Four stages of graphic facilitation skills development
I have observed myself over the years of practicing visual thinking and graphic facilitation. And at least based on my individual experience I can state that I have gone through certain stages of my skills maturity that correspond to various stages of my self confidence as a graphic facilitator.
These stages are:
- Presentation of the work that has already been created before.
- Visual story telling — telling my story and support it visually, as you speak.
- “Facipulate” the group — lead it through the predefined scenario and the same time make sure that the group is engaged and that they are following the major check-points of the story.
- Fully dynamic facilitation — when you are never sure what the result is going to be based on a totally unpredictable (well, to a certain extent) group process.
It would be fair to say, that these stages range from the simplest to the hardest. You would want to strive to the rightmost, but it is the same time the most demanding level.
Presentation
You feel the most secure when you bring the prepared material, rendered and polished. You can spend whatever time is needed upfront. There is no element of surprise for you, you are totally safe. The bad news is that the efficiency of such a method is the lowest — the group does not feel engaged, the process does not invite them to co-create. This is yet another boring monolog, a one-way communication. All you can do — is to bring a pinch of individual flavour by introducing your custom made art. You do not want to stay here for long.
Visual story telling
This is the level 2, this is the upgrade. The group perceive you as a magician — you tell the story and you draw it. It works fantastic in any idea or a solution presentation, it work amazing for the sell process. It beats the presentation slides entirely. The downsides are similar — at best you could engage the group by asking questions. However you are not intending to alter the story, it is pre-defined already. Even though it is just the 1 level up and you would want to move on, this way of graphic facilitating has a huge potential of application and you use this one a lot. Just use it wisely — totally acknowledging the goals of the session.
“Facipulating”
I have heard this term for the first time from Arie van Bennekum — an agile guru and a seasoned facilitator. Arie told me — you do not want to facipulate — this is when you manipulate the group to lead them towards a pre-defined solution or a decision, but you pretend to be facilitating them to do so. This is not ethical and does not have anything with facilitation. This implies that you already have a scenario at hand and you do not reveal it to the group. Instead, you facilitate the group dynamic to subtly push the group towards the right answers. However, there are still good cases for applying this method. Particularly for education. When you are leading the group through the new knowledge, you know the right answers and the group is about to explore it. It is much more efficient to push them towards this knowledge by igniting and inspiring the thinking process. Once they get there themselves with some of your help, they get the knowledge that sticks! On to the next stage now.
Fully dynamic facilitation
This is the king of the hill. This is your ultimate development of graphic facilitation skills and it is the most rewarding. You are the master of the ‘white space’ — you are not scared with the empty whiteboard or a flip-chart anymore, now you rule and the structure of the visual map is under your command. You do not care much how the discussion is developing as long as the group is achieving the goals of the session and generate value, organising the drawing space has become secondary. Congratulations if you are there already! You are at the top! ;)
Now looking back at my personal journey, I can tell you this — do not worry if you are not at the top of your skills yet. It is okay to move into there gradually and maybe slower than you would want to. The reason you are trying puts you above any regular slides presentation guy, so just keep on doing this and it will happen!
I hope this attempt to structure the journey will inspire and encourage those of you who still hesitate or is unsure about their capabilities.
