The Sketch Game

Step 1:

Instructions

The facilitator will present the participants with 6 objects or subjects to draw on each A4/post-it. It is important to give time to each participant to relate to and reflect upon what it "looks like" for them.

It can be beneficial for groups who work regularly together to do this exercise with words they use in their daily work, so they have a good understanding of that word. People can have a diverse understanding of the same word.

The facilitator asks the participants to first write the word on the top of the A4/post-it and then draw their understanding of the word.

Examples: happiness, family, interests, teacher(s), language, and vacation.

Online Instructions: Use a virtual whiteboard (Miro, Mural, or your choice). You could have the participants draw, photograph, and post to your preferred platform where they are able to view each other’s drawings - and where they have the ability to cluster the drawings.

Step 2:

The facilitator posts 6 topics (on a wall or virtual whiteboard) with enough spacing in between.

Step 3:

The participants are now asked to cluster their drawings next to the TOPIC and wait until everyone has finished.

Once all the drawings are up, have the participants view all of the drawings.

Some drawings in the cluster have similarities and others don’t have any correlation at all.

What does this show us? - That we all have a variety of understanding and experiences of things based on our backgrounds.

Step 4:

Reflection

The facilitator asks each group the following questions for their reflection:

• What are the similarities you see?
• What are the differences you see?
• What has surprised you?

Step 5:

Group Share

The facilitator asks the group members to share any insights or anything they found valuable from this exercise.

Notes:

On ‘family’ one participant might have drawn a family composed of two parents in comparison to another participant that drew only one parent, potentially indicating that they are caretakers to a single parent.

On ‘vacation’ one participant drew a hotel resort in Gran Canaria, whereas the second participant drew a relative's house in their home country, Tunisia.

On 'teacher', even a group of teachers drew a person in front of a board with a stick in their hand, despite not seeing their role as a teacher in this way.

When is this exercise used? When there is a need to understand what people understand by specific words, e.g. in teamwork, in any kind of communication in general. When there is a desire to unlock some of our unconscious biases and assumptions about how we think of and communicate various words and concepts.