and users of our product or service that we are aiming to serve as well as external stakeholders that have an interest in our journey.

Step 6:

Paradise Island

This is the dream destination and goal that we are working towards in a 5 to 10 year timeframe. How does the future look like in our imagination?

Step 7:

Steps to take

These is the direction of our hot air balloon, the steps we need to take towards paradise island. Everything that we’re aware of today which we can do to reach and find our destination.

• Have a timekeeper stop the time of around 7 minutes per step and go through the method step by step. 
• Have the participants stand in front of the whiteboard with post-it’s and pens to gather their input. 
• Whenever someone has a post-it to share they should go up to the whiteboard and share it briefly with the group. 
• Make sure you don’t end up in long conversations but collect a lot of input from all participants.

Tips for running this activity online

• Pick an online whiteboard tool that allows to use a large, zoomable canvas.
• Set up each topic at a different area of the board, spread them out just like you would do it on a the walls of a room.
• Invite participants to zoom in and visit each section and add their ideas as sticky notes once you reach that section of the exercise.
• If you’re not using an online whiteboard, we’d recommend using a collaboration tool such as Google Docs to collect the information for each step under a separate heading. Invite everyone into the document but be very clear in regards to editing rights.
• Precreate your screen deck and screen share this with your participants through your video conferencing software. We’d also recommend sharing this so participants can go through the deck again during the reflection steps.
• When facilitating group discussion, we’d recommend that participants use non-verbal means to indicate they’d like to speak. You can use tools like Zoom’s nonverbal feedback tools, a reaction emoji, or just have people put their hands up. The facilitator can then invite that person to talk.