Tom's Ten Data Tips - December 2011

Visual facilitation

Visual facilitation is a school of thought where producing and sharing graphics play a central role in creating consensus, brainstorming, strategy mapping, idea gathering, innovation, etc. All these activities revolve around group processes. Visual facilitation is an interactive way of using meeting graphics, and it brings together graphical creativity and interpersonal facilitation skills. Sometimes it is referred to as graphic facilitation or graphical recording, and it was originally popularized by a group of architects from San Francisco in the 70s.

1. The Process Is More Important Than The (Final) Product

Visual facilitation involves drawing images and pictures in real-time while people are talking. By drawing out onto a common wall, thought processes are shared and directed towards mutual understanding, exploration, and consensus formation. The process of drawing that evokes discussion, exploration of ideas and sharing thoughts, is an even more valuable output than the eventual drawing that results from the process as such.

However, for those who were present during the meeting, and “saw” the drawing come to life, the eventual visual remains as a powerful manifestation of what was achieved in this process. People remember best what they (helped) created themselves. “Outsiders” can be guided through the process, and can be directed along a similar path based on graphic elements on the picture by interpreting what they mean and how they were conceived.

2. Interactions Evolve Around The Meeting Graphics

A key part of visual facilitation is to literally get people on the same page. The group process evolves around a meeting graphic that arises, gets drawn as the group engages in their dynamics. Elements on the graphic evoke reactions in the group, and in turn, those reactions get drawn up. As such, the meeting graphic is as much a result of the group interactions, as the group interacts to create the graphic.

3. Drawings Are A “Recording”

As a meeting comes to live in a graphic, this renders more than an image. Visual facilitation (tends to) leads to a mix of words, text, bullet lists, mind maps (see also tip# 6) – a plethora of output that together comprises a recording of the meeting.

4. Visual Facilitation Is About The “Right Brain”

Although most of the vernacular about left-brain/right-brain thinking lacks compelling scientific evidence, most people have at least an intuitive feel for what is meant by this dichotomy. The right brain is more associated with holistic (as opposed to analytical) thinking and creativity. Visual facilitation helps to bring out that creative touch, both in generation (recording) as well as interpreting graphical images. Different people often see quite “different” things in a graphic which tends to spur diversity and creativity. Group problem solving can benefit greatly from this.

5. Graphic Facilitation Is Fun!

Although people tend to have reservations when they start out drawing, these inhibitions tend to subside fairly quickly. Some people are reminded of Kindergarten when they (first) pick up crayons again, and for many it may have been very long ago they were drawing. But when you let yourself go, few people can help but feel engaged.

Professional graphic facilitators, for one thing, aren’t just skilled facilitators; they also have ample graphic practice. They know how to create lively icons, and because their illustrations look professional, the charts they create can be both entertaining as well as humorous to watch.

6. Mind Maps Are Like “Private” Visual Facilitation

Mind mapping is a tool to improve personal effectiveness. “A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key or word or idea” … “Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and writing” (Wikipedia).

Relative to visual facilitation mind maps tend to have somewhat less structure. They are particularly effective for brainstorming. While guiding the group process, a graphic facilitator may want to enforce more structure onto the group in order to set out to achieve time-boxed objectives. This structure can come from his interventions, or may come from a pre-made meeting template (see also tip# 7).

7. Graphic Templates Can Guide Task-Driven Facilitation

Some commercial organizations provide templates that can be very useful to guide particular group processes. You can have a template for mapping action steps, templates for doing a SWOT analysis, etc. By demonstrating a clear outline yet leaving plenty of white space, structure is applied without smothering creativity.

Some of these templates are organized in groups, so as to represent a sort of “family” of meeting objectives. These may be sets on personal development, strategy, innovation, etc.

8. Visual Facilitation Embraces Diverse Learning Styles

Different people have different ways to best absorb and retain information. The majority of people are visual learners, and this holds in particular for males. But the group process that enables so much verbal interaction also works for group members that have a preference for audio channels (speaking/hearing).

Also, because all of these learning styles are included in the process, you wind up with an end result that doesn’t just belong to one person, but that instead is championed by the whole group.

9. Digital Recording Allows You To Scale Up/Out

Although graphical recording is traditionally done in person, and on paper, modern technology has made it possible to run graphical meetings in a virtual mode as well. Instead of a PowerPoint webinar, you can make your ideas “come to life” when you draw in real time, and can have participants sit in on this creation.

The omnipresence of the web, and the outreach this makes possible of course calls for electronic recording, and not just a picture or image of the eventual graphical recording. Instead you want the ability to do remote graphical recording. “Draw” people into your presentation. Make your ideas come to life. And scale this up to the universe.

10. You Can Try Something Else Except PowerPoint

Visual facilitation is a way of interacting in groups that puts people and group dynamics squarely in the center (again). For all the virtues it may have, PowerPoint has become ‘the’ norm in meeting rooms, and there’s a reason why the proverb “death by PowerPoint” came into existence…

Even the most well-done and entertaining PowerPoint slides will still absorb the audience into material that is essentially one-way, and where the graphics are not the result from, but the input to the group. For one-way communication that could be fine. For group processes and team dynamics it is not. There has to be a better way, and there is.

Further reading

Some excellent books on Visual facilitation:

Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity.
David Sibbet (2010)
ISBN# 0470601787

Visual Teams: Graphic Tools for Commitment, Innovation and High Performance.
David Sibbet (2011)
ISBN# 1118077431

Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers.
Osterwalder & Pigneur (2010)
ISBN# 0470876417

Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers.
Gray, Brown & Macanufo (2010)
ISBN# 0596804172

The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decisionmaking, 2nd Ed.
Kaner (2007)
ISBN# 0787982660