Team Building Workshop

The Team Building Workshop was successfully organized in New Lucena, Iloilo from April 27, 2009 to April 29, 2009 and Opol, Misamis Oriental from March 10 to March 12, 2009.

Through this activity, official introductions were made by Noriko Saito, a short-term JICA Expert-Networking for the two (2) new long-term JICA Experts namely Mr. Daisuke Sagiya, NHE Project Advisor and Ms. Naoko Ito, NHE Project Coordinator for Training. The NHE Project Management Teams and other key personnel of the two (2) project sites warmly welcomed the new JICA experts and renewed their commitment to promote the NHE in their municipalities.

The stakeholders of the local, provincial, regional and national levels worked together to develop a mission statement, core values and their respective commitments for the NHE Project implementation in New Lucena and Opol. Through a review of the past project activities according to their action plan, the participants identified those activities to be organized in 2009. The workshop detail was provided in separate report, which was drafted by NCDA along with a workshop resource person.

Participants
To strengthen the implementation of the NHE pilot project in the two (2) LGU sites, the teambuilding program involved all members of the Project Management Team, JICA Experts including key responsible persons in the NCDA, NGOs in Region VI and X and persons with disability from represented organizations.

Main Objectives:
Confidently discuss, explain and promote the project to partners, constituents and beneficiaries considering local conditions;

1. On behalf of their unit commit to project goals, objectives, targets and results; on individual capacity display unyielding commitment to the project;
2. Observe faithfulness to project structure and management processes as their respective unit’s champions on the project;
3. Display strong commitment to the project by performing their appropriate roles and responsibilities vis-à-vis Implementing Agencies, NCDA and JICA, other stakeholders including educating their alternates/substitutes when needed;
4. As individual members, display other appropriate values related to the initiation, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and follow-up of the project.

The Team Building Workshop applied various activities in order for participants to get to know each other well with realization of dynamism of team. Through these activities, participants have become more aware of: how individuals' values would reflect a team's decision making; how important an open communication is in a team; how easy it was to memorize unfamiliar figures or deal with complex phenomena if a team could find a pattern which may exist in the PDM as well as core values identified in the previous team-building workshop at the national level; the participants discussed a mission statement and core values for the NHE project implementation in the two (2) pioneering municipalities.

Moreover, the roles of respective stakeholders, their challenges and relationships among other stakeholders have been reviewed in the workshop. The stakeholders such as LGU Opol personnel, officials of relevant departments, regional offices, concerned NGO staff and PWDs, NCDA officials and JICA experts separately discussed.

"Teambuilding is a set of developmental interventions applied to a team to elicit natural behaviors displayed when working together in fun and light activities. The game-like activities ensure that team members behave naturally. The facilitator notes these behaviors and other dynamics, and eventually, relates them to how a working group should work together. The teambuilding program covers all aspects of working together— from any issue or concern related to goals, structures, and results, to issues of working together such as personalities, conflicts, socialization to processes like communication, problem solving and communication. There shall be examination of values related to working with each other.

Team Building Strategic Planning in Opol

Resolutions are worded, written down commitments about working together. These shall be documented and shall form part of the results of the teambuilding intervention.

Thus, this proposal for the implementation of a teambuilding intervention may surface institutional and project dynamics that can be resolved with initial resolutions on working together. The teambuilding process is not an end-all, be-all process to the project management concerns but it is an excellent start to document concerns that are doable and manageable."

The workshop was culminated with the last activity to build commitments among all the stakeholders for an inclusive, barrier-free rural community in their municipalities.

The program, like all teambuilding interventions, shall initiate bonding between the members of the project team; instill norms of working together and teamwork, and other relevant values of working for a common goal.