Using Visuals in Facilitated Meetings and Workshops

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“There is no more powerful way to prove that we know something well than to draw a simple picture of it. And there is no more powerful way to see hidden solutions than to pick up a pen and draw out the pieces of our problem.”

According to Dan Roam, in The Back of the Napkin, a simple drawing on a humble napkin can be more powerful than the slickest PowerPoint presentation.  As facilitators, we can help our groups clarify problems, and understand ideas better, by using a simple set of visual tools. Our experience at Masterful Facilitation Institute confirms Roam assertion that almost everyone seems born with a talent for visual thinking, even those who swear they can’t draw. In our fun and engaging course, The Artful Visual Facilitator, we show you how to use simple lines and shapes to create graphics, visual metaphors, and basic images to help bring meeting results to life.

By adding visual thinking and simple graphic skills to your competencies, not only do you become a more effective facilitator; you also gain a powerful ability to discover, develop and sell new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve your ability to share your insights with others.

Call to Action: Take a few moments to watch Roam’s video on The Back of a Napkin below. If you are a self-directed learner, you may want to buy his book. And if like many of us, you learn best by doing, then consider taking our upcoming course The Artful Visual Facilitator with graphic recorder extraordinaire, Avril Orloff. You’ll have a blast, as you quickly up-level your visual thinking and graphic facilitation skills.

Visual Learners and Participants

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Our extraordinary graphic recorder colleague, Avril Orloff recently contributed this article:

Did you know that 50-60% of meeting participants are ‘visual’ learners?  Enhance focus, understanding and retention – just by adding a few simple drawings, symbols and colour to flipcharts as you facilitate.
Most of us already think in pictures. It’s no accident that many of the expressions we use to denote understanding are visual: “Do you see what I’m saying?“, and “I see your point!”  The fact is most ideas can be made clearer with a picture. Plus, let’s face it: meetings with visuals are just way more fun! So add some visual techniques to your facilitation palette, and watch your meetings go from good to great!

Call to Action:

Compelling Focus Question

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You’ve got a complex workshop or longer group session coming up that you’ve been asked to facilitate. Compared to short, straightforward meetings, your success as a facilitator requires that you devote much more time scoping and design before participants ever walk into the room.

A compelling Focus Question as part of the meeting invitation will bring the attention of the group to the topic, subject or work, and invite creative responses. You may find it helpful to think through the Focus Question with ANSWER:

A – What is the aim of the work, or overall purpose?
N – What is the name or subject, to be discussed?
S – Who cares about this purpose and subject, i.e., who has a stake in this?
W – Who will be participating, and are they the right people for the work?
E – What experience do you want participants to have during/after the session?
R – What relevant factors and constraints are important?

Call to Action:

Commit to becoming a more agile and professional masterful facilitator in 2013! Register today for one or more of our upcoming classes in advanced facilitation: The Agile Facilitator  and The Strategic Facilitator.

Just starting out? These courses will enhance your facilitation confidence and empower you with solid foundational skills: The Confident Facilitator; The Skillful Facilitator.

Bring These Courses In-House!

What’s Changing?

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Once your group, organization or business is clear on its mission , who they serve and the core values that guide the way we do things around here, the next set of process questions in strategic planning relate to scanning the present and anticipated future operating context.

What is changing in our external context?

The examination of the external environment is essential to understanding the complexities, uncertainties and possibilities for change. Your business or organization does not exist in a vacuum. Everyone involved in setting new strategic directions needs to develop a big picture view of significant factors and trends with the potential likely to influence your future success. Typical scan categories include the political environment, economic climate, social, technology along with sector/industry/discipline-specific arenas.

What is changing for our customers/stakeholders?

(Drucker’s question #3 is: What does the customer value?) Your future goals must anticipate and respond to the changing needs and realities of your key customers and stakeholders. Your strategic plan must not only ensure your organization delivers on their current expectations of value; it must anticipate or create what their future needs are likely to be. Insights are gained through research, focus groups or other discovery and learning conversations.

What are strategic innovation possibilities?

Whether for-profit or social-non-profit, your organization’s strategic plan must consider emerging best practices, leading-edge innovations, key drivers, core competencies and changing rules for success.

Call to Action:

The Masterful Facilitation Institute exists to build your confidence and skills as an effective facilitator so you can design and facilitate great meetings – every time, for any purpose.

If you are an executive, manager, strategic planner, change agent, or any leader seeking to facilitate productive, positive and aligning strategic planning meetings and change initiatives, sign up for The Strategic Facilitator: Aligning Around Vision and Strategy.

You will understand how to guide the entire process of strategic planning, from clarifying why you exist as a group or organization, to assessing your current situation, describing your desired future state, establishing the strategies that will propel you forward, and determining how you’ll know if you’ve succeeded.

Why Are You Meeting?

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“Clarity of meeting purpose is a sweet weapon against confusion.” – Toke Palludan Moeller.”

Groups meet not only to get work done, but also to build relationships and the social capital required for successful collaboration after the meeting. However briefly, this human need for interaction with others should always be factored into your meeting.

Remember though, that the key to focused and productive meetings is the reason you are meeting in the first place. Be clear on your meeting purpose from the start. Generally, most meetings fall under three broad types of purposes:

1. To inform and update participants. (Typical Length: .5 to 1.5 hours).

2. To obtain input and/or generate consensus around issues, problems and plans. (Typical Length: 2-3+ hours; sometimes over several weeks/months).

3. To develop and implement strategy and change. (Typical Length: 1-3 days annually; 1-3 hours quarterly).

As you plan your meeting, ask yourself this question: “Why are we meeting and what do we hope will be different as a result?” Having this clarity will greatly assist you in planning your agenda and facilitation processes.

Start your meeting off with a clear explanation of that purpose to participants, for example: “When you walk out, you’ll be current on the status of our top priority projects; your ideas are essential to the resolution of this issue; and, finally, we need to align on new future directions and the plans to achieve them.” If you do need to meet, then being clear on your meeting purpose is the first step in achieving focused and productive meetings.

Call to Action:

The Masterful Facilitation Institute exists to build your confidence and skills as an effective facilitator so you can design and facilitate great meetings – every time, for any purpose. Read the path to Effective Facilitation to get started now.

Mission and Values

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Strategic Planning often begins with hindsight looking to the past to discover what your organization, business or group historically set out to achieve in its noblest purpose. The foundation of who you are today rests on the journey you have taken so far. Take time to harvest stories that reveal the very best of who you are – therein lies your purpose, core mission and guiding values.

In this first phase of Strategic Planning, several sub-questions are addressed, two of which management guru Peter Drucker has flagged as the most important questions to ask your organization:

* What is our mission? (Drucker’s question #1 – What is our Mission?) At the most fundamental level, why does this organization, business or group exist at all? What is your ‘raison d’être’ describing your noble purpose and your idealistic motivations for doing what you do? As Jim Collins, noted author of Good to Great, comments – your core mission should endure for decades, even centuries, while almost everything else will likely evolve and change over time.

* Who do we serve? (Drucker’s question #2 is: Who is our Customer?) Unless there is clarity at all the levels of the organization around this question, then much confusion, unfocused and even conflicting effort may result. Whether you serve clients, members, customers, patients, or the public – ultimately these key stakeholders justify your existence. Great organizations are relentless in their pursuit of serving their customers over time.

* What do we do? What is our unique work, role or function? What products and services do we provide in carrying out our mission and serving our key stakeholders?

* What guides our work? The core values and guiding principles of your business, organization or group are what distinguish you from everyone else. Like the DNA in a living organism, core values create your unique identity guiding everyone from the Board level to the front line to decide, behave and respond according to a coherent, recognizable set of principles.

Call to Action:

The Masterful Facilitation Institute exists to build your confidence and skills as an effective facilitator so you can design and facilitate great meetings – every time, for any purpose.

If you are an executive, manager, strategic planner, change agent, or any leader seeking to facilitate productive, positive and aligning strategic planning meetings and change initiatives, sign up for The Strategic Facilitator: Aligning Around Vision and Strategy.

You will understand how to guide the entire process of strategic planning, from clarifying why you exist as a group or organization, to assessing your current situation, describing your desired future state, establishing the strategies that will propel you forward, and determining how you’ll know if you’ve succeeded.

Do We Really Need to Meet?

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If meetings have a bad name, it is often because there is not a good reason for scheduling one. As a meeting convenor, your first task is to explore if the desired outcomes could be achieved through a more effective avenue. For information-sharing meetings, here are nine effective meeting tips you might want to consider:

  1. Share written information and documents through email and focus the meetings to questions and reactions, rather than presentation.
  2. Create an on-line group engagement thoughtstream, blog or open-ended survey, inviting anyone to contribute their ideas before the meeting.
  3. Create a recorded or video-taped message to ensure everyone hears the same message.
  4. Determine who really needs to attend. Are you inviting people out of courtesy rather than necessity? Can agenda items be bundled in order that some participants can attend the part of the meeting that is most relevant to them?
  5. Challenge whether that ‘routinely scheduled meeting’ is really adding value. Just because you’ve always met as a team on Wednesday mornings, doesn’t mean the meeting is always required. If there is no pressing need to meet; then pass that week.
  6. Can your status meetings, say in a production shop, be held standing up? You may find as others have that the length of meetings is drastically reduced because most folks don’t like to have to stand for too long. Standing meetings motivate participants to get to the point faster.
  7. Ban all cells, laptops and other distracting devices during the active meeting to ensure participants are focused.
  8. Give participants a couple of minutes before you open up a status go-round, to write down their points. Then invite laser-like, headline contributions only. Details can be provided through Q&A.
  9. Set the timer for the scheduled time, appoint a Timekeeper, and ask for regular cues on time remaining. Start and end the meeting on time.

Call to Action:

The Masterful Facilitation Institute exists to build your confidence and skills as an effective facilitator so you can design and facilitate great meetings – every time, for any purpose. Read about the path to Effective Facilitation to get started now.

Facilitating Strategic Planning

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A fundamental competency of leaders is to guide the direction-setting process for their business, organization or group, typically through strategic planning. A good strategic plan provides clarity, focus, consensus and alignment at all levels to priority goals and results.

Key Process Questions

In this blog series, we will cover key process questions around which the process of strategic planning is facilitated:

  • Who are we?
  • What do we do?
  • Where are we now?
  • Where do we want to be?
  • How will we get there?

Along the way, as we unpack these high level questions, we will emphasize when to answer Peter Drucker’s five most important questions to ask your organization:

  1. What is our Mission?
  2. Who is our Customer?
  3. What does the Customer Value?
  4. What are our Results?
  5. What is Our Plan?

Call to Action:

The Masterful Facilitation Institute exists to build your confidence and skills as an effective facilitator so you can design and facilitate great meetings – every time, for any purpose.
If you are an executive, manager, strategic planner, change agent, or any leader seeking to facilitate productive, positive and aligning strategic planning meetings and change initiatives, sign up for The Strategic Facilitator: Aligning Around Vision and Strategy.

You will understand how to guide the entire process of strategic planning, from clarifying hy you exist as a group or organization, to assessing your current situation, describing your desired future state, establishing the strategies that will propel you forward, and determining how you’ll know if you’ve succeeded.

Basics to Running Good Meetings

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Answer These Key Questions: 

  1. Do you really need to meet? Determine if a meeting is truly the best strategy for your purpose.
  2. Do you have an agenda? Does it provide a clear, realistic structure and plan to achieve the meeting outcomes? Does everyone have a copy?
  3. Do you have the right people to accomplish the goals outlined in the agenda? Does everyone need to be there for the entire meeting?
  4. Do you have agreement on meeting norms and roles?
  5. Do you have the right facilitation processes to engage participants productively and meaningfully – no matter what the size of group? Are you the right person to facilitate, or is a skilled neutral facilitator required?
  6. Do you have a strategy for staying on topic and on time?
  7. Do meeting participants have the information and understanding they will need to make informed and wise contributions?
  8. Do you have a plan for starting and ending the meeting, including clarity on commitments and follow-up?

Each of these eight points will be unpacked every second week in this blog. On alternate weeks, group process facilitation topics will be explored.

Call to Action:

Knowing the basics of running an effective meeting is a critical leadership competency. Having a list of the fundamentals to conduct a good meeting is the first step.  Every course we offer is grounded in decades of professional facilitation practice and adult education, and is certain to improve your meeting productivity. Read more.