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NANCY MARGULIES AND DAVID SIBBET

Visual Recording and Graphic Facilitation Helping People See What They Mean

The soul never thinks without a mental image.

—Aristotle

Some Stories

As Meg Wheatley, Myron Rogers, and Frijof Capra presented their views on chaos, complexity, and self-organization, author Nancy Margulies stood to the side with four easels and recorded the complex ideas they presented (figure 1). These colorful maps were then posted in the room for people to review. During each three-day session, Margulies produced 20 to 30 maps, or Mindscapes. The participants found them helpful for reviewing and clarifying the theories and applications presented. A small black-and-white booklet was photocopied and handed out the last day of the conference. Participants reported that the visual record enabled them to better comprehend new concepts, review them, and share the ideas with others.

In another setting, Margulies recorded visioning sessions for Xerox Business Services. She asked the participants to envision the future, share their ideas with a partner, and ultimately draw images that reflected their vision. The images were then posted and studied. Margulies suggested visual metaphors that pulled the elements together in a coherent whole. She then drew a mural using the images people had created. A small version of the same Mindscape was used in publications within the division. Margulies always leaves space on a vision and strategy map that asks, “What is missing?” and “Where do you see yourself in this picture?” In this way, the document is not completed by one group and imposed on another but is a work in progress that invites additions and changes. Employees at all levels of the organization added their thoughts. They reported that this invitation to participate included them in a process that previously felt like it was more of a directive than an invitation.

Figure 1. The Nature of the World

When faced with a need to explore possibilities for change at the level of an entire society, Margulies uses visual mapping to clarify issues and record visions of the future. As this book goes to press, groups across the nation are gathering to explore the possibility of humanity consciously evolving in response to the breakdown of our institutions. If widespread disillusionment due to corporate scandals and governmental failure in response to natural disasters represent evidence of a chaotic system reaching a bifurcation point, then what might be next? What higher-level order might emerge? The map in figure 2 captures these reflections and invites further conversation.

A team at Hewlett Packard’s LaserJet Division was charged with presenting the results of three months of research on possible new $2 billion businesses to their top management. Two prior task forces had not been well received, and the group of seven was worried. During three face-to-face meetings, author David Sibbet helped the team develop a set of murals to use instead of computer projector slides. Their purpose was to create a panoramic display environment supporting real story telling and involving top management rather than pushing information at them. To further assure their involvement, the murals were created in a conference room close to the executive’s offices several days before the meeting.

Figure 2. Possibilities

Figure 3. Context Map

On sheets of 4 × 8-foot paper, the team developed a project history, a chart showing all the resources interviewed, a context map (figure 3), a vision mural, and several Graphic Gameplans using a template that includes room for illustrating objectives, resources, strategies, success factors, and challenges (figure 4).

The final session was a workshop with the team leader and another knowledgeable colleague making final content decisions. Another team placed the information in the templates, and then Sibbet worked with a person who checked details on the final murals.

The top management couldn’t stay away from the steamy conference room; they were in there kibitzing the whole time, looking at murals in various stages of development. When the final report came, they entered a room with the first four murals up, and they revealed the game plans one at a time. Each team member played a part in presenting. It was a celebration rather than a confrontation. Everyone already knew the main ideas and they were excitedly experiencing the full panorama in a real thinking fiesta—a perfect balance of push and pull.

Figure 4. Graphic Gameplan Template

The presentation was so successful that the top management asked to have their next strategy meeting facilitated graphically, as did the group managers one level up. The members of the team were eventually assigned to some of the big ideas, which were actually implemented!

The project demonstrated the tremendous power of graphic facilitation and the simple templates that unlocked this power for people who can’t draw well, but who can think spatially and visually.

Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT ARE VISUAL RECORDING AND GRAPHIC FACILITATION? WHEN ARE THEY USED?

Visual recording and graphic facilitation are part of a growing body of practice using real-time illustration of words and images to help groups work together and communicate more effectively. The methods have roots in the way designers have always worked, using sketches, diagrams, and imagery to try out new thinking, present possibilities, make sense of complexity, and remember rich amounts of information. Organizations in rapidly changing environments now use visual recorders and graphic facilitators for retreats, planning sessions, team projects, dialogue sessions, problem solving, community building, strategic thinking, and knowledge creation. Educators and trainers use the methods to deepen learning. The applications are extensive and inspiring.

At a recent conference of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners, formed in the mid-1990s, attendees generated some 30 different names for practitioners in this field. Practitioners range from people visualizing presentations off to the side of a group, the results of which animate breaks and final reports, to visual recorders working with facilitators in front of the room, to graphic facilitators and consultants who use graphics as an integral, cocreated display during strategy sessions. In general, persons who focus on just recording are called visual or graphic recorders and those who combine facilitation and recording are called graphic facilitators. However, the combinations and variations are rich.

All of these approaches use images along with written words to capture conversations, ideas, comments, and presentations. Some simply use colorful symbols to highlight ideas and make displays of words more engaging. Others use artistic renderings as well as well structured display formats along with words and phrases. In all cases, the material is organized while it is recorded so that participants who study it see connections and patterns that may not have been evident during the event itself.

Listening deeply is a key and common component across all forms of practice. Good recorders listen with undivided attention for metaphors and patterns that illuminate. Often, the unspoken or implied is as important as the overtly communicated. Visual recorders learn to listen on several levels at once. When people realize that they are being listened to with full attention, it inspires them. To use a phrase coined by Philip Henderson, recorders are “motivational listeners.”

Here are some predictable outcomes from working in this fashion:

1. Increased Participation and Engagement: Interactive visualization invariably increases involvement and participation. The human mind is a pattern-seeking organ. Incomplete, emergent patterns are the most fascinating. As people see their actual words and imagery reflected faithfully, they come alive and contribute more. In addition, imagery has a deep, resonant impact on people beyond its surface meaning.

2. Group-Level, Big-Picture Thinking: Systems thinking requires visualization because of its complexity. Visual recording and graphic facilitation use big pictures literally, and make it possible for groups to expand their thinking well beyond norms for other media. Making ideas visible, using both words and images, means that we are making our very process of thinking visible. Often we attempt to solve problems without a conscious awareness of our own process. Visually mapping means that our ideas and mental models now exist on paper—outside our brains, where we can explore them in greater depth.

3. Increased Memory and Continuity: People remember what happens at meetings with much higher rates of retention when they use working visual displays and evocative imagery. Within meetings, the posted charts provide continuity by supporting persons who drift in their attention. Reproduction afterward greatly increases chances for retention and follow-through. Since the reproductions are exactly what people saw being drawn in real-time, memory is supported directly. Another benefit of visual recording is its value to those for whom English is not a first language. Rereading charts and studying the maps is truly helpful.

Table of Uses

Getting Started

Graphic facilitators and recorders can be used in all phases of change initiatives. They can act as thinking partners when planning an event. Recorders can also help large groups interact and think together more effectively. Graphic recording can also be combined with coaching.

Successfully applying visual recording and graphic facilitation to a group change process means involving the graphic practitioner from the initial planning stages. When graphic facilitators sit on design teams and offer suggestions, they help think through the agenda and decide which graphic formats are best for each aspect of the design. Often graphic professionals have experience with a variety of organizations, initiatives, and graphic formats, and can provide valuable content input to help shape the event’s success. Being graphic means being explicit. When outcomes, agenda, roles, and rules can be visualized, it means they are clear to meeting designers and probably will be to participants.

There are some unique logistical aspects to recording. Using large displays requires big expanses of flat wall or the equivalent. It’s possible to make portable walls out of large sheets of plywood or foam-core poster board that rest on easels (two per board). Getting this equipment and setting it up requires some work from the sponsoring organization ahead of time. Some recorders use flip charts in lieu of large displays.

Roles, Responsibilities, and Relationships

A graphic facilitator leads groups toward agreed-upon outcomes, usually with participation and ownership from all involved while staying neutral regarding outcomes. The facilitator is responsible for collaborating with meeting sponsors and presenters and agreeing on the formats used for each piece. During discussion, the facilitator uses the displays to catalyze thinking. Facilitation can be separate from recording or combined for smaller groups.

A recorder can do a great deal during a meeting to help a facilitator keep things on task by titling displays so they communicate outcomes, numbering clearly to support sequence, color coding and emphasizing in overlays when points become clear, or even providing verbal summaries of the charts to help people understand what they have come up with.

One of the values of graphic displays is having all ideas recorded on one sheet without devaluing any of them. Each person can see their ideas recorded and notice their relationship to the contributions of others.

Digital images of the graphic record can then be used for printed booklets, Web sites, or presentation software. Teams with ongoing meetings can pull out old charts or load digital images into Web conference software and continue almost as if there were no gap.

Conditions for Success

Visual recording and graphic facilitation can strongly support both the planning and implementation phases of group process. This is where clients perceive real value from displays making sense out of what occurred and what ideas showed up.

Imagery can also be used very effectively for inspiration and learning that is less bottom-line oriented. These applications demand more from the practitioner in flexibility and sensitivity. During dialogues, for example, when a recorder is quietly receptive and well paced, it honors speakers and enhances deep listening.

Since visual and graphic recording integrate both imagery and structured display, it combines linear and nonlinear processing styles of the brain in very useful ways. Success lies in the integration of elements—a proper space for display, good planning of the agenda and graphics, open listening and support for everyone being heard, and an overarching intention to actually understand and make sense out of what is occurring.

Theoretical Basis

Extensive literature on the importance of visualization to thinking underlies this work. Some 80 percent of our brains are dedicated to processing visual information. Pattern finding is basic. Whether or not we are visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners, everyone uses imagery for recall and their eyes to perceive nuances—to drive, watch movies, use computers, and navigate. Studies in twenty-first century literacy are concluding that visual thinking is a core competency that everyone needs to develop.

In the growing science of complexity, a large preponderance of the advances have come through visualization of dynamic systems and literally seeing the patterns in complex systems such as weather, commodities, urban growth, consumer behavior, and planes in the air.

Reflecting Patterns in Nature: In the 1970s, David Sibbet worked with Arthur M. Young and his Theory of Process study group to look at visualization as a process rather than just a pattern. Out of this theoretical work evolved the Group Graphics® Keyboard (figure 5), a description of the seven archetypal patterns for visually displaying information, organized from simple to complex.

Figure 5. Group Graphics Keyboard

This grammar lies at the heart of The Grove Consultants International’s approach to teaching graphic facilitation and visual literacy, and has been tested worldwide since 1976.

Bob Horn, inventor of Information Mapping in the 1970s, has tracked the theoretical basis of this field and summarized his findings in Visual Language (see “Where to Go for More Information”). Edward Tufte and Saul Wurman both have written extensively with regard to information architecture and information design, noninteractive applications of visual thinking that are very helpful for displaying information. Since visualization is so protean, it is increasingly hard to know just where the edges of this field lie.

HISTORY OF VISUAL RECORDING AND GRAPHIC FACILITATION

Real-time visualization methods find their upstream tributaries in the work teachers do on blackboards and what engineers and designers do on white boards. Many of the early practitioners of graphic facilitation were on the West Coast of the United States, where graphic facilitation had its start as a formal process discipline. The West Coast is rich in design professionals. Interaction Associates (IA), formed in San Francisco in 1969, was a pioneer in professionalizing facilitation that used recorders integrally. IA founders David Straus and Michael Doyle were both architects.

David Sibbet, a next-door neighbor of IA in San Francisco, pioneered the systematic use of large displays in facilitation and the development of formal training in graphic facilitation in the 1970s. He was inspired by the work of Geoff Ball, an engineer turned consultant who worked at Stanford Research Institute (Now SRI); Joe Brunon, a former architect also working at SRI; and Fred Lakin, an information artist from Stanford University. For five years, Sibbet experimented widely with all forms of visual recording and graphic facilitation as a way to get Coro Fellows in Public Affairs to make sense out of their field internships and projects. This became the basis of a full-time graphic recording and facilitation consulting and training practice in 1977 and eventually The Grove Consultants International.

Nancy Margulies developed Mindscaping as a way to support teaching and learning, as well as a system for recording and facilitating business conferences. She began recording business meetings in 1984 with clients dedicated to making changes in their organizations. As one of Peter Senge’s “Fifth Discipline” consultants, she applied visual note taking to the five disciplines. Her more free-form, artistic style of recording and workshops has inspired one branch of visual practitioners. Her books for teachers and students bring visual recording and Mindscaping into classrooms and counselors’ offices.

THERE ARE MANY OTHER INFLUENCES

Tony Buzan, based in the United Kingdom, popularized mind mapping in the 1980s and 1990s—with software now available that supports the process. A German process called Metaplan formalized elaborate use of different shaped cards in planning. Disney developed storyboarding as an interactive visualization practice that has its adherents. Jim Channon, as an army briefing officer, created Advanced Visual Language and currently innovates with adventure learning applications. The Total Quality Movement used visualization of data integrally with TQ groups and problem solving.

The 1990s saw another rapid expansion of the field in applications to Future Search, Appreciative Inquiry, and The World Café (see chapters 33, 5, and 12, respectively). All incorporate graphic recording as an aspect of their design.

In 1995, San Francisco Bay area graphic recorders Leslie Salmon-Zhu and Susan Kelly founded an association of visual practitioners. In 2000, the International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP) became an official association, hosting annual conferences for its members, and a Web site that provides lists of practitioners, samples of their work, and resources.

Sustaining the Results

Visual recording and graphic facilitation is unique in having a very tangible output that directly supports follow-through.

Graphic facilitation challenges the notion that committees and groups are clumsy, unintelligent instruments and that meetings are generally unproductive. Visual records tap into and enhance group intelligence in direct ways. A key to sustaining this impact is to understand the truly empowering effect of deep listening and respect for groups, as well as being able to see patterns and processes. Visualizing taps the generative power of groups like few other processes, and is the reason that cutting-edge design firms like IDEO use it integrally to help create cultures of innovation for their clients.

Graphic records enable people to keep the feeling as well as the content alive after the event. People who are not able to attend an event can be brought up to speed by reviewing the visuals with someone who was there. Two people can’t read a written document while discussing it, yet they can be literally on the same page looking at a graphic. The visuals are often reprinted in newsletters, on Web sites, and displayed in office hallways.

The growth of graphic recording and graphic facilitation has changed the work cultures of companies. It is becoming a movement in its own right.

• Graphic facilitation is now a frequent feature of high-tech planning. At a turnaround for National Semiconductor, use of large-scale graphics and graphic facilitation resulted in a 95 percent worldwide recognition of their vision among an employee base of 23,000.

• In education, many teachers and teacher support centers use a wide range of graphics to support the profession and to learn advanced note-taking skills.

• Change process and innovation labs that use graphic facilitation are springing up in organizations like the U.S. Navy, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, and Agilent Technologies.

• Organizations inspired by Peter Senge’s work on the learning organization have created the Society for Organizational Learning and use graphics integrally in thinking about systems.

• AmericaSpeaks, a large-scale change organization facilitating huge gatherings of citizens around issues like rebuilding New York City and rebuilding the Gulf region now uses groupware and graphics integrally in its forums.

• In Europe, a Future Centers network is using graphics and other creative media to support Future Center planning and innovation activities in facilities that have been inspired by knowledge capital work.

Burning Questions

The questions people ask of this method often have to do with its interface with other work processes, such as the growing world of online communications and virtual work. These problems are disappearing as digital photography helps link these worlds. Tablet PCs (personal computers) and Web conferencing software now allow for online visualization.

Other questions revolve around what will be done with the graphics. People ask,

“How can we preserve and use this document? Can it be accessible digitally?” The answer is, “Yes, thanks to modern technology.”

“Will this work in other settings such as a sales/motivational event or an executive development program?” Yes, these settings lend themselves well to graphic recording because any time that people need to retain new information and be motivated to review it, visual representations can enhance the experience.

“We usually publish written notes as a way to document our meetings. Do we still need them?” Our clients most often use graphic representations as the sole document but in some cases, traditional notes accompany the visual maps because the client requires a word-for-word document as well as one that captures key ideas.

A frequently asked question by clients experiencing visual recording and graphic facilitation is, “Can we develop the internal capacity to visually record our meetings and special events?” The answer is, “Yes.” Some 20 percent of people get through school and still enjoy drawing, but practically everyone consumes increasingly sophisticated visual information on TV, movies, and computers. Everyone can learn to draw the simple graphics used by visual recorders if they are convinced of the value and are willing to practice (figure 6).

Figure 6. Visual Recorders

For those interested in developing this expertise in their organizations, there are a growing number of workshops available that directly teach graphic recording and graphic facilitation. Both Margulies and Sibbet have successfully trained many thousands of people. (See their Web sites and that of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners in “Where to Go for More Information.”)

Most professionals in this field develop solid recording skills working with facilitators before they combine the roles, but some adept at graphics jump right in and get great results. Most organizations have people who would make excellent graphic facilitators if given a chance.

Some Final Comments

There is a huge difference between a graphically facilitated meeting and one run with graphic presentation software. The former creates a panoramic, cocreated visual environment at a speed that people can absorb and remember. The latter pushes fire hoses of information out that are hard to scan and remember as a system. Therefore, visual practitioners increasingly ask what we would give up if we focused on becoming faster and more transactional. Would we be losing or helping our ability to think ahead and appreciate the context and implications of actions? We value human interaction and an approach to change efforts that allow reflection and time to listen to all voices and points of view.

Meg Wheatley, a business author and articulate spokesperson for the power of emergence in human system, puts it most eloquently when she reflects on her collaboration with Nancy Margulies and her respect for the field of graphic recording:

When reviewing Mindscapes created in our dialogues and meetings, ideas that I’d forgotten leap off the page. Moments of learning or tension or laughter in the group come vividly to mind. The range of faces and feelings comes back into focus.

We couldn’t have dealt well with the richness, the challenge, and the wonder of the concepts we were exploring in new science without these Mindscapes. As they went up on large wall charts, we saw the individual ideas and, more importantly, their interrelationships. We could literally see what we were trying to understand—the systemic nature of life.

I can’t imagine learning how to think systemically without some sort of visual imagery, without seeing the system swim on the page, flowing onto the next page. I can’t imagine remembering the complexity of concepts without seeing them up on a large chart…. once the words and shapes are on the page, they are there for us to remember.

About the Authors

Nancy Margulies (www.NancyMargulies.com) began developing her visual recording technique in 1984. Her books and videotapes are popular in several countries. Nancy collaborated for many years with Meg Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science. Other activities include working with President Clinton and his cabinet and the Dalai Lama. She facilitated workshops and strategic planning in Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Switzerland, Turkey, South Africa, and India. She is one of the developers of The World Café.

David Sibbet (www.davidsibbet.com) began his work as an organizational consultant and information designer in the mid-1970s. He works in both public and private sectors on projects in Europe, North America, and Asia and is an acknowledged master facilitator and expert on visual language. David is founder and president of The Grove Consultants International in San Francisco, a full-service organization development consulting firm and publishing company focused on visualizing change.

Where to Go for More Information

REFERENCES

Hanks, Kurt, and Larry Belliston. Draw! A Visual Approach to Thinking, Learning and Communicating. Los Altos, CA: Crisp Publications, 1992.

Horn, Robert. Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century. Bainbridge Island, WA: MacroVU, 1998.

Kaner, Sam. Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1996.

Margulies, Nancy, with Nusa Maal. Mapping Inner Space. 2d ed. Chicago: Zephyr Press, 2002.

Margulies, Nancy, with Christine Valenza. Visual Thinking: Tools for Mapping Your Ideas. Bethel, CT: Crown House Publishing, 2005.

Sibbet, David. Graphic Facilitation: Transforming Group Process with the Power of Visual Listening. San Francisco: The Grove Consultants International, 2006.

———. Principles of Facilitation and Best Practices for Facilitation. San Francisco: The Grove Consultants International, 2002.

ORGANIZATIONS

The Grove Consultants International—www.grove.com

International Forum of Visual Practitioners—www.visualpractitioner.org

Nancy Margulies—www.NancyMargulies.com