What is it?

A Search Conference brings together 20 to 40 people from across an organisation or community for an intensive two to three day planning event. Participants collectively scan their external environment, explore their shared history, examine their current situation, and then design the most desirable future for their system. The process follows a funnel shape: it starts wide by looking at global and societal changes, narrows to focus on the specific organisation or community, and ends with concrete strategies and action plans that participants commit to carrying out themselves. There are no presentations, keynote speakers, or training exercises. People do the real work of learning and planning together, in their own words, on chart paper everyone can see.

Also Known As

• Participative Search Conference

When to Use It

• When an organisation or community needs a new strategic direction and you want the people who will carry it out to create the plan themselves
• When multiple stakeholders with different perspectives need to find common ground before they can move forward together
• When previous planning efforts have produced vision statements that went nowhere because the people who wrote them had no ownership of implementation
• When a system is facing a turbulent or uncertain environment and needs to develop adaptive strategies rather than fixed predictions
• When merging organisations, departments, or service delivery systems need to build a shared identity and joint strategy
• When a community or region wants to tackle complex cross-cutting issues like education, housing, or economic development
• When you need to move beyond expert-driven planning to tap the collective knowledge of the people closest to the work

When NOT to Use It

• When leaders have already decided the direction and want people to feel consulted rather than genuinely plan. Participants will spot this and disengage.
• When you have fewer than 15 people. The method relies on the diversity and energy of a large group. Below this threshold, it becomes a small group discussion without the same creative tension.
• When you cannot commit to two full days minimum. Compressing the process into a half-day or single day strips away the environmental scanning and system history phases that make the outcomes grounded rather than wishful.
• When participants have no authority or capacity to implement what they produce. The entire design assumes the planners become the implementers.
• When the issue is a narrow operational problem with a clear technical solution. Search Conference is built for complex, adaptive challenges, not for fixing a broken process.
• When there is active, unresolved crisis that requires immediate action. The method needs time and reflective space that a crisis does not allow.

The Search Conference was designed by Fred Emery and first conducted in 1959 at Barford in the UK, where it was used to help merge two hostile aircraft engine manufacturers under pressure from the RAF. Eric Trist of the Tavistock Institute served as observer and co-facilitator for that first event. Fred and Merrelyn Emery continued to develop the theory and methodology over the following decades at the Australian National University in Canberra, expanding its use across Australia, Norway, the Netherlands, Canada, India, and the United States. Merrelyn Emery and Ronald Purser documented the method comprehensively in their 1996 book The Search Conference: A Powerful Method for Planning Organizational Change and Community Action.

What You Need

Group size: 20-40 participants is the sweet spot. Below 15 lacks sufficient diversity of perspective. Above 50 is possible but requires more time and skilled management. For larger numbers, consider running parallel Search Conferences (a "multi-search") that integrate their outputs later.

Time required:

• The standard format is two nights and two and a half days, starting late afternoon on Day 1.
• Absolute minimum is two full days.
• Extended versions may run three full days for complex multi-stakeholder situations.

Space:

• A single large room with plenty of open wall space for posting chart paper (this is essential, not optional)
• Space for the full group to sit together in a loose arrangement (no classroom rows, no boardroom table)
• Breakout areas or corners within the main room for small group work
• An off-site or "social island" location away from everyday distractions, phones, and messages
• Access to outdoor space or fresh air is beneficial

Materials:

• Large quantities of chart paper or butcher's paper (you will fill dozens of sheets)
• Thick marker pens in multiple colours (enough for every participant)
• Masking tape for posting paper on walls
• Sticky dots for prioritisation
• A visible clock or timer
• Refreshments available continuously (not at fixed break times, since the work pace is unpredictable)
• No projectors, PowerPoint, or individual workbooks. Everything happens on shared chart paper.

The Process

Setup

1. Form a planning group from inside the system (3-5 people who know the organisation or community well). Work with them to clearly define the system boundary: what is the organisation, community, or network that is the subject of this conference?
2. Define the conference task using the formula: "A plan for the most desirable future of [system name] that participants will carry out together."
3. Select participants based on three criteria: knowledge of the system, diverse perspectives, and capacity to implement the plan. For community searches, use a reference system (start with a few names, ask each person to suggest two or three others, and notice which names keep appearing). For organisational searches, include those responsible for the health and direction of the organisation.
4. Brief every participant before the conference in a face-to-face conversation. Cover the purpose, the process, what to expect, and what will be expected of them. When people arrive, they should be ready to work.
5. Prepare the physical space with chart paper, markers, and wall space. Set up the room for community seating (a rough circle or open arrangement), not rows.
6. If the system needs baseline data (demographic information, customer research, industry data), gather it beforehand and make it available. Do not build presentations around it.

Step 1: Changes in the World

Time: 2-3 hours (typically the evening of Day 1)

Purpose: To widen the lens beyond the immediate system and establish a shared picture of the turbulent global environment.

1. Open by stating the conference task clearly and displaying it on the wall. Negotiate expectations briefly: "Before we begin, what do you need from this conference and from each other to do your best work?"
2. Move straight into the first working session. Say: "What has been happening in the world in the last five to seven years that has struck you as significant? These can be changes in society, technology, the economy, the environment, politics, anything that you think matters. All perceptions are valid."
3. Record every contribution on chart paper for all to see. Do not filter, categorise, or challenge. Let the list grow. The room should see the complexity and interconnection of global changes building before their eyes.
4. Once the list feels substantial (typically 50-100 items), form small groups of 5-7 people. Each group works on two questions: "If these trends continue, what will the world probably look like in [agreed timeframe, typically 5-10 years]?" and "What is our most desirable future for the world if we get things right?"
5. Groups report back and the community integrates results. Items everyone can support go on the agreed list. Items where there is genuine disagreement go on a separate "disagreed" list and are set aside. They are not part of the further work, but they are respected and visible.

Watch for: This session surfaces shared human ideals (peaceful resolution of conflict, environmental stewardship, equity) that become the benchmark for later planning. Do not rush it.

Step 2: Our System's History

Time: 1.5-2 hours (morning of Day 2)

Purpose: To build a shared appreciation of where the system has come from and what has shaped it into what it is today.

1. Work as a whole community. Say: "Let's tell the story of [system name]. What are the significant events, decisions, turning points, and changes that have shaped this organisation/community into what it is today?"
2. Let people tell their own stories and perspectives. Do not impose timelines or decade markers. Record everything on chart paper. This session works best as open storytelling with the whole group.
3. Allow people to celebrate achievements, acknowledge setbacks, and name the continuities that have carried forward. This is oral history building, not analytical dissection.

Watch for: This session builds community and trust. People who have been in the system for decades sit alongside newcomers, and both learn. Do not cut it short for the sake of the schedule. If energy is high, let it run.

Step 3: Our Current System

Time: 1.5-2 hours

Purpose: To honestly assess the current state of the system, building on the trust established through the history session.

1. With both the global context and the history fresh in mind, work as a whole community on three questions: "What about our current system should we keep? What should we drop? What should we create?"
2. Record all contributions on chart paper. The ground rule remains that all perceptions are valid. This is a brainstorm, not a debate.
3. Let the group see the full picture: strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and aspirations all laid out together.

Watch for: By this point the group should have enough trust to be honest about weaknesses. If people are only naming positives, gently prompt: "Is there anything we need to stop doing or let go of?"

Step 4: Our Most Desirable System

Time: 2-3 hours

Purpose: To design the future the group wants to create, grounded in the environmental scan, history, and current state analysis.

1. Form small groups (5-7 people) that work in parallel on the same task: "Describe the most desirable future for [system name] as it would look at [agreed future date]. Be concrete and specific."
2. Groups self-manage their process. There is no imposed method. The creativity comes from the ideas.
3. Groups report and integrate their results into a community list. Use the same common ground process: agreed items go forward, genuine disagreements go on the disagreed list.
4. The full community then decides which desirable future points to develop into strategic goals. Aim for an array of strategies (typically 4-8) rather than a single overarching theme.

Watch for: Push for concrete, actionable descriptions rather than abstract vision statements. If someone says "we want to be world-class," ask: "What would that look like? What would someone see or experience?"

Step 5: Strategies and Action Plans

Time: 3-4 hours (typically afternoon of Day 2 through morning of Day 3)

Purpose: To convert the desirable future into specific strategies and action plans that participants will implement.

1. Begin with a brief discussion of constraints. Say: "What barriers or constraints stand between where we are and where we want to be?" List them on chart paper.
2. Introduce the concept of indirect strategy: "The most effective strategies often go around constraints rather than hitting them head-on. Think about what would make these barriers irrelevant."
3. Invite participants to self-select into task forces around the strategic goals they feel most committed to. Each task force develops action plans on behalf of the whole community.
4. Task forces work on: What are we going to do? Who is responsible? By when? What are the first concrete steps? How will we monitor progress?
5. Allow task forces to manage their own time, including breaks. Set a clear deadline for final reports back to the full community.

Watch for: If participants default to forming traditional committees with chairs and minutes, flag this. The method works on democratic, self-managing principles. Responsibility for the plan sits with the whole group, not a subcommittee.

Closing

Time: 1-1.5 hours

1. Each task force presents its strategy and action plan to the full community. Allow questions of clarification and coordination between groups.
2. The community decides: Who will compile the overall report? (This is the participants' job, not the facilitators'.) When will the community meet again? In what structure?
3. Address follow-through: "How will you maintain the self-managing, democratic way of working you've experienced here when you get back to your regular environment?"
4. Close by acknowledging what the community has built: a shared understanding of the environment, a grounded appreciation of history, an honest view of the present, and a concrete plan for the future that everyone in the room has shaped.

Facilitator Guidance

What Makes This Work

The Search Conference works because it is designed around open systems thinking. By starting with the global environment rather than the organisation's problems, it forces participants to see their system as part of a much larger context. This "directive correlation" between the system and its environment means the strategies that emerge are adaptive rather than insular. The funnel design builds community progressively: shared ideals about the world create common ground, shared history builds trust, honest assessment of the current state builds confidence, and by the time the group reaches action planning, they have the relationships and shared understanding needed to commit to implementation. The facilitator's job is not to lead the content but to maintain the conditions for this learning process to happen.

Common Pitfalls

• Acting as content expert: Your role is to manage the process and maintain the learning environment. The moment you offer opinions on the substance, you shift from democratic to bureaucratic structure. Even if you know the industry, stay out of the content.
• Compressing the environment scan: Under time pressure, facilitators are tempted to shorten or skip the global trends session. This removes the shared context that makes everything else work. Without it, participants default to narrow, inward-looking planning.
• Allowing presentation-style reporting: When small groups report back, some will want to "present" with polished narratives. Redirect toward simple reading of their chart paper points. The method relies on chart paper being the shared record, not individual performance.
• Imposing structure on self-managing groups: During action planning, resist the urge to check in every fifteen minutes or suggest how groups should organise their work. Trust the democratic design principle.
• Letting disagreements derail the process: When genuine disagreement surfaces, use the disagreed list. Record it, respect it, and move on with the common ground. Do not try to resolve fundamental value differences in the moment.
• Skipping participant briefing: People who arrive not knowing what to expect will spend the first half-day orienting themselves, which slows the entire community. Brief everyone face-to-face beforehand.
• Falling back into committee structure post-conference: The most common failure mode is that the planning community returns home and organises itself into traditional committees. Name this risk and help the group design an implementation structure that maintains self-management.

Adaptations

• Shorter format (2 days): Start first thing in the morning on Day 1 rather than late afternoon. Compress each phase but do not eliminate any. The environment scan, history, current state, desirable future, and action planning must all be present.
• Larger groups (50+): Run parallel Search Conferences ("multi-search") with a shared opening and closing session. Each conference of 20-35 people runs the full process independently, then task forces from each conference integrate their strategies. This requires more facilitators and careful design.
• Organisational vs. community: For organisations, keep membership inside the system boundary. For community searches, use the reference system for participant selection and expect a wider range of perspectives and more disagreement, which is healthy.
• Virtual delivery: This is difficult. The method depends on social island conditions, continuous chart paper, and the community-building that happens over shared meals and informal conversations. If you must run it online, use a persistent visual workspace (like a shared digital whiteboard), extend the timeline to account for screen fatigue, and build in social time. Expect reduced depth compared to in-person.
• Series of shorter sessions: For organisations that cannot release people for two-plus days, consider running the process across three or four half-day sessions over several weeks. Be aware that this fragments the community-building effect and requires careful reconnection at the start of each session.

Real-World Applications

Regional water conflict resolution: The Governor of Colorado brought together water engineers from communities across the Front Range to address over a century of conflict and litigation over scarce water resources. The Search Conference helped them find common ground and create a plan for sharing water resources for the first time, with participants forming a temporary network organisation to oversee implementation.

Manufacturing strategic renewal: A Hewlett-Packard plant used the Search Conference to bring together leaders from across the organisation for thorough strategic planning, including decisions about core business strategies. The resulting plan was created and owned by the people who would carry it out, rather than being handed down from executives.

State mental health system redesign: Mental health professionals, consumers, and political leaders in Nebraska ran a series of three Search Conferences to redesign the state's mental health delivery system. The outcome was a consumer-based, locally driven system supported by a new state mental health institute, planned and implemented by the participants themselves.

Community regional planning: Citizens and community leaders in the Macatawa region of Michigan used a Search Conference to develop a comprehensive plan covering transportation, education, and economic development. The regional council adopted it as their official strategic plan and restructured the organisation around the strategies that emerged.

Workforce empowerment initiative: Another Hewlett-Packard plant focused their Search Conference specifically on workplace empowerment. The planning community designed several new strategies including the implementation of self-managing groups, with the people who would be affected by the changes leading the planning.