Experiences with Different Visual Methods

My post of December 23 broached some of the questions I have about graphic facilitation and its use. At the same time that I’m in a hurry to see how really good I could become at it, I still seek an adequate understanding to make sure that groups really benefit from it. It would seem way too easy for it to become a slick trick that electrifies everyone on site but is immediately forgotten “back at the store.”

I’ve talked to a couple of faculty in our School of Art and Design. Gil Leebrick teaches photography and is also the gallery director, and after meeting Jennifer Landau I asked him if this stuff is real. His response: “What is the root word of imagination?”

Mike Dorsey, a painter and dean emeritus, was also encouraging, citing the emotional power of images. Mike suggested that the fact that the wall graphics are being produced live and with the risk of error adds a way of capturing attention. For this reason, he suggested caution in facilitating with digital tools: they lend the ability to fix an error, a group knows that and the effect is diminished. Hmmmm…..I’m not totally positive, but it does add to the worry I feel over just how few blank flat walls are available on a college campus.

I wonder too if a group shares the experience of the facilitator’s contact with the paper. In an earlier post I told of the experience of artist William T. Williams touching a canvas, and occasionally I experience something sensual when I really mash the wide side of a stick of cheap chalk across clean white paper. Can a group have that same kind of feeling, and obtain a sort of affirmation not only from seeing the record of their thoughts but also from a near-tactile experience of the recording?

In recent months I’ve had opportunities to graphically record and facilitate, and I have also used The Workshop Method on a Stickie Wall. I don’t understand the difference in the way groups respond to each method, and an experience in a session in Tempe is one example.

I co-facilitated the meeting with Phyllis Grummon for the Society of College and University Planning. After a lot of discussion she and I agreed to begin the session with the Stickie Wall and cards, and then move more loosely into an open-ended discussion. Thinking that we would do everything with cards, I was without my roll of paper and had to “collage” with easel sheets instead. A “final report” with a little PhotoShop work is shown here.

The card session was rather detail-oriented. We pulled a lot of information out of our participants, and then worked through a process of getting it organized into meaningful content. As usual I was amazed and impressed with how well it works. Following that portion, Phyllis led a very open conversation exploring a broader context, and I recorded what went on. At the end of the day, we had produced a distinct but unanticipated rationale around which we will undertake the task at hand. We were all pretty pleased.

Before letting everyone get away, I asked for reflections on the methods we had used and their effectiveness. I don’t believe anything was volunteered about the Stickie Wall and cards; I asked a question or two about them, received a short positive answer and then the conversation floated right back around to the graphic recording, which went on for a while. One comment that stands out in my mind was that no one had ever seen notes AND relationships among them coming together at the same time.

From a personal standpoint, that recording session let me go off into some other world. Phyllis managed the conversation, so all I had to do was act like a “flow-thru tea bag.” So, yes, it was good for me. I’ll keep trying make sure this kind of effort is as good if not even more beneficial for the groups contributing to it.