Workshops
Most commonly, the challenge your business faces will be of a similar nature to that felt by other member companies. Where this common interest exists, we form 'Workshops' to address these challenges.
A Workshop is simply a group of individuals drawn from companies which face similar challenges to your own and from companies which have existing expertise or experience of solving those challenges. Additionally, academic or external 3rd party expertise is added to the Workshop where it is deemed appropriate and necessary to bring about a resolution.
Given that each Workshop forms to address a specific issue, the make-up of those Workshops is dynamic and no two Workshops are likely to have exactly the same companies or individuals involved.
The Workshop sets out its own terms of reference and the objective of its own work - and there is absolutely no obligation to divulge what you may regard as proprietary or competitive information. The administration and management of each Workshop is the responsibility of CeeD. A Workshop will always have a CeeD representative there to provide support to the Workshop Leader.
This Leader comes from the membership body and is always an experienced practitioner of the subject under review or sometimes an academic – either way, the opportunity to mentor the peer group is great CPD. Workshop meetings normally take place every 6 weeks – but it is for the Workshop itself to decide what is appropriate. On satisfactory completion of the objective(s), the Workshop closes.
Workshops come together to address your issues. As such, they begin with you. All Workshops begin with someone raising their hand to say, "We've got an issue and we could use some support" or "Does anyone know the best way to..?" It's about your issues so it's your agenda. All you have to do is ask.
Projects
If your issue is unique to your company (and no one can know that until you flag the issue), then it is possible to engage in a one-to-one 'Project' with another member company or (more likely) an academic Partner to identify a solution. Indeed, many member companies are linking directly into academic expertise, accessing and utilising funded research programmes. All you have to do is ask.
Ad hoc
Problems crop up – it happens every day to all of us. Maybe you just need to kick that problem (or idea) around informally with someone who might know something about it – like a trusted friend. As a CeeD member, you've now got a whole lot more friends, all with backgrounds in running operationally based companies. They want to help. They want you to be even more successful. All you have to do is ask.
Your company can participate in as many Workshops, Projects or events as you are able to manage to bring about a satisfactory resolution to the challenge(s) you have raised. Once you elect to join the community, every activity is open to you – absolutely free.