SFiO
The InterAction Collection
OF SOLUTION FOCUS PRACTICE IN ORGANISATIONS · Vol 11 - 2019 Edition

SFiO Unconference feedback

May 20, 2026

Annie Bordeleau, John Brooker & Marika Tammeaid

SF in Large Scale Contexts

Inspired by two articles, from Sofie Geisler[i] and Marika Tammeaid[ii], (download these at the bottom of this feature), SFiO held its first SOLWorld Unconference on the theme, “SF in Large Scale Contexts” on 6 & 7 December 2019 at the atmospheric Irish College in Leuven, Belgium, with much success on different levels.

30 people attended, some new to SFiO, holding 29 separate sessions on a diverse range of topics related to the theme.

  • “For me the Unconference was a great experience! It’s great to be able to meet like-minded people, who all want to make a difference in organisations or communities.
  • “The number of attendees for me was perfect. It was big enough to create a diverse set of questions, topics and opinions. And it was small enough to interact with (almost) everyone. I also enjoyed the dinner and the informal gathering in the evening to get to know each other on a different level, and even then, SF is never far away. Looking forward to the next gathering!”
  • “For me the Conference was fantastic. Unbelievable what we got out of the Open Space discussions and I am really looking forward to the summaries.”

The Kick Off Question

John Brooker, Susanne Burgstaller and Marika Tammeaid, developed a kick off question for the Unconference:

“Imagine it is 2025 and we have been successful with SF in Large Scale Contexts. What was the question we asked this group (at the Unconference) that made this happen?”

Everyone was involved in generating questions to answer in regards to “SF in large scale contexts”.

Having generated the questions, we invited participants to rate them according to their interest. The highest-rated questions provided a guide to the topics that people were most enthusiastic to discuss and develop into Unconference sessions.

The sessions then evolved from these questions of interest.

Output from selected sessions

In this special focus section of this InterAction, we have included the output from seven sessions at the Unconference.

Read and download individual articles

To facilitate your reading, we have included this output as individual PDFs that you can open and read easily on screen, or download. We recommend you right click on the link and choose to open the document in a new window to read, or opt to download it.

The original inspiration for the Unconference

Global Large Scale Change
John Brooker
John Brooker
Co-President
SFiO Reviewed Practitioner
Editor of Interaction
Chapter Head
SFiO Contributor

John has over thirty years experience of leading people to collaborate effectively. He gained his leadership experience as a Senior Vice President in Visa International, working on international projects. Since 2004 he has used his leadership and Solution Focus expertise to enable people in multinational and national organisations to collaborate effectively. He is Co-President of Solution Focus in Organisations, an SFiO Reviewed Practitioner and has an MBA from The Open University in the UK.

Marika Tammeaid
Marika Tammeaid
SFiO Reviewed Practitioner
InterAction Contributor
SFiO Contributor

Dr Marika Tammeaid is a Solution-Focused Coach, developer and leadership trainer, currently working as the Director of Development at the Finnish, Itla Children’s Foundation. Previously she was responsible for designing and leading the “Route for renewal” public sector leadership training courses at the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra.

Annie Bordeleau
Annie Bordeleau
Co-President
Board Member
Editor of InterAction
SFiO Contributor

Annie Bordeleau is founder of the I2A Network, collaborating with international organisations and universities for over 20 years. She discovered SF in 2005 and it has fundamentally transformed the way she supports leaders in organisations across all cultures to lead through change with more ease and effectiveness.

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