Working Schedule
Aligning Industry Priorities for the Next Decade
A dialogue-first executive working forum that moves senior industry leaders from shared context to alignment, action, and follow-through.
Back to Forum OverviewDay 1
Establish the Forum as a candid, senior-level, discussion-driven working session focused on outcomes.
Brief welcome, Forum purpose, Chatham House Rule, antitrust reminder, and expectations for enterprise-level, industry-first participation.
Sets the tone, protects the association, and makes clear that this is not a presentation-based conference.
Surface the forces, risks, and opportunities shaping the window, door, and skylight industry.
Moderated fishbowl with 4-5 executives in the inner circle and one rotating open seat. Prompts focus on forces shaping the next 3-5 years, areas of fragmentation, and alignment needs.
Creates the shared starting point for the Forum and gives the room a common fact pattern before moving into prioritization.
Allow participants to process the opening discussion and give facilitators time to identify early patterns.
Informal networking while staff and facilitators review emerging themes.
Maintains pace while preserving useful insight for the next segment.
Identify which issues executives believe matter most and where urgency or alignment is greatest.
Participants rotate through short facilitated stations on regulation and policy, workforce and productivity, technology and innovation, and market/customer dynamics.
Turns broad conversation into visible patterns and begins to show where common priorities may be forming.
Move beyond topics and force executives to wrestle with tradeoffs that will shape the future.
Small groups work through tensions such as regulation as defense vs. offense, labor scarcity vs. productivity, technology improvement vs. business model change, company advantage vs. industry alignment, and short-term performance vs. long-term investment.
This is the main strategy work of Day 1. It pushes the room toward insight, not generic brainstorming.
Consolidate the strongest signals from the first day.
Facilitator presents emerging themes without attribution. Participants react to what feels right, what is missing, and what needs sharper definition on Day 2.
Prevents Day 1 from becoming a series of disconnected discussions and creates continuity into the full working day.
Toast to new friends or catch up with colleagues during this brief networking break to wrap up our day together.
Unstructured time together with cocktails and appetizers.
Leverages the “happy hour” end to the day that we all know and enjoy.
Day 2
Restart the discussion by asking what stayed with participants from Day 1.
Themed tables use a simple prompt: What did we hear yesterday that WDMA cannot ignore?
Keeps the Forum moving forward and gives quieter participants another entry point.
Challenge assumptions and broaden the room's thinking with an external perspective.
Fireside-style expert interview followed by curated executive Q&A. No slide deck. Questions connect outside insight to regulation, workforce, technology, markets, and alignment.
Adds strategic pressure and helps participants see their industry challenges in a broader context.
Create candid small-group dialogue among senior leaders across functions and companies.
Mixed tables of 7-9 participants under Chatham House Rule. Prompts include: What disruption are we not ready for? Where does fragmentation hurt us most? What capability will determine winners?
Moves the Forum from shared context to personal executive judgment and surfaces the issues leaders are most concerned about.
Reset before the second round of leadership circles.
Informal break and facilitator huddle.
Gives facilitators a chance to capture themes and prepare the next round.
Push from individual concerns toward areas where the industry may need a common voice or shared action.
Participants are remixed. Prompts focus on what should remain company-specific, what requires industry alignment, and what happens if the industry does nothing.
Addresses the central reason for the Forum: determining where alignment actually matters.
Provide a confidential, aggregate view of industry readiness and priorities.
Anonymous QR-based benchmarking on regulatory readiness, workforce/productivity, technology adoption, sustainability pressure, and advocacy alignment. Results shown only in aggregate.
Helps leaders see whether their assumptions are shared or isolated and creates data for the afternoon action work.
Convert the strongest themes into possible action pathways.
Cross-functional labs on Policy & Industry Voice, Workforce & Productivity, Technology/AI & Innovation, and Sustainability/Codes/Market Expectations. Each lab defines the problem, proposes responses, and separates WDMA-led work from company-led collaboration.
This is the Act phase. It turns insight into practical pathways and begins to define what WDMA should lead.
Create a single room-wide view of the strongest ideas, force prioritization, and produce the core outcome of the Forum.
The facilitator reports themes from the labs, and participants clarify, combine, or challenge the draft priorities before ranking them using dots, cards, or mobile polling. The final 3-5 priorities are written in plain language and categorized as industry-wide priorities, WDMA-led initiatives, or voluntary company-led collaboration opportunities.
Bringing synthesis and resolution into one session prevents the labs from becoming silos and ensures the Forum produces clear priorities that can influence WDMA advocacy, programming, and leadership.
Translate the Forum's output into WDMA follow-through.
WDMA leadership outlines the next 90 days: outcomes brief, Board discussion, member communication, possible working groups, and timeline for re-engagement.
Shows that the Forum is meant to change what WDMA does, not merely generate discussion.
Design Notes
Every session is intentionally structured to protect candor, surface patterns, test alignment, and move the room toward a small number of actionable priorities.
Join the conversation
Request your invitation to the WDMA Executive Leadership Forum today.