How I rapidly align teams before any strategy session!

Note: If you want the full story and step‑by‑step walkthrough, listen to the latest podcast version of Confessions of a Facilitation Artist where I break this down in detail. Also, scroll to the bottom to get a quick start guide!As the year winds down and strategy season ramps up, I’ve been reflecting on the different ways I’ve facilitated strategy at my company. One exercise keeps rising to the top as my go‑to for cutting through noise, gathering context quickly, and getting a cross‑functional group aligned: a simple 25‑minute activity I call the Lightning Research Review.Most of the people I work with are constantly context switching, which means they often show up to strategy or discovery sessions carrying whatever is most recent or loudest in their world.The Lightning Research Review helps reset that by giving everyone a chance to engage directly with key artifacts—research, metrics, case studies, internal docs—and surface the main ideas and most important insights together.In practice, I use this as a fast primer before strategy sprints, planning offsites, or design sprints, and as a way to rapidly get teams up to speed on complex topics like AI use cases. I do a bit of prep to curate or collect artifacts, then guide the group through a tight 25‑minute flow of silent review, sticky‑note insights, lightning‑fast shares, and a quick synthesis of what has the most “heat” for our next stepsWhat makes this so powerful is how it turns context‑setting from a passive slide‑deck download into an active learning experience. In just 25 minutes, the team builds a shared understanding of the problem space, spots patterns, and gets ready to make better decisions—without burning out on endless presentation. Want to experience this in action?I have drafted up a quick start guide for you with the template. If you want the virtual version in miro or mural, leave a comment! I’ll likely do another post and host a training for this in the new year. More Ways to ConnectIf you are in West Michigan, I’ll be facilitating at the the West Michigan Product Community on Wednesday, December 10 from 5:00–6:30 p.m. at Atomic Object in Grand Rapids.Also, I’d love to connect with you for a virtual coffee to learn and grow together. Get full access to Confessions of a Creative Leader at creativeleaderconfessions.substack.com/subscribe