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VisualiseIT!™ Graphic Charts
Improve group decisions, vision alignment and team collaboration through harnessing the power of graphic facilitation
Research has shown that visual language used in meetings shortens meeting time by 24%. Visual language aids the decision-making process, 64% of participants made decisions after seeing visual displays
Milly Sonneman, Pioneer Practicioner, Hands-on-Graphics
What is Graphic Facilitation?
Uses of Graphics in Facilitation
About Large-Scale Wall Charts
Benefits of Graphic Facilitation
Our Portfolio of Examples
Learn more about our VisualiseIT!™ products
What is Graphic Facilitation
Graphic facilitation is recognised as a facilitation technique that employs the use of visuals to help groups see their thinking and understand their workshop objective which is captured through the use of a visual metaphors. As a facilitation technique, the person leading the group (called a Graphic Facilitator) impartially helps people see what they currently know, and from there, make better informed decisions and conclusions.
Graphic facilitation is a type of "explicit group memory" - a way of capturing the thoughts of group members in real time and making those thoughts available to the whole group. Practitioners of graphic facilitation... use felt marking pens and large (4-feet high and 10-to-15 feet long) sheets of butcher paper, sometimes in combination with pre-made templates, for organising group member's thoughts
Geoff Ball, article in Mediate.com "Graphic Facilitation Focusses a Group's Thoughts"
read article>
Graphic facilitators who act in a totally neutral way in terms of the content being discussed, use its templates, icons, and other elements to illustrate the connections among and the flow between participant ideas. This helps participants capture thoughts for later reflection and use. David Sibbet another pioneer in graphic facilitation identified that the power of group memory could be increased substantially by adding a specialised set of icons or graphic images to the structure sketch.
Since Gutenberg and the onset of typewriters, publishing houses, and telecommunications, the job of providing cultural group memories and preserving core imagery has widened into an industry. In historical terms, we are now at a point where information itself has become such a vast frontier that charting a path across it, or reflecting that path for another, is a dizzying task. People are in great need of tools, techniques and frameworks for thinking which can hold information faithfully and facilitate its assimilation for successful applications
David Sibbet, A Brief History of Group Visuals, Fundamentals of Group Graphics
The main reason for graphic facilitation is that it creates "rich pictures" of complex situations that allow participants to discuss the specifics without losing sight of the broader context. For example in strategic planning, one process step may require the participants to discuss aspects of their current situation. This situation analysis can very quickly turn into information overload, but with a visual representation of the information, participants are continously interpreting and understanding the information within the context. The real appeal of graphic facilitation is that it is more than just a fancy way to record workshop information, it's a techinique for helping groups reach better results.
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We use graphic facilitation is so many different types of situations, ranging from strategy direction setting, project planning sessions, change management projects, brainstorming sessions, marketing and positioning sessions, large conferences, world café forums, and break out sessions. However, the majority of our uses are in strategy planning processes where our facilitation work focuses on helping management teams to determine their strategic intent and the roadmap of getting there.
The processes that can be mapped out are not limited to but include brainstorming, strategic planning, conflict resolution and mediation, teaching, presenting ideas, project planning, career and transition planning and counselling... in personal and professional life, anytime people are gathered together to discuss options, ideas, strategies, potential conflicts, history or future - it's a good time to get out the paper and start mapping
Millie Sonneman, Hands on Graphics
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The graphic facilitation method that underlies the VisualiseIT!™ Graphic Charts is "large scale", based on pre-drawn templates. The facilitator uses the template (large scale graphic chart) to lead the group through the process whereby their thinking and ideas are collected onto the wall chart so that all can visualise the outcome. Our templates are typically 120cm (high) by 250cm (long) wall charts that can be posted on the walls of the workshop room, and have pre-drawn on them the visual metaphors and knowledge container with plenty of blank space for the group to fill in their particular content.
SWOT Analysis Graphic Chart (Template)
This popular SWOT matrix template allows the group to develop a summary view of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, with the ability to "highlight" the key drivers of the strategy, as the planning process moves into the realm of visioning.
Populated SWOT Graphic Chart
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In 95% of all our workshop evaluations, participant rate the visual charts as the thing that "was of most value to them". This is because as Michael Doyle and David Strauss said:
The human brain is essentially a massive parallel processor. But for a group thinking together, the group brain needs to be a serial processor. The group memory is the consciousness thread that is used to keep the group focused on working on one thing, and working in a logical sequence. Group memory is the stuff you post on the walls... where everyone can see it
How To Make Meetings Work
Research in the field of visual language has shown that pictures used in meetings can shorten meeting time by 24% and can increse the effectiveness of decision-making by 64% (Millie Sonneman, Hands on Graphics).
Different people have different learning and thinking styles. Graphic facilitation combines the three thinking modalities (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) and employs both sides of the brain... the most effective way to engage people is with different learning preferences.
There has been a great deal of research done on brain dominance which includes right and left brain behaviours. Your left-brain's job is words, language, analysis, order, logic, numbers and sequence. Your right brain's job is music, rhythm, imagination, and patterns, challenging mental models, appreciation and synthesis. Different people prefer to reside predominantly on different sides... the real power comes from combining the two, when the right and left brain are combined, the most long-term learning occurs
Russel Martin, Food for the Brain White Paper, www.russellmartin.com
Manage from the left brain (logical, analytical) but lead from the right (intuitive, creative, visual) Stephen Covey
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