‘I Have a Dream’, a Process for Visioning in Practice Development

The literature on practice development (PD) stresses the importance of having a ‘vision’, but provides little assistance on methodologies to develop one. This article describes in detail the process used to develop a shared vision in the context of a PD programme for clinical leaders in two Health and Social Services and Public Safety Trusts in Northern Ireland. Having a shared vision is seen as an essential foundation stone in the development of practice and in transformational cultures. The process used took the form of four distinct stages: preparation of participants for the visioning workshop; the first visioning workshop; visioning led by/facilitated by the programme participants; and the second visioning workshop. This work provided the foundation for development work in the subsequent cycles of the PD programme.