Snowballing

Snowballing comes from the metaphor of a snowball rolling down a hill. At the top it's a small ball but as it descends it gathers pace to become bigger until arriving at the bottom as a large globe. A snowballing discussion begins with individual reflection followed by sharing in ever-larger groups until everyone is involved. Earlier themes become expanded, deepened, and reconfigured as the group size increases.

Purposes

• To make sure everyone gets a chance to participate
• To provide a range of modalities in one experience—individual reflection, paired exchange, small-group discussion, and whole-class or workshop analysis
• To ensure that discussion progresses organically, with early themes and questions being threaded through larger and larger conversations

How It Works

• As facilitator, chair, or leader you pose a question for the group to consider or the group poses an issue the members wish to discuss.
• People begin with a minute or two of silent reflection to organize their initial thoughts.
• The facilitator then asks people to share their initial thoughts with one other person.
• After a few minutes, pairs are asked to find another pair and to share emerging responses to the question. You stress that people should look for differences, new questions being raised, and issues that are beginning to emerge.
• After another few minutes, quartets are asked to join up to form octets. Again, each quartet shares differences, issues, and new questions being expressed.
• The process continues as increasingly larger groups are formed.
• The exercise ends when the sharing has reached the point when everyone is involved. The largest group size we have tried this with is about sixty-five people.

Where and When It Works Well

1. If you want to democratize group process. At some point in Snowballing everyone has contributed something to the ongoing conversation.
2. If you want a conversation to build organically. Properly conducted, Snowballing enables themes to build gradually as new groups use previous group contributions as their starting point.

What Users Appreciate

1. The initial intimacy. We often hear that the sharing in pairs was the best part of this exercise.
2. The organic development of themes. As groups get larger the introverts and ESL speakers get quieter. However, it's gratifying for them to see their questions and issues being taken up by the larger group.
3. The chance to work with everyone else in the room. The logic of Snowballing is that each participant ultimately ends up in a group discussion with every other person.
4. The diversity of perspectives that are revealed. When groups share disagreements, issues, and questions with each other, the range of perspectives explored often surprises people.
5. The physical movement. Each time groups convene with each other, people have to rearrange chairs and tables, cross the room, and move their bodies. This is a good interruption to the fatigue that can result from people sitting too long.

What to Watch Out For

1. Declining participation. As groups increase in size the participation rate drops precipitously. Usually there is reasonable participation up to the octets, but beyond that the usual confident extroverts tend to dominate. However, the themes that are talked about in larger groups often originate in an introvert's comments shared in a pair or quartet.
2. Uneven numbers. The exercise works optimally in a group of thirty-two or sixty-four people. Because that perfect size is rare, you have to make adjustments as the exercise progresses.
3. Too much summarizing. When groups get together with new groups they often provide a précis of what they've been talking about. Remind groups that when they convene with others they should highlight differences and disagreements they've observed, new questions posed, and any issues emerging from their conversations.

Questions Suited to This Technique

As with any good question there should be a legitimate range of reactions and interpretations that can be given in response. The question also needs to be one that everyone can weigh in on, either because they know the material or have experience with the topic.

• “What's the most important finding of this research?”
• “Which part of our mission statement do we most need to work on implementing?”
• “Of the hypotheses we've examined, which makes the most sense to test?”
• “What do we stand for as a community?”
• “How do we judge which of the theories we've examined is most useful?”