Retreat Redesign: A Case Study Using the IIPL Approach

Abstract

Academic faculty retreats are routinely geared towards professional development, team building, and strategic planning. They encourage focused discussions and often employ collaborative exercises and activities. However, the intricacies of how these events are built and facilitated can be the difference between meaningful outcomes and results that may be considered impersonal or merely procedural. This case study examines the strategic implementation and facilitation of a prototype faculty retreat event developed to support meaningful collaborative ideation utilizing the IIPL Approach. The IIPL Approach fuses Personal Leadership Philosophy practices with Design Thinking and Creative Problem Solving (CPS) methods to support introspective, value-based outcomes in creative activities. It is guided by four criteria for success (introspective, inclusive, personal, local) along with a series of mindsets. This creative methodology was selected to provide the structure for a recent design faculty and staff retreat event held on the campus of California State University, Long Beach. The event topics addressed the changing landscape of building academic and professional communities and subsequently expanded into related areas including design technologies, artificial intelligence, and design education. In following the IIPL Approach, these topics were structurally driven by Personal Leadership Philosophy. The event format, exercises, facilitation strategies, observed outcomes, and reflections on participant engagement are discussed, along with comparisons to a prior application of the IIPL Approach.

Keywords: Collaboration, Creative Methods, Creative Problem Solving, Design, Design Thinking, IILP Approach, Methodology, Personal Leadership Philosophy

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007715