The whole point of the event was to break down cultural barriers, build team spirit, and get people talking and sharing knowledge, people do that best in an informal environment when they're having fun. ...96% of delegates ranking the event as excellent or as the best they had ever attended."

BP's Renewal Performance Unit, created in late 2005, looks for major new exploration opportunities. The unit is predominantly split between two sites: London, England and Baku, Azerbaijan. Despite being in operation for eighteen months, employees at the two sites had never met other than at leadership level. Recognising the potential to develop better interaction, communication and strategic alignment, BP decided to host Community, Vision and Laughter. Unique Solutions designed and delivered a two-day conference to meet BP's brief for an event that stimulated creativity and innovation through laughter and fun and broke the traditional conference mould. We knew this was the right way to go from the start, explains Unique Solutions Event Manager Helen Parker. The whole point of the event was to break down cultural barriers, build team spirit, and get people talking and sharing knowledge. In our experience, people do that best in an informal environment when they're having fun so we pulled out all the stops to make every session as enjoyable as possible. Unique Solutions communicated BP's Community, Vision and Laughter theme through a specially designed logo invitations, paperwork and badges were all branded to give the event its own identity. Delegates took part in getting to know you're activities and exercises that required high levels of participation and interaction. Teams explained their roles to one another through story-telling sessions rather than formal presentations. The conference proceedings were recorded by a graphic artist. The unit's vision for the future was revealed in a day-time chat show style interview with Paul Clyne, Vice President and Performance Unit Leader. Making the decision to break with the traditional formal conference environment was a big risk for BP, but one that delivered outstanding business benefits. The event was a resounding success, with 96% of delegates ranking the event as excellent or as the best they had ever attended. Sharing experience and knowledge helped enhance the unit's spirit of co-operation and teamwork and build the values and behaviours that underpin long-term success. "The event was a phenomenal success, says Ann Perrins, Learning and Organisation Development Manager. Unique Solutions were completely hands-on, flexible and great to work with throughout the whole process. The event was creative and definitely had the wow factor we needed to signal a new beginning. Unique Solutions helped us bring our vision to life, achieving the difficult balance between communicating business information, working together and having a lot of fun. Their expertise in bringing together many different activities in a seamless way was invaluable."

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