Engage Everyone Simultaneously in Generating Questions, Ideas, and Suggestions with 1–2–4-ALL

Published in

The Liberators

5 min readFeb 6, 2018

Liberating Structures are a collection of interaction patterns that allow you to unleash and involve everyone in a group — from extroverted to introverted and from leaders to followers. In this series of posts, we show how Liberating Structures can be used with Scrum.

1–2–4-All is one of the most applied facilitation techniques from the Liberating Structure collection. Within 12 minutes, you can engage everyone simultaneously in generating questions, ideas, and suggestions. Regardless of how large the group is, you’ll engage every individual in searching for answers. We’ve used this technique with 12 participants during training and seminars with 100+ people. It unfolds open conversations and rapidly sifts ideas and solutions. Most importantly, participants own the ideas, so follow-up and implementation are simplified.

No buy-in strategies needed, simple and elegant!

In this post, we’ll explain the concept of silent self-reflection and share examples of how we’ve applied 1–2–4-All within our Scrum training and coaching engagements.

Silent Self-Reflection

One of the most powerful parts of 1–2–4-All is captured in the 1-minute of silent self-reflection. During this minute, participants are invited to reflect on a shared challenge framed as a question, for example:

What opportunities do you see for making progress on this challenge?
How would you handle this situation?
What ideas or actions do you recommend?

Taking time for silent self-reflection isn’t a common practice in meetings or workshops. Often, one or two persons are talking, and the rest are listening. Small groups work with each other and talk continuously, which is fine. Yet before diving into a conversation about a certain challenge, taking some time for some silent self-reflection is very useful.

It gives you the opportunity to make up YOUR mind. What do YOU think? How would YOU deal with this situation?

Silent self-reflection should be done simultaneously as a group. As a facilitator, I find this quite a challenge. People might consider the silence a bit awkward and start making noise or laughing nervously, distracting others. Therefore, take sufficient time to explain the purpose and importance of the first part of 1–2–4-All. When done well, a comfortable silence is created, and the silent self-reflection will lead to the first ideas to deal with the challenge at hand!

Keith McCandless and Henri Lipmanowicz created this structure.

Uses in Scrum

We’ve used 1–2–4-All for several applications in (and outside) Scrum:

As part of a Scrum training to help define learning goals. Use the 1 minute of self-reflection to think of personal learning goals. Share your learning goals within pairs and, afterward, a foursome. After 10 minutes, the fully refined goals are discussed with the group.
During the Daily Scrum. Most Scrum Teams use the Daily Scrum to share what they’ve done yesterday to help the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal, what they’ll do today, and if they see any impediments that prevent achieving the Sprint Goal. Although using these questions is only a recommendation, most teams stick to it. I’ve worked with a Scrum Team that simply answered, “What would be the best result we could achieve today?” Following the 1–2–4-All steps, they defined a plan for the upcoming 24 hours.
During a company-wide Retrospective with participants who used to be excessively influenced by their leader, we used 1–2–4-All to ensure everyone was involved and all voices and opinions were heard and appreciated.
As part of the Sprint Review, gather feedback on the Increment, adapt the Product Backlog, inspect likely completion dates, and analyze marketplace changes and potential product use.
During the Sprint Retrospective, inspect how the Sprint went regarding people and relationships, figure out how to make the next Sprint more enjoyable, and adapt the definition of “Done” to increase product quality.
As an opening exercise of a large seminar, we invited more than 250 people to reflect on the question, “How is the Scrum Master a management position?” After everyone discussed the results in pairs and foursomes, we discussed the main takeaways as a group. Within minutes, the entire group was engaged and energized!
Gather feedback (questions, comments, and ideas) after a presentation. Don’t ask the usual “any questions;” instead, use 1–2–4-All to get more rich feedback.
To redesign a boring weekly meeting with management.
To address a problem or an innovation opportunity, 1–2–4-All offers a clear structure for discussing the challenge at hand.

Steps

Start with 1 minute of silent self-reflection by individuals on a shared challenge framed as a question;
Take 2 minutes to generate ideas in pairs, building on ideas from self-reflection;
Create groups of four and use 4 minutes to share and develop ideas you’ve discussed within your pair. Notice similarities and differences.
Take 5 minutes to share insights, ideas, and takeaways by asking, “What is one idea that stood out in your conversation?” Each group shares one important idea. Repeat the cycle as needed.

Download a free high-resolution version here.

Combinations

A key characteristic of Liberating Structures is that they can easily combined to create programs for entire workshops or trainings. The options are endless:

Start with Impromptu Networking to introduce a theme, facilitate a more in-depth reflection with 1–2–4-All;
Use 1–2–4-ALL to discuss the questions in the final part of Appreciative Interviews;
Use the highest scoring ideas gathered with 25/10 Crowd Sourcing as input for 1–2–4-ALL or Open Space Technology to translate actionable ideas into action plans;

Tips

Facilitate the silent self-reflection firmly before the paired conversations;
Invite everyone to write down their ideas during the quiet self-reflection;
Use Tingsha bells to announce transitions;
Stick to precise timing, do another round if needed
In large groups, during “All,” limit the number of shared ideas to 3 or 4;
Invite each group to share unique insights;
Make ideas visual; use your imagination;
Maintain the rule of one conversation at a time in the whole group.
Try this variation: go from groups of 4 to 8 with consensus in mind.

Closing

In this post, we’ve described how you can use 1–2–4–ALL to engage groups' collective intelligence. Give it a try! We’re always happy to hear about your experiences or suggestions.