Image courtesy Mindful Maps

Visual facilitation is one of the most the most interactive ways of working visually. It essentially combines facilitation with graphic harvesting (sometimes known as graphic recording or graphic facilitation) The two roles of facilitator and harvester can be played by a team or two or more people, or by one person playing both roles. In our experience, it works best when the graphic harvester is co-facilitating or interacting with another facilitator. This emergent mode of practice is used in various settings; meetings, conferences, vision-building activities, one-to-one, in groups and in communities.

Effective collaboration makes the most of the ideas and skills of all of those that are involved,  and good communication is integral to this.  Visual facilitation can be seen as a process to support collaborative and co-creative working. This post explores the relationship between the two.

At the beginning of a collaborative project or during creative brainstorming, great discussions come from diverse, unformed ideas.  Although a text document is a good record of what was said, it doesn’t capture the links, tangents or organic development that the conversation takes, as well as the energy and excitement in the group. Cue visual facilitation…

A group working next to a visualisation of their conversation; they can use the image to illustrate their points. Image courtesy of Mindful Maps.

• Visual facilitation captures relevant or interesting information that might otherwise get lost in communication. By using the power of illustration, we can help emergent ideas to materialise through the simple act of getting things down on paper. This then gives the group something to talk around which enhances the quality of the conversation, rather than going into ‘cycles’ where people repeat themselves and the communication gets stuck. Visual representation can also help spark more ideas and keep creativity flowing.

• The act of visualising something in a live setting improves the group memory. 80% of what we learn, we process visually – seeing something articulated and expressed as it happens gives a more lasting memory and learning of the event. Whereas a text document provides a record of the conversation after it has taken place, visual facilitation creates good reference points during the conversation.  Allowing people to see the discussion as it develops helps to create an instant memory and deepens its quality.

• When we visualise something as it’s happening, we enable people to have their voices heard. Documenting what someone says means it is taken more seriously, and visual facilitation can certainly be used as a tool to give people a voice regardless of their position, age, race or gender within the group.  A visual facilitator can pick on the quieter but equally valuable points and include them in the conversation.  Seeing something you’ve said being written or drawn in front of a group is empowering, giving you the confidence to contribute even more.

• Visual facilitation can help a new group to find a shared language. Sometimes when discussing new ideas and concepts, it can be difficult to articulate what we’re thinking.  Visual expression can often help us to move forward by communicating things in images when we don’t quite have the words.

• Working collaboratively can enhance the visual facilitator’s role. Although the graphic harvesting process is valuable to collaborative working in itself, when a visual practitioner works collaboratively to make images they can help people visualise things themselves. If people can make images themselves the process is more powerful. Working in this interactive way, the visual facilitator can help other to explore their creativity. By sharing these skills we can enable others to make images and think visually.

Our 5 top tips for making the most of visual facilitation

1. Ensure that the meeting is well-organised in the first place. Ask the right questions, have the right people there, keep on track, and ensure everyone gets a say.

2. Don’t leave the visual at the meeting or stick it in a cupboard. Transfer it to a shared online space to remind everyone throughout the project, of where it started. Take good quality photographs and share them.

3. Keep the physical object up for a few days – to further enhance memory and spark new thoughts about the process.

4. Use the visuals as tools to do further work from – bring them out in meetings and workgroups and to help write documents.

5. There is still a place for linear, text documents. They provide a good record of the discussion and can be used to clarify points.  Use both visualisation and text documents alongside each other to enhance the process.

Thanks to Emily Wilkinson of Mindful Maps for co-writing this post.

Know what you’re going to be addressing. This could be a few questions to explore or a more detailed brief.  If you decide to send a briefing to all team members beforehand, don’t send it too far in advance but give people enough time to digest it. And also ask them not to share ideas until you meet – that way everyone can start off from equal footing when they get together for the first time.

Start off the session by allowing everyone to ‘braindump’ – their initial response to the brief, thoughts, suggestions, and further questions.  And to ensure any priorities or ‘agendas’ are aired.    If they don’t come out now, they’ll come out later, and much better to develop the project from everyone’s standpoints than having to adapt it, with difficulty, later on.

Image by Leonard John Matthews on Flickr

Break into smaller groups for discussion. Groups of 2 or 3 max are best. This ensures that those that might be initially shy in speaking up can have their say.

Have a plan. Break the time available into slots and decide what needs to be covered and how much time will be allocated. Let everyone know at the beginning that this is how the session will run, so they know how much time they have.

Remember what you’re there for. The beauty of creativity is it takes you in directions you hadn’t anticipated. The difficulty with creativity is that it takes you in directions you hadn’t anticipated. You need to find a good balance with encouraging the free flow of ideas but ensuring you don’t stray too far off within the time allocated.  Clearly state the objectives of the session, and refer back to it regularly to keep everyone on track.

Have plenty of snacks available. Fruit. Biscuits. Chocolate. Sweets. Enough said.

If possible, have a facilitator that isn’t someone who is also involved in the ideas generation. A facilitator will be there to keep focus, keep an eye on time, take notes, synthesise information and keep things moving forward.  This can be difficult for someone who is involved and passionate about the project, as their own ideas and opinions may take over.

Allocate a good chunk of time at the end of the session to allow everyone to reflect on what they can individually contribute next. Encourage everyone to take ownership of the tasks they have suggested and commit to taking something forward.

And bear in mind that motivation can often wane after the intensity of a focused session like this, so make sure everyone is clear of the next steps.  Find ways of keeping the discussion going – perhaps by gathering responses to the meeting notes, sharing further ideas that pop up, or asking further questions (and as always we’ll tell you that using an online space – even something simple like a Google Doc – can support this!)

These techniques work well at the start of a project, but can equally used throughout when the team need to get together at key times.  In an upcoming post we’ll be looking at how graphic facilitation can enhance this stage of a project.

“The juggling entrepreneur has their own business and brand, which is the core of what they do, but they also develop ‘micro-ventures’ with others…  These are ventures that are built from scratch, collaboratively with others, and have their own branding and identity”

For this person, time management is key.  They have multiple tasks to complete, having to flit from project to project, and it can be difficult to fit everything in.

So, on a couple of projects we’re working on, we’ve proposed having two different types of meetings – the usual type and the co-working session.

We’re all familiar with the usual type of meeting, where the team get together to discuss and agree certain aspects of a project, give updates, provide feedback and generally develop a course of action. These meetings are useful (when run properly) and needed for collaboration, but they tend to create more work for the team to do in order to move the project forward.  This means that those involved will need to allocate time in their individual schedules to complete tasks – and this can sometimes be difficult for the juggling entrepreneur.

With the co-working meeting, all people in the project agree to be available at the same time, for say 2 hours, to dedicate to the project. This can be working on the same task together such as a writing a document, or working on respective tasks. Either way, everyone has made a commitment to spend ‘X’ amount of time to GET THINGS DONE.

When we’ve proposed this idea, our colleagues have loved it, not only because it’s an efficient and  productive way of working, but it allows them to block off time in their schedule. Knowing that other people are there to do the same thing creates a sense of momentum and responsibility and as a result it’s difficult to let things slip.  There’s a sense of achievement by the end of the session – a specific task has been completed and something crossed off the to-do list, rather than added.

The co-working meeting can be face-to-face or virtual. Either way, here are some tips that we’ve found to work:

• To avoid the ‘redundant pair of hands’, even if you’re working in the same room and on the same task, make sure you all have your own laptop and access to the internet. Use online tools that have real-time editing (such as Google Docs) so that you can all get stuck in.
• If you’re working virtually, ensure everyone makes a commitment not to multi-task or get distracted by their other work. A conversation tool, whether that’s skype or IM is essential to keep checking that everyone’s on track.
• Be clear about what you’re all there to do. Re-state this at the start of the session and then review again at the end.
• Don’t mix up the usual type of meeting and the co-working session. Create separate lists for what needs to be ‘discussed’ and what needs to be ‘done’. If necessary cover the former at the beginning of the session, but have a cut-off point for this.

If you have various projects you’re working on with others, you might find the co-working meeting a refreshing addition to your collaboration methods.  Give it a go and see how you get on.

Image by db photographs on Flickr

Creative Boom London kindly wrote a fantastic review of the workshop which covers all of these points (and more) in detail.

• Have an agenda, with timings, which should be forwarded to all participants beforehand, and outlined again at the beginning of the meeting
• Allocate someone in charge of chairing to keep the meeting focussed and running to time
• Adhere to the same protocols that you would in offline meetings – listening to whoever is speaking, not interrupting
• Allocate someone responsible for taking minutes to record what was discussed, agreed and decided, and writing these up to circulate to rest of group

The tools. (some we’ve mentioned before):

Skype: hosts conference calls for up to 9 participants, with video, file sharing and instant messaging (useful for sharing web links or notes whilst talking).  The latest version also enables screen sharing to show your colleagues exactly what you’re looking at.

Twiddla -  a more creative environment to share images and sketches with all team members online at the same time.  Has a supporting chat (text and audio) function for discussions (unfortunately no longer free, except for a 30-day trial)

Etherpad – a dynamic method of online collaborative writing which allows you to see your teams edits in real-time.   Useful if the focus of the meeting is to get a document finalised.   This application is free if the files are kept public, but there is a cost to make them private.

Google Wave – the new conversational tool from Google (still currently in invite mode) which allows for real-time editing like Etherpad, but also acts like a wiki (allowing for attachments and links), e-mail (you can start new ‘waves’ with your contacts) and instant messaging.

(So there’s no excuse if we’re hit by another bout of snow!)

When working on a project with others, a mixture of both online and offline communication methods work well together. It’s likely that at least one face-to-face meeting will take place, and meetings are not always easy to facilitate. So, stock up on big paper, markers, coloured pens and post-its – here are a few tips and methods you can use to keep the creative juices flowing but stay on track:

- Use the project timescale as a basis for meeting agendas.  This way, everyone will know what is to be achieved at the meeting in relation to the overall key milestones and deadlines.

- Use break-out groups as a way of generating ideas and discussion.  Encouraging a large group to break into smaller groups or pairs ensures that all participants have the opportunity to contribute, and will keep motivation and interest high.

- Keep good records of discussions at meetings.  This may include:

o Questions that when answered would help to move the project forward. If they can’t be answered within the meeting time, review them at the end and participants can research the solution afterwards.

o Knowledge, existing models or examples useful to the project’s development.  They can be documented and transferred to an online space (e.g. Google Docs or project wiki) to ensure that discussions aren’t repeated at later meetings (this resource can also be taken forward to future projects).

o Outcomes of discussions, feedback and decisions made. Ensure these are integrated into project development, so that good ideas or points aren’t lost. These can form the basis of a project ‘manifesto’ or knowledge bank to refer to on an ongoing basis.

Web tools can be used in conjunction with meetings to enhance effectiveness and stay productive. For example, participants can be encouraged to continue discussions on a dedicated forum or message board, for questions cannot be resolved during the meeting, or where a longer discussion takes the focus of the meeting away from the agenda (although sometimes this can be equally productive!). Any points discussed online in between meetings can be incorporated into the agenda for a following meeting.

Online tools such as Google Docs or wikis can be used to record progress, so that project members that were unable to attend the meeting can stay up-to-date, involved and still make contributions.