Table of Contents

Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 3 Agenda and Sessions.......................................................................................................... 4

Welcome and Introduction ...................................................................................................... 4 Participant Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4 Reflection and Learnings .......................................................................................................... 5 Strategic planning, vision and expansion ........................................................................... 5 Partnership Management ......................................................................................................... 6 Training........................................................................................................................................... 6 Video and Dissemination .......................................................................................................... 7 Systems session ............................................................................................................................ 7 Branding and Communication ................................................................................................ 8 Organizational development, HR and performance management ............................ 8

Recreation, Energizers and Team building exercises............................................ 9 Feedback and suggestions ............................................................................................ 10

Table 1: Rating the degree to which we met our expectations ........................ 11 Table 2: Rating the overall coordination of the retreat ..................................... 12

Annexure 1: Retreat Agenda 2011 ............................................................................ 13 Annexure 2: Feedback form ......................................................................................... 15 Annexure 3: Presentations ........................................................................................... 16

Introduction
Retreat 2011 marked the culmination of a yearlong journey in which the Digital Green (DG) family increasingly succeeded in achieving its ambitious mandate to transform lives of small and marginal farmers around the world. DG is now poised to embark on an exciting yet challenging course towards exponential growth. We now plan to grow in numbers, achieve greater impact, improve quality and diversify into different sectors of development. Not surprisingly, therefore, the focus of retreat 2011 was SCALING-UP. Specifically, we strove to answer How can DG scale-up while continuing to fine tune its model and operations to make it more efficient and effective? This focus helped us define retreat objectives, set a meaningful agenda and drive discussion and outcomes. This year special attention was paid on setting goals, defining the agenda and planning sessions through an iterative and participatory method that helped us collate key expectations from staff. We are happy to report that by the end of the retreat we surpassed our own expectations and for most part met all our pre-defined objectives listed below. 1. Ensure familiarity with DGs vision and expansion trajectory 2. Develop an understanding of DGs evolution and current operations 3. Provide a forum to be heard, reflect, share achievements and express concerns 4. Systematically address organizational needs 5. Build friendships and team spirit 6. Have fun Held in the historic city of Puri, Odisha between 23-26 November 2011, the 22member DG family was hosted by the Crusaders, the Odisha and Jharkhand team. Besides DG staff, the presence of Ajit Pai, financial consultant, and Tejesh Shah, trustee and board member, added value and motivation. Through this report we hope to summarize the activities, processes, learnings and outcomes of the retreat. To have a glimpse of our retreat experience visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN_RFrDaCJE for videos and https://picasaweb.google.com/117315560244913299894/RetreatPhotos2011? authkey=Gv1sRgCKjs377W6rn2Cw# for photographs.

Agenda and Sessions

The agenda for the retreat was developed following a consultative process with inputs from DG staff and senior management. On the basis of the agenda, each DG staff volunteered to lead at least one session ensuring active participation and inclusivity.

Welcome and Introduction

Vinay and Avinash set the basic foundation for the next two days by introducing the purpose and key expectations from the retreat. Vinay asked each person to pen down his/her expectations on metacards, which were then reviewed at the end of each day to judge whether or not these expectations were met. The expectations included understanding DGs core activities and expansion plans, brainstorming and strategic planning for thematic issues and having fun and building teams. By the end of the last day most such cards had been removed to indicate that the team expectations had indeed been met. The new members who joined the DG family were then formally introduced and welcomed. Avinash, after clarifying logistical issues, invited Praveen to go over how each session can be conducted with an outcome and action oriented focus for individual follow-up. Praveen presented an action-planning format and urged all participants to enumerate SMART goals and thematic action plans at the end of each day.

Participant Introduction
Satyam and Sudha introduced the participants through an interactive game wherein each person had to identify personal descriptions of a colleague. This was a lot of fun and everyone got to know some unknowns about others.

Reflection and Learnings

The reflections and learnings session led by Shivaji gave the DG team an opportunity to take a step back and reflect on their experiences in the last year so that they could use these learnings as they planned ahead. As preparation for this session each member of the DG family was asked to write a short note on their experiences with DG in the last year in advance. This repository of reflections was circulated in the team. Consequently each member had a chance to view the last year with DG through multiple lenses and perspectives. Besides reflecting on the experiences, positive or negative, the team then identified facilitating and hindering forces they may have experienced in the past year. Each member then devised ways to strengthen facilitating forces and minimize the hindering forces. The commonalities between the forces and strategies identified made us realize that we did have a significant degree of clarity and consensus on our strengths and weaknesses and had the capacity to find solutions to ensure organizational and professional development. The presentations during the activity indicated that the DG staff was already taking charge of their future course of action based on their learnings of the previous years.

Strategic planning, vision and expansion

The primary objectives of the Strategic Planning, Vision and Expansion session led by Rikin was to present an overview of DG its evolution, mission, vision and expansion plans while also initiating a forum to strategically plan for our future actions. The session began with a review of our goals and results, priorities and strategies, key events, people, partners and communities, and learnings over the last five years. This was followed by mapping the trends of existing extension systems, farmer needs, technology factors, and uncertainties. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis provided an overview of the internal and external factors that shape our ability to realize our objectives. Our vision was then discussed along with the behaviors, supports, challenges, and steps that will be needed to achieve it. Finally, the structure of our game plan to raise incomes and improve food security for 500,000 farmers across 10,000 villages over the next 3.5 years was introduced. 5

Four teams were constituted to focus on the four key objectives of this initiative: (1) Facilitate the development of high quality video material that meet farmers site-specific needs following a vertically integrated knowledge exchange model, (2) Implement and service local screening capacity, mediation, and knowledge exchange, (3) Refine and improve the Digital Green approach including expansion to new geographies or thematic areas through new and evolving partnerships, and (4) Establish and service a functional Digital Green system as part of Indias National Rural Livelihood Mission and its partners. Over several brainstorming and planning sessions during the retreat, each team drafted an initial framework of the operational model, success factors, challenges, team resources, partners, communication plan, and timeline. These teams will come together to refine and detail these strategies during the next quarter.

Partnership Management
The partnership management session led by Abhishek and Avinash explored the various aspects of engaging with partners in the field and was designed to help the participants understand the issues involved in partnering with a variety of key stakeholders and how we need to customize our partnership management approaches to the needs of the partners. At times, we do not have the luxury of choosing our partners and to be effective, we have to develop a collaboration strategy that is respectful, mutually acceptable and meets with overall engagement objectives. The session used a case based approach to apprise the participants of various partnership management issues, varied approaches and bring in insights from senior management. The need for moderation and effective communication to ensure that DG partners understand the long-term impact goals was also shared. This session presented an opportunity for new members of the team to learn about the issues faced and solutions implemented by the field team when working with partners.

Training
The training session led by Shivaji and Gulzar primarily focused on introducing the newly developed training modules to the DG team in order to clarify doubts and get feedback to ensure improvement in training quality. The session began with a group exercise to discuss the main characteristics of a good training. Based on these, the newly developed trainings for disseminations and video production were evaluated. Overall, everyone agreed that the new training modules indeed met almost of the characteristics of a good training and caters to the requirements of field level operatives. The team also discussed how best to further improve the effectiveness of trainings. In view of

the issues and recommendations suggested, the core team responsible for trainings agreed to improve trainings through an iterative process of learning and feedback.

Video and Dissemination

Akhilesh presented a recap of the activities conducted on the first day, his first ever presentation. He was a bit nervous but he confidently did the job. Dr. Nadagouda and Chandra Shekhar then led the session on video and dissemination quality assurance. This session was designed to develop a common understanding of what constituted quality video production and dissemination. This objective was achieved through an informative quiz wherein DG participants were asked to identify flaws in video clips that represented faulty dissemination and video production practices. This quiz helped clarify quality assurance parameters and identify a few basic issues with camera angles, shots and facilitation practices. It was felt that the development of training videos over the last year for a better understanding of what a quality dissemination and video production process was a step in the right direction. Many in the group felt that there was a need for trainings held by experts in order to help operations staff to upgrade their skills and knowledge in video facilitation and production.

Systems session
This session let by the Systems team Rahul, Nandini and Sreenivas was a once in a year opportunity for the entire field team and the Systems team to meet together. The Systems session was designed to help DG members familiarize themselves with Connect Online Connect Offline (COCO) and analytics. The session had four sections COCO High-level Overview, COCO Feedback, COCO Workshop and Analytics Quiz. As preparation for the session, the System team received feedback from the field and they were able to respond to some of this feedback at the session itself. The team also developed a FAQ page for COCO to help the DG team get better acquainted with how COCO worked. The session began with a high-level schematic of COCO explaining the manner in which COCO works to help laypersons understand and work with COCO with greater ease. This was followed by a discussion on the 7

feedback received by the team from the field staff. The Systems team classified this feedback into various buckets resolved, not a bug, short-term, long-term and described how these would be addressed. They also discussed some ongoing and forthcoming work based on the feedback received prior to the retreat. The session enabled the Systems team to address and clear some recurring doubts and questions on COCO. The field staff was able to get some hands-on experience with some of the trickier aspects of COCO. The third section was a practical workshop on COCO for which the participants had been divided into five groups. Each group solved several problems on troubleshooting and data entry in COCO on PCs setup by the System team. The groups also solved a quick written quiz on COCO. The session concluded with some practical group exercises that had the participants retrieving various different types of statistics using Analytics. They also had an opportunity to work with the Analytics dashboard to get regionspecific and time-specific statistics. The session was well received with the participants rating it well-planned, informative, effective and enjoyable.

Branding and Communication

Given that DG is on the verge of expansion, it was deemed essential to reflect and arrive at a unified message that each member of the DG family could communicate internally as well as externally. The vision for this session led by Vinay was to make each person a brand ambassador. We first started with an exercise called the elevator pitch in which groups were required to develop a pitch on Digital Green who we are, what we do, why we do it, what our values are, what our vision is which could be delivered to any person in less than a minute, the amount of time it takes to climb 15 floors in an elevator. At the end of the exercise we were able to collate our ideas to collectively arrive at a common understanding of how best to define our work. After this exercise, Vinay shared the need to develop standard templates for power points, documents, letterheads, email signatures, ID cards and other communication materials.

Organizational development, HR and performance management

On day three, after a recap by Gulrez, the organizational development, HR and performance management session concentrated primarily on strengthening our organization by setting proper human resource and financial systems while also motivating the DG team to maximize professional performance and personal well-being. To begin with, Vinay proposed a new organizational structure created in light of the impending scaling-up. After receiving feedback on the structure, discussion ensued on levels of staffing and compensation. Ajit followed this discussion with a presentation on financial reporting and accounting practices. Among other things he stressed upon introduction of time sheets for each project, project-wise expense sheets and reconciliation of equipment on site.

The following day Vinay initiated discussion on HR and administration issues. Some points of discussion included health insurance, travel and daily allowance, relocation costs, leave travel allowance and provident fund. After HR, Vinay also shared a performance management framework and received some feedback on the current status of performance management in different regions as well as invited suggestions for improvement in its effectiveness.
Board of Directors Technical Advisory Commi ee Chief Execu ve Officer M&E Specialist Chief Opera ng Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Financial Officer HR Manager Training Director Regional Directors Project Coordinators Quality Assurance Director Interface Designers Accounts Officers Office Manager Senior Training Specialists State Managers Assistant Project Coordinators Agronomist Senior So ware Engineers Partnership Manager IT Support Training Specialists Senior Program Managers Analysts So ware Engineers Comm. Specialist Program Managers Assistant Program Managers

Recreation, Energizers and Team building exercises

In this retreat we tried our best to pay as much emphasis on coming together as a team to have fun as we did on finding solutions to help us scale operations. We, therefore, organized not only energizers and team building exercises during sessions to liven the mood but also organized post-session excursions and team activities. Rashmi organized an energizer called bombing the city on the first day that left the group quite literally blown over with laughter. At the end of the first day the Odisha and Jharkhand team organized a cultural event wherein a troupe of exceptional dancers performed Gotipua, a folk dance of Puri in which boys below 14 years dress up as women to praise Lord Jagannath and Lord Krishna. The acrobatic poses struck by these boys were enthralling. After this performance it was time for the DG team to display its talents. The Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka team performed a comic skit called Adhunik Ramayana (present-day Ramayana). The Odisha and Jharkhand team enacted a play on Digital Green, its purpose and impact. The Delhi team danced on a medley of disco songs and to top it all, the Madhya Pradesh team combined all that was done before with a skit, video screening and dance all rolled into one. The night ended on a high note with the arrangements for food and drinks by the pool. On the second day we made most of the beach right at the footsteps of the resort. We were lucky that our retreat coincided with the Puri beach festival. Besides 9

sand sculptures we were able to enjoy an Odissi dance performance on the beach. Some people in the group chose to also visit the Jagannath temple, a renowned temple built in the 12th century dedicated to Lord Jagannath. On the third day, we started early to visit the Chilika lake, a brackish water lagoon, spread over the Puri, Khurda and Ganjam districts of Odisha. We took a boat ride to a small island close to where the lagoon flows into the Bay of Bengal. Spotting dolphins, eating fresh seafood and buying pearls were definite highlights. After the close of the sessions we left for the Konark Sun temple, a world heritage sight, which is also one of the seven wonders of India. The temple is designed in the form of a chariot drawn by seven horses and is heavily decorated with stone carvings. We are thankful to the Odisha and Jharkhand team for organizing these excursions which we found extremely culturally enriching.

Feedback and suggestions

I felt honored to be a part of the retreat and I am happy to see the energy and the enthusiasm as Digital Green scales up and reaches to many more people Tejesh Shah The commitment and motivation of the DG family members has really motivated me personally to deliver my best in the new responsibility that I'm currently in Praveen Sriramshetty Awesome! Rikin Gandhi

In order to capture participant feedback, the retreat organizers developed a feedback form (attached). Based on this, the retreat received an extremely positive feedback. A majority of the participants felt that the retreat had indeed met its objectives. Please refer to Table 1 which indicates the degree to which each of the pre-defined retreat objectives were met. The ratings indicated in the table range from 1 to 5 wherein 1= Bad, 3=OK and 5= Good. The table is based on a sample size of 20.

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Table 1: Rating the degree to which we met our expectations

Expectations Rating
6 5 4 Ratings 3

2
1 0 1 2 3 4 Expectations 5 6

The six expectations are defined as follows: 1. Ensure familiarity with DGs vision and expansion trajectory 2. Develop an understanding of DGs evolution and current operations 3. Provide a forum to be heard, reflect, share achievements and express concern 4. Systematically address organizational needs 5. Build friendships and team spirit, and 6. Have fun. As indicated each of these expectations received a rating of more than 3.5. Table 2 indicates the feedback on the coordination of the retreat. Just as Table 1 the ratings indicated in the table range from 1 to 5 wherein 1= Bad, 3=OK and 5= Good. The table is also based on a sample size of 20.

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Table 2: Rating the overall coordination of the retreat

Coordination Rating
5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 Agenda setting Session planning Coordination categories Logistics and on-site coordination

As indicated the logistics and on-site coordination got the highest rank (barring internet connectivity), followed by agenda setting and session planning. In order to assess the level of success of each session, participants were also asked to rank each session on five characteristics enjoyable, effective, wellplanned, informative and overall success. The vision and strategic planning session led by Rikin along with the Systems and COCO session led by Systems team received the highest scores in almost all categories effective, wellplanned, informative and best overall session. Quality Assurance Video and Dissemination session led by Nadagouda and Chandrashekhar received the 'enjoyable' prize, Organizational development session led by Vinay received the 'informative' prize, reflection session led by Shivaji received the 'planning' prize and participant introduction led by Satyam and Sudha received the 'effective' prize. We also received some qualitative feedback to help future organizers improve the quality of retreats in the future. Some people suggested that the agenda was too tight and that we may in the future consider extending the retreat by a day. Some also suggested that weekends should not be utilized for the purpose of the retreat. Some felt that greater emphasis needed to be paid to getting better clarity on details of the DG projects in the pipeline. Some others felt that sessions needed to be more outcomes oriented with better-defined deadlines. Other than that some suggested that presentations in the future needed to be vetted by experienced people to improve quality. Finally, we received the suggestion for distribution of more gifts.

Ratings

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Annexure 1: Retreat Agenda 2011

digitalGREEN Team Retreat Scaling-up Digital Green November 24-27, 2011 Hotel Mayfair, Puri, Odisha Lead persons

Start

End

Session

Objective

Thursday, November 24, 2011 9:30 9:30 10:00 9:50 Welcome Introduction Overview purpose and and Share retreat overview and objectives Vinay Share information on logistics and other important information Avinash Participant introduction Satyam and Sudha

9:50 10:00 10:30 11:30 11:30

10:00 10:30 11:30 13:00 12:00

Logistics and rules Participant introduction Reflections Learnings

and Reflection on last year's experiences Shivaji

Vision and Strategic Planning Vision and Map the DG vision and expansion plan expansion plan Rikin Conceptualize Theory of change frameworks and engagement theories Lunch Energizer Energizer basic and

12:00 13:00 14:00

13:00 14:00 14:15

Rikin Rashmi

14:15 16:00

16:00 16:15

Reflection. Feedback. Quality Assurance- (Engagement models, Avinash Partnership sustainability and exit and Management strategy) Abhishek Break Reflection on current Quality Assurance- challenges and Gulzar and Training strengths in training Shivaji Cultural show, camp fire & fun

16:15

18:00

19:30

21:00

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Friday, November 25, 2011 9:30 9:45 Recap

9:45

10:30

10:30 13:00

13:00 14:00

Akhilesh Dr. Nadagoud Quality Assurance- Improve the quality of a and Video Production video production and Chandra and Dissemination dissemination Shekhar Rahul, Nandini Systems, COCO and Update, tutorials and and Analytics feedback Srinivas Lunch Brainstorm on the Branding and 'what' and 'how' of Vinay and Communication communication Shreya Organizational Development Organization structure (existing Share the emerging and emerging in organizational view of expansion) structure Vinay Articulate concerns, share solutions and Vinay and executive decisions Ajit

Recap

14:00 14:45

14:45 15:30

14:45

15:15

15:15 15:30

15:30 15:45

Admin and Finance Break

15:45

17:30

Vision and Thematic Strategic Planning brainstorming on (ctd) expansion strategies Rikin

Saturday, November 26, 2011 Chilika lake visit 12:00 13:00 13:00 13:15 Lunch Recap Recap Gulrez

13:15

14:30

Vision and Group presentations of Strategic Planning thematic strategies for (ctd) expansion Rikin Introduce performance Performance management. Management and Articulate concerns HR and share solutions. Vinay Feedback and Feedback on retreat Shreya, Closing and sessions. Summing Avinash Statements up session and Vinay Konark visit

14:30

15:15

15:15

15:30

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Annexure 2: Feedback form

Name (optional): ____________________________ Digital Green Retreat 2011 We would really appreciate if you could take time off to fill this form seriously & not in consultation with others. We invite both brickbats & bouquets. Please give a rating (1-5) 1=Bad, 3=Ok, 5=Good These are the retreat objectives. Please give a rating as to whether they were achieved or not. Comments

Objective Rating (1-5) Familiarity with DGs vision and expansion trajectory Holistic understanding of DGs current operations Be heard, reflect, flag issues, express concerns Constructively and systematically address organizational needs Build friendships and a team spirit Have fun

If you had any other expectations, please define. Were these met or not met? Were you satisfied with the coordination of the program? Rating (1-5) Comments

Coordination Agenda setting Session planning Logistics and on-site coordination

Were you satisfied with the Sessions? Rating (1-5) under each column Informative Effective Planning Overall

Session Enjoyable Participant Introduction Reflection Scaling-up Energizer day 1 Partnership Mgt Training Videos and Dissemination Systems Branding and Communication Organizational Dev. and performance management

What advice will you give to ensure a better retreat next time? Please feel free to make any additional comments.

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Annexure 3: Presentations
Welcome and Introduction session http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/welcome-and-introductionsession Reflections session http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/reflections-session-10697666 Strategic planning session http://prezi.com/q2quvj2subip/digital-green-strategic-planning/ Training Session http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/training-session Partnership management session http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/partnership-management10698076 Systems session http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/coco-behind-the-scenes http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/coco-session Branding and communication session http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/branding-and-communicationsession Performance Management http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/performance-management10698306 Organizational Development http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/organizational-structure10698226 http://www.slideshare.net/presentation_slide/finance-session-10698127

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