Strategy On Wheels / onsite Movie Maker
Bring your strategy to life through Movie Maker. Your strategy becomes the story. Your team becomes the production company.
Strategy On Wheels
Our Movie Maker experience turns organisational strategy into a film created by the people responsible for delivering it. Participants plan the story, direct and produce the scenes, perform, film the action and edit the final production themselves. We provide facilitation and resources; the team creates the movie. That ownership is central to the experience.
Strategy On Wheels is our onsite application of Movie Maker. We bring the experience to your chosen setting and shape the brief, production arrangements and follow-through around your objectives. Rather than watching another presentation, colleagues explore what the strategy means for customers, leaders, departments and everyday decisions.
The strategy becomes the story, and the team becomes the production company. What appears on screen makes their interpretation visible; how they work together provides material for learning. We connect both with reflection, skill development and workplace practice, rather than relying on an enjoyable activity to produce learning by itself.
What the team communicates about the strategy—and how the team works together while making the film.
From brief to workplace application
We shape the brief, production arrangements and follow-through around your organisation’s objectives rather than treating this as a fixed, off-the-shelf exercise.
We begin with a clear strategic brief: perhaps a new direction, a customer promise, a transformation programme, stronger cross-functional working or the culture needed for a business objective. Together, we establish what success would look like in practice.
‘Become easier to do business with’ becomes a scene only when the team describes how a customer gets an answer, who takes responsibility and how departments resolve a problem. This grounding keeps the film focused on a credible interpretation of the strategy, rather than an entertaining story with a strategic label.
Participants decide what their audience needs to understand, develop a storyline, write dialogue and plan the scenes. They might contrast today’s reality with the intended future, follow a customer’s experience or show a difficult decision that tests organisational values.
We encourage scenes that show choices and consequences. Sharing information early enough for another department to act says more than announcing ‘we collaborate’. Explaining the strategy in their own words also reveals different assumptions. Where colleagues disagree about what it means, we can explore that difference before it affects execution.
The team organises itself as a production company, allocating meaningful responsibilities in front of and behind the camera. Directing involves interpreting the story, guiding performances and giving clear feedback. Producing brings together roles, locations, props, timing and available resources.
Camera, sound, continuity, script and editing responsibilities offer further ways to contribute. Participation does not require acting, and we do not pressure people to appear on camera. As colleagues manage dependencies, negotiate priorities and solve problems, each person’s contribution affects others’ ability to complete the shared task.
Participants perform the scenes and capture the footage themselves. They may portray customers, colleagues, leaders or suppliers, exploring what ownership sounds like, how a manager responds to a concern or what happens when a short-term target conflicts with a longer-term customer promise.
These scenes rehearse an interpretation; they are not proof that behaviour has changed. We use them to examine the gap between stated values and the responses people portray. Another take, unclear sound or a changed plan also creates a real production challenge, making the team’s response useful material for reflection.
Participants select footage, shape the sequence and refine the message themselves. Editing asks what matters, what distracts and whether the story makes sense to someone who was not part of the planning discussion.
A favourite scene may be enjoyable but add little to the strategic point. Choosing what to keep becomes an opportunity to practise prioritising, simplifying and judging the result against the objective. We are not seeking technical perfection: the film needs sufficient clarity to support understanding and useful discussion.
We screen the completed films with the group, creating an opportunity to compare what teams emphasised, which behaviours they showed and where agreement, different assumptions or unresolved questions remain.
An optional Evening at the Oscars can celebrate contributions through awards in different categories. Celebration recognises the work, but an entertaining production is not automatically an accurate interpretation. We distinguish the quality of the filmmaking from the quality of its strategic message.
We facilitate reflection on both the film and its production. Did colleagues listen, share responsibility and resolve competing priorities in ways consistent with the strategy? Who was heard, and whose contribution was overlooked?
Connecting those examples with normal working patterns helps the team identify behaviours to retain and habits to change. Our purpose is not to embarrass people or manufacture agreement, but to make the experience discussable, understand different perspectives and draw out practical lessons.
We help teams move beyond applause to agree observable actions, responsible owners and opportunities to review progress. ‘Communicate better’ needs to become a specific change in how colleagues share information, make decisions or handle a handover.
The film can become a reference for team conversations, strategy reviews or induction into company culture. Later viewing at three, six or twelve months is an option, not a fixed programme. Continued value depends on leaders revisiting the learning and colleagues practising their commitments.
Meaning, participation and ownership
The film makes an interpretation visible. The shared production makes the team’s way of working discussable.
Creating a movie requires colleagues to explain the strategy, choose relevant ideas and connect them with recognisable situations. We give the team space to construct and question its own interpretation, rather than receive someone else’s finished explanation.
Accountability, innovation and customer focus can mean different things to different people. A scene makes those meanings visible. We can examine the action, question the choice and explore whether the strategic statement gives enough guidance for a real decision.
A story about empowerment may be produced by a team where one person controls every decision. A collaboration scene may be planned without involving the editor. We use such contradictions constructively: learning concerns both the strategy communicated and the working methods demonstrated.
A film needs organisers, listeners, writers, detail-minded colleagues and technical problem-solvers as well as performers. We allocate roles thoughtfully and address accessibility and language needs in the design. Meaningful participation does not mean everyone contributes in exactly the same way.
Participants are authors, not simply an audience. A scene or production challenge can become a specific reference for later conversations. Enjoyment can support engagement, but fun alone is not the learning mechanism: we connect memorable moments with strategic insight and practical action, without overlooking genuine disagreement.
Cognitive experiential learning
Our five-step learning model connects a purposeful challenge with reflection, insight, skill development and continued workplace practice.
We set a purposeful shared challenge: create a movie that expresses the team’s strategy using the time and resources available. Decisions, interactions and production difficulties provide the material for learning.
We help participants examine specific examples of what happened. How were priorities set? How did information move? What helped the team, and what created unnecessary difficulty? Discussion stays grounded in evidence from the experience.
We connect discoveries with normal work. Unclear ownership may have delayed production; concerns may have been raised too late; interpretations of ‘customer first’ may differ. The team considers what those patterns mean beyond the film.
Recognising a problem is not the same as knowing how to address it. We help the group identify and learn a relevant approach, such as clarifying handovers, giving useful feedback, checking understanding or deciding between competing priorities.
Our final step requires opportunities to practise improved behaviour, receive feedback and repeat it at work. The workshop can begin that process; finishing a film does not confer mastery. Continued application is part of the learning, not an optional assumption about outcomes.
Onsite, with the right arrangements
Strategy On Wheels brings Movie Maker to your chosen setting rather than requiring travel to a permanent film studio. An office, conference venue or retreat space can support production, subject to suitable arrangements. A meeting room may portray a customer conversation; elaborate scenery is not the point.
We plan the practical requirements with you: usable space and filming locations, sound conditions, access, power, permissions, accessibility and local logistics. We also consider language needs, confidential business information, identifiable people, privacy and permissions for any later sharing. Portable delivery does not remove these requirements; a meaningful brief, workable resources and effective facilitation remain essential.
An example, not a reported client result
Imagine a business seeking easier, faster and more accountable customer service. Its team films a customer repeatedly passed between departments, then shows an alternative: one person takes ownership, gathers the right colleagues and keeps the customer informed. Writing defines ownership, performing explores what to say and when to act, and editing distinguishes a genuine improvement from a slogan.
During production, the team may notice that its own handovers are unclear. We can connect that working pattern with the customer story. Colleagues might agree named owners for cross-functional requests, explicit handovers and joint reviews of unresolved customer issues. The movie illustrates the strategy; reflection identifies an improvement; workplace practice determines whether it lasts.
Beyond the screening
We help turn discoveries into realistic commitments: what will change, who will take responsibility and how progress will be discussed. The film is a reminder and conversation tool, not a substitute for delivery or evidence that the desired behaviour is already established.
Teams can revisit the film in ongoing conversations, strategy reviews or induction. Optional viewing at three, six or twelve months can support that discussion where it suits the organisation. Leaders and colleagues still need to practise the agreed behaviours, give feedback and review what is happening in everyday work.
Connect it to your transformation journeyBring the strategy into the room
Talk to us about your strategic priorities, participants, venue and the workplace behaviours you want the experience to make practical.