Towards a Typology of Roles in Strategy Making Workshops: Building on the Use of the GSS Data Logs

This paper reports on research which explores a typology of roles which participants undertake ‘in practice’ during the course of strategy making workshops facilitated with the use of a Group Support System (GSS). The reported research draws on a series of data logs generated in a number of strategy workshops with senior management teams in both public and private organizations. The data logs enable detailed tracking of the participants’ contributions over time. This level of richness and detail of analysis, in turn, is used to build the foundations for the proposed typology. The typology may contribute to a better understanding of how GSS can be used effectively to conduct productive strategy making meetings. The typology provides guidance to facilitators of GSS, and especially those who are new to the facilitation practice.