You can use the Draw Toast exercise to introduce people to the concepts of visual thinking, working memory, mental models and/or systems thinking.
This also works as a nice warm-up exercise to get people engaged with each other and thinking visually. Plus, it’s fun!
A subset of people with direct field experience can quickly foster understanding, spark creativity, and facilitate adoption of new practices among members of a larger community. Fishbowl sessions have a small inside circle of people surrounded by a larger outside circle of participants. The inside group is formed with people who made concrete progress on a challenge of interest to those in the outside circle. The fishbowl design makes it easy for people in the inside circle to illuminate what they have done by sharing experiences while in conversation with each other. The informality breaks down the barriers with direct communication between the two groups of people and facilitates questions and answers flowing back and forth. This creates the best conditions for people to learn from each other by discovering answers to their concerns themselves within the context of their working groups. You can stop imposing someone else’s practices!
With a series of prompts a surprising and amazing future is created.
This is a feedback exercise to support participants to deliver feedback that is clear and specific, especially after working in multiple project teams over a longer period of time. The team maps the connections between individuals, then uses specific points of interaction to prompt feedback.
Whether your group has already established its dynamics or is working together for the first time, creating a group contract enables people to mindfully ground their behaviours in inclusivity and respect, and promote psychological safety. These dynamics encourage trust, confidence, and inspiration–which in turn build engagement, encourage creativity, and result in wellbeing and success for all.
The SWOT Analysis is a long-standing technique of looking at what we have, with respect to the desired end state, as well as what we could improve on. It gives us an opportunity to gauge approaching opportunities and dangers, and assess the seriousness of the conditions that affect our future. When we understand those conditions, we can influence what comes next.
A questioning method for generating, explaining, investigating ideas.
This tool guides your team through the process of writing a remote working charter, defining the guidelines and behaviour expected of people working at a distance. Team members reflect on their own remote working experiences and use that insight to create a shared charter for the group / organisation.
The key ice breaker is a team building favorite and a great exercise to get to know each other in a group or team.
It is easy to understand and set up, can be modified according to the objects participants have, fast way to get info on each other, and surely makes everyone included!
Social Network Webbing quickly illuminates for a whole group what resources are hidden within their existing network of relationships and what steps to take for tapping those resources. It also makes it easy to identify opportunities for building stronger connections as well as new ones.
The inclusive approach makes the network visible and understandable to everybody in the group simultaneously. It encourages individuals to take the initiative for building a stronger network rather than receiving directions through top-down assignments. Informal or loose connections—even your friends’ friends—are tapped in a way that can have a powerful influence on progress without detailed planning and big investments.
This method helps groups to avoid awkward silence at the beginning of the session and instantly start a conversation. Ideal for large groups.
