Visual facilitation 2015

RUN POWERFUL MEETINGS

with VISUAL FACILITATION

Have you ever run meetings that are truly engaging and productive?

What will happen if participants can really see the shape of their conversations?

Think about visual facilitation! In traditional meetings, conversations easily become confrontational because people do not really under-stand each other ideas’ meaning, neither do they see how different points of view are connected and if there is any other possibility. Moreover, some people do not speak up due to hierarchy. Ideas are lost which would affect the quality of the meeting “consensus”. By recording ideas in visual, people feel respected and so they are more willing to contribute their energy into the meeting. At the same time, they are more inclined to discover connections and possibilities among differ-ent ideas. The way of doing this is called visual facilita-tion.

How is visual facilitation done? Usually a visual facilitator works with the meeting organizer to design the meeting agenda and recommend different processes in order to encour-age full participation, build shared understanding, construct inclusive so-lutions and strengthen shared responsibility. These processes may undergo a divergent, emergent and convergent approach.

During the meeting, the visual facilitator will capture conversations on large sheets of mural paper with different text, shapes and effects. He will construct meaningful structure or models for the conversations.

As the meeting proceeds, these visual record will gradually make up the whole wall. They serve as important artifact which contain the essence of all the conversations.

Besides recording by the visual facilitator, some processes can be done by the participants themselves. They can draw their ideas, design models and express comments or emotions. The meeting is interactive and engaging for everyone.

Ok, I got your point!

Why visual facilitation? By a properly designed process, a group of people will be able to do their best thinking by looking at an issue from multiple perspectives. Moreover, seeing is believing! By putting things in visual, people will spark new ideas more easily which will allow them to discover something not expected before.

So, what can it help me?

● Innovation workshop ● Strategic discussion ● Leadership training ● Presentation training ● Visioning session

You can use visual facilitation to run these kind of meetings and obtain productive results. They usually require a large amount of conversations. Tensions may exist and this is why the value of visual facilitation will be more prominent.

After the meeting, the visual record can be further transformed into digital documents so that the meeting conclusions can be shared with other people inside the organization. In such way, even people not present in the meeting will know about it.

Digital visual record

Our new experiment We are exploring how visual facilitation methods can be used to assist learning. Can we help learners connect their knowledge so that they can learn more easily? What about kids? Will visual facilitation methods assist the growth of intelligence?

We are also involved in a project called

“Learning In” (学习研究所) which aims to

promote a new social way of learning.

About us Urban Paintmob aims to inspire creativity and human interaction through art and game. We provide a lot of novel and interesting training activities for companies, including: ● “Big Picture” team-building activity ● “Doodling for work” visual facilitation training ● “Creative thinking and brainstorming” courses ● Many others!

For enquiries, please feel free to call 138 1675 9300 or email to fun@paintmob.com