ISABELLE OHLSON
About Me  

Selected Work
Prison Leavers Project
Resettlement Vision
Video Calling in Prisons Democracy Watch
Ready Now
Strategic Planning Retreat
Photography

Strategic Planning Retreat
Human Rights First
Q3 2024 - Q4 2024
DESIGN strategy  - Facilitation  -
Design Consultancy - PARTICIPATORY DESIGN ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN

Objectives
Clarify the organization’s identity: what is our unique niche, core strength, “superpower,” and value proposition in the evolving global human rights landscape?
Assess whether current messaging aligns with our mission and aspirations.
Reflect on strengths, weaknesses, and strategic positioning.
Explore how to build a stronger, healthier work environment and culture.
Support the team in navigating a period of organizational transition.
Identify key operational challenges and co-develop actionable strategies to address those challenges.  
Foster greater connection, alignment, and trust across staff through structured, intentional engagement.

What did I do?
Collaborated with the CEO and program leads to define clear objectives and intended outcomes for the process.
Conducted research interviews and focus groups with senior leadership and staff to surface insights and pain points.
Co-designed pre-retreat exercises including a tailored SWOT analysis, team reflection prompts, and alignment workshops.
Co-designed a 2-day retreat, incorporating interactive sessions, speculative scenario planning, mapping, and team-building activities.
Facilitated the full retreat, creating space for both strategic thinking and creative exploration.
Led a collaborative synthesis process post-retreat to draw out key themes, priorities, and next steps
Created a synthesis report summarising outputs, ideas, and a simple system for tracking roadmap progress: what’s in motion, what’s complete, and what needs more work.

Impact
Introduced the organization to a new way of working, applying design thinking and participatory methods to strategic planning and collaboration.
Generated a shared sense of direction and momentum: two days of intensive, hands-on workshops resulted in clear ideas, strategic insights, and positioning statements.
Built strong team engagement: staff found the process both valuable and energizing, with high levels of buy-in for continuing to work this way in the future.