What is Visual Facilitation?
You might have heard it referred to as Graphic Recording/Facilitation or as I usually explain, I draw on giant pieces of paper during meetings to capture what’s said and map out complex concepts and ideas.
It’s a process whereby participants co-create the business’ future and its unifying vision and mission; it’s highly collaborative and visual.
Visual Facilitation is stretching your creative brain muscles and envisioning all the different possibilities—even though they’re outside your current realm of operation.
It’s an opportunity to examine current strategies, messaging, goals, tactics and plans and develop or refine them into a compelling business need and shared vision.
What types of issues can Visual Facilitation address?
Brand Strategy Planning
Messaging and Communications
Organizational initiatives
Vision and Mission Statements– Organizational or Departmental
Project Management
Marketing Plans
Strategic Planning–Short-term and Long-term for Organizations and/or Divisions
How the Process Begins
We’ll begin by meeting to determine your desired outcomes. Next, we’ll co-create an agenda and determine the structure and duration of the meeting(s) based on your desired outcomes. We can discuss key participants to ensure that there is a right mix of viewpoints and expertise present in the session.
You will receive a draft of the agenda including the timeline and an explanation of exercises and frameworks or templates that will be used to uncover and organize relevant information based on desired outcomes.
We will refine the agenda until you approve the final version. This step is one of the most important in the process to ensure you make the most of the time and energy of your team and the visual facilitation process.
What a session looks like–wall-sized templates take you on a (strategic) journey
We’ll use a process that captures all the information as per the agenda. I will facilitate the discussion and capture our meeting on giant pieces of paper–in text and drawings mapping out the information.
In some cases, we may layout current plans and goals or spend time on creative brainstorming exercises to explore possibilities, creating a vision for your future—then we come back and create practical steps to reach that vision. The structure of the session follows the agenda we’ve co-created.
We’ll end the session with Next Steps based on the results of the session.
Why this Visual Approach is so Effective
In strategic visioning, we’re mapping everything out as we go along, creating a visual and graphic memory of the entire day’s meeting.
You go from having blank walls to filling them with possibilities—everything is right in front of you in order to create visions, goals or strategic plans. Employees like this approach because it:
Increases communication and collaboration
Provides clarity and shows where more information may be needed
Expands and improves comprehension
Boosts energy and interest levels in the process
Increases buy-in from the whole team
Opens new thinking opportunities from different vantage points
Allows participants to feel heard
Make sense out of complex issues, systems and concepts
The result can provide a shared vision that is concise, shareable and memorable. The vision is understood by and relevant to everyone in the organization. Everyone can easily articulate the shared vision. It provides a compass for setting priorities and reaching goals and it defines what success looks like. The shared vision is more than a set of values, initiatives or phrases–it enables people to take action that will move them towards the right goals.
What are some of the key components in these sessions?
#1: Visual tools
Visual tools are powerful for capturing information because most of what is being spoken about goes up on the wall. Ideas get captured and themes emerge. People can see that they’re being heard. It focuses the attention of the group on the chart that’s being created, reducing confusion. Visual tools are also effective at getting people who normally would not participate in the discussion to speak up because they see that they will be heard.
#2: Report with Visual Charts from the session
The report contains PDFs of the visual charts created during the session and commentary to clarify the information they contain. The charts contain words, graphic images and drawings that summarize the information they were designed to capture. It’s transferable, it’s easy to share digitally or in-person.
#3: Seasoned business professional as your facilitator
The ability to go from brainstorming ideas to an executable plan is difficult to find in one individual. I’ve worked in corporate finance and equity research with a focus on conglomerate manufacturing companies and have extensive experience as a facilitator and brand and business strategist with a wide variety of businesses. I bring the ability to help people generate then synthesize ideas into the strategic visioning process. I understand complex business operations and use this experience in your visual facilitation process.
You’ll receive visual charts clearly mapping out your strategy
At the end of this process, all the charts are kept by your organization so that you have a record of what happened. I take all your ideas and create a summary report. This is valuable because:
It makes it easy to share the results of your session
Your ideas aren’t hidden in a huge Word document never to be seen again
The maps are tangible, and you can share them to other people in the organization
What makes this approach unique?
In short: increased engagement and collaboration. You can stop worrying about people going through the motions at meetings, just because they’re supposed to.
Typical strategic planning approaches use brainstorming techniques, but they don’t tie them to reality— further decreasing employee engagement.
My approach uses a combination of creativity and analytical business and strategy experience to harness all your insights into a usable plan that everyone has a stake in.