1-2-4-All

Engage everyone simultaneously in generating questions, ideas, and uggestions

Five Structural Elements – Min Specs

“Let’s think about our shared challenge and generate ideas to address it. What opportunities do you see for making progress on this challenge?”

2. Space and Materials

• Space for participants to work in pairs and quartets [breakouts].
• Chairs, tables, and paper are optional.

3. Participation Distribution

• Roles include host [tech host] and participants.
• Minimum group size is four.
• Everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute.

4. Group Configuration

Alone, pairs, quartets, whole group

5. Steps and Time Allocation

Allocation

Intro: Share the structuring invitation and identify the shared challenge. (1 min.)

Individual Reflection: Individuals silently reflect and write down ideas. (1 min.)

Pair Up: Participants form pairs to share and build on ideas, trying to defer judgment and keep each idea distinct [breakouts of two or three]. (2 min.)

Form Quartet: Pairs join to form quartets to refine and differentiate ideas. [Manually merge pairs into quartets.] (5 min.)

All-Together Sharing: Everyone returns to plenary. A few people share something everyone should hear. [Alternatively, use Chatterfall—Each participant types one idea in chat and doesn’t hit Enter until prompted. Then everyone scrolls up to see what others wrote.] (7 min.)

Taking It Online

When technology or a large group make it difficult to manually transition from pairs to quartets, try 1-3-All. Skip pairs and go straight from individual reflection (1) to trios (3) before bringing the full group together (All). Keep in mind that with trios, it can be easier for one person to dominate the conversation, so make sure you build in time for everyone to share.

WHY? Purposes

• Engage every individual in searching for answers
• Avoid overhelping and the overcontrol-dependency vicious cycle
• Create safe spaces for expression, diminish power differentials
• Express “silent” conversations and expand diversity of inputs
• Enrich quality of observations and insights before expression
• Build naturally toward consensus or shared understanding

Tips and Traps

• Firmly facilitate quiet self-reflection before paired conversations
• Ask everyone to jot down their ideas during the silent reflection
• Use bells for announcing transitions
• Stick to precise timing, do another round if needed
• In a large group during “All,” limit the number of shared ideas to three or four
• In a large group, use a facilitator or harvester to record output not shared
• Invite each group to share one insight but not to repeat insights already shared
• Separate and protect generation of ideas from the whole group discussion
• Defer judgment; make ideas visual; go wild!
• When you hit a plateau, jump to another form of expression (e.g., Improv, sketching, stories)
• Maintain the rule of one conversation at a time in the whole group
• Do a second round if you did not go deep enough!

Riffs and Variations

• Graphically record insights as they emerge from groups
• Use Post-it notes in Rounds 2 and 3
• Link ideas that emerge to Design Storyboards, Improv Prototyping, Ecocycle Planning
• Go from groups of 4 to groups of 8 with consensus in mind. Colleague Liz Rykert calls this Octopus!

Examples

• Use after a speech or presentation, when it is important to get rich feedback (questions, comments, and ideas), instead of asking the audience, “Any questions?”
• A group of managers used two rounds of 1-2-4-All to redesign their less-than-stimulating weekly meeting.
• For a spontaneous conversation that starts after the topic of a meeting has been announced
• For a group that has been convened to address a problem or an innovation opportunity
• For unlocking a discussion that has become dysfunctional or stuck
• In place of a leader “telling” people what to think and do (often unintentionally)
• For a group that tends to be excessively influenced by its leader
• Read Craig Yeatman’s story in Part Three: Stories from the Field about using 1-2-4-All to help manage a merger decision, “Inclusive High-Stakes Decision Making Made Easy.
  

Optional String

Use Spiral Journal to deepen emergent ideas, or Mad Tea/Calm Tea to expand the range of ideas.

Attribution: Liberating Structure developed by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless

Source: Liberating Structures