Graphic Facilitation
To see some examples visit Visible Think.
What is it?
Graphic facilitation (sometimes called scribing or graphic recording) is a tool that organizations and communities use to enhance their meetings, conferences, presentations, classes and group dialogues. During a session a scribe captures (in real-time) the ebb and flow of the discourse in pictures and words on dry-erase walls, (eco-friendly/biodegradable) foam core or large rolls of paper attached to the wall.* What you are left with is a robust, relevant, colorful document of the work you did and the conversations you had during the session. After the session, the images are photographed with a high-resolution digital camera, cleaned, and then beautifully packaged for you to send to your participants (in whatever form is most useful for you – a PowerPoint deck, a PDF, a website, etc).
Who uses it?
Graphic facilitation is rapidly gaining recognition as a highly valuable tool (especially when used in conjunction with good facilitation in collaborative work environments – see The Value Web). Over the past nine years I have worked with large multinationals and small/medium sized enterprises in both the private and public sector, across a wide variety of industries. I have also worked with non-profit organizations, educational institutions, hospitals, government and military. I have worked in Afghanistan, Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Holland, India, Jordan, Switzerland, Thailand, the UK, Canada and all over the US. I have worked with groups as large as 8,000 and as small as 5. This is a tool that can be applied in a near infinite number of ways, which depend entirely on the nature and objectives of the session or event.
Why?
Organizations that use graphic facilitation are often looking for a way to
- Better engage participants with the content of a session/presentation (etc) through real-time visual capture of key ideas, messages and comments. In dialogue, participants are eager to see their comments and ideas reflected in the visual capture and tend to contribute more to the conversation. In presentations and classes, participants can absorb the ideas and content in a new, visual way, and can reflect on points of interest after the presenter’s slide has changed, or the speaker has moved onto a new topic. Important ideas are not ‘lost’ and can be referenced throughout the event.
- Specifically engage visual learners – according to Wikipedia, 60-65% of the population are visual thinkers/learners, and these people are rarely catered to in dialogue or in conferences and meetings. By engaging these individuals you increase their interaction with the content, and aid in the retention of important information, ideas and messages, ensuring that they leave with visual reminders of what transpired.
- Strengthen and develop a culture of creativity and foster meaningful dialogue. Using graphic facilitation to capture ideas, content and key messages is a simple way to demonstrate that you are actively listening and seeking input from everyone – regardless of rank, position, age or influence. The graphic capture acts as a real-time feedback loop, and validates many organizations assertions that they are actively open to ideas and suggestions. It reinforces and promotes creativity and active listening and learning.
- Capture and translate conversations into action. After a session or event, the job of sorting through meeting minutes usually falls onto one persons lap. Depending on the scope of the event this can take weeks and even months. By capturing the key ideas throughout the session, in real-time, you are building a very accessible, living document that is easy to pull from after the event is over – much easier than pages and pages of text. The images are powerful visual records that can be referenced and used immediately to continue conversations and, if applicable, move more quickly to action – spending less time sorting and trying to remember what went on.
- Embed creativity and promote innovation. Integrating creative and innovative practices into working sessions, conferences, meetings and classes (etc) is a great way to engage people, but it’s also great to explore novel ways to work together and to learn from one another.
How is it used after it’s created?
The images created during a session are used in a variety of ways – they enable organizations and the individuals managing events and communities to communicate key ideas and themes more effectively.
- Write/create reports, executive summaries, blog posts and articles using the scribing as a reference to identify key themes, ideas and outputs (much easier than sorting through pages of minutes)
- Provide meaningful inputs for future sessions on similar or related topics, linking events and conversations to facilitate more robust and more informed dialogue
- Remind members of the community (colleagues, partners, investors, consumers…) of key ideas and outputs
- Add interesting and relevant visuals to websites, and in targeted communication both internally and externally to inform, educate, validate, explain, motivate…
If you are interested in finding out more about graphic facilitation please get in touch using the contact form below. If you have difficulty with this for any reason please feel free to contact me at sita [dot] magnuson [at] thevalueweb [dot] org. I am based out of Massachusetts but will (and do) travel anywhere for interesting work.
If you are interested in design and design thinking, collaboration, innovation, novel (and highly effective) approaches to complex problem solving, systems dynamics, organizational development, feedback loops, accommodating various learning styles, engagement, group facilitation…please get in touch as well. The Value Web is always looking to engage in conversation with thinkers, doers and dreamers. We support transformational change in a variety of ways, and are always interested in exploring ways that we can contribute to a more sustainable, equitable future.
*Scribing can be done electronicallly using a tablet and a computer – although there are some notable drawbacks to this use of the tool. Feel free to contact me and I can explain electronic capture in more detail.
