Every strategy session starts with a risk list — never with a picture of success.
Recognize this situation? Below are the Liberating Structures that change it — a concrete example, and the reason this one fits here. New to Liberating Structures? Here's what it is.
Appreciative Interviews starts from a real success story, not a risk list.
For example: Quarterly planning invariably opens with the question "what could go wrong." Nobody in the room has ever described out loud what a successful year would concretely look like — let alone examined what's already the seed of that today.
Liberating Structures for this situation:
Future~Present
Future~Present flips the timeline: in small groups, two participants play "elders" who've already succeeded at this challenge, while the others, as "youngsters," interview them on exactly how they did it.
Those campfire stories don't produce wishful thinking, but concrete detail: what changes, patterns, or support made that success possible? That's a completely different question than "what could go wrong," and it yields just as concrete leads.
Appreciative Interviews
Appreciative Interviews starts from a real past success, not a hypothetical future: in pairs, participants take turns telling a moment when something already worked, and the other listens specifically for what made that success possible.
Those patterns then get gathered in plenary and used to discuss how the group can deliberately invest in exactly those conditions — replacing a risk list with a list of what's already working.
No certification, no lengthy prep — read the steps and try it at your next meeting.
Keep exploring
Browse the full list of 43 structures, or get support if this situation is too complex to facilitate yourself.