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    Visual Collaboration: A Powerful Toolkit for Improving Meetings, Projects, and Processes
    Visual Collaboration: A Powerful Toolkit for Improving Meetings, Projects, and Processes
    Visual Collaboration: A Powerful Toolkit for Improving Meetings, Projects, and Processes
    Ebook312 pages1 hour

    Visual Collaboration: A Powerful Toolkit for Improving Meetings, Projects, and Processes

    By Loa Baastrup and Ole Qvist-Sorensen

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Have you ever felt stuck with methods, tools and skills that do not match the increasing complexity you are part of? Would you like to work in new ways that strengthen thinking, communication and collaboration? 

    Visual Collaboration introduces a new and innovative way of working and collaborating that will help you successfully manage complexity for yourself, your team, and your entire organization.

    The method of this book unlocks any team s ability to collaborate in complex projects and processes. By using a systematic and proven approach to drawing and visualizing.

    Visual Collaboration is a unique visual business book that will enable you to develop visual languages to fit any scenario, create engaging and powerful questions to assist your visual process design and turn a white canvas into a visual template that can improve any meeting, project, or process.

    The core of the book - a practical and easy-to-follow method - THE FIVE BUILDING BLOCKS will most likely become your preferred way of working. The method is supported by plentiful examples, 4-color drawing, chapter summaries, and clearly defined learning objectives. Enjoyable and powerful, this book will help you:

    • Use visualization as a tool to explore opportunities and challenges
    • Translate complex concepts into easy-to-understand actions
    • Engage employees and team members with effective strategic processes
    • Incorporate drawing into your strategic organizational toolbox to strengthen communication and collaboration
    • Develop and apply powerful visual literacy skills

    The authors, internationally-recognized experts in strategy communication and visual facilitation, have helped incorporate visual collaboration into more than 500 organizations such as LEGO, IKEA, the Red Cross, the United Nations, and many others. This book is the must-have resource for you to follow their example.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWiley
    Release dateNov 13, 2019
    ISBN9781119611066
    Visual Collaboration: A Powerful Toolkit for Improving Meetings, Projects, and Processes

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      Book preview

      Visual Collaboration - Loa Baastrup

      Introduction

      Icon of two people drawing together on a white board.Cartoon image of five blocks placed side to side, along with an image each representative of them drawn above them. These blocks are together labeled “the five building blocks,” and are individually labeled the following, from left to right: (1) discover your visual language, (2) design your collaboration process, (3) define key questions, (4) create engaging templates, and (5) prepare to scale. Drawn above these are cartoon images of a sheet of paper on which a human icon is drawn, a lit bulb over a sheet of paper with an icon of a rightward pointing arrow, a thought bubble containing a question mark, several sheets of paper, the topmost of which has a diagram of a horizontal line with a downward dipping kink in the middle; an arrow points from the portion of the line before the kink to the portion after it; and a flip calendar with a symbol of the play button at the front, respectively. Two people standing on these blocks are engaged in different tasks, and a third is reading a book while climbing up on to the first block at the left. The staircase this person is using to climb up is labeled “introduction.” Continuing on the right are four more blocks, with three people upon them engaged in various tasks. These blocks are labeled the following: (6) enable group learning, (7) map your skills, (8) activate your resources, and (9) dos and don'ts. Above these blocks are cartoon images of person talking to two other people inside a room, a person holding a large pencil, a marker and a poster on an easel, and a person who seems to be thinking, respectively.

      Why draw?

      Drawing is an age-old discipline that we all can learn and which the brain grasps faster than it does speech or text. When we draw, we create clarity, and in a digital world, handmade drawings stand out.

      Cartoon image of a sheet of paper on which a dot, a straight line, a wavy line, a triangle, a square, and a circle are drawn. Cartoon image of a person drawing on the walls of a cave, and two more people sitting nearby, looking the person who is drawing. Cartoon image of a person with a thought bubble containing a house and a tree; an arrow labeled “house” is pointing at this person.Cartoon image of a thought bubble containing a person resting on a hammock tied to trees on a tropical island. Cartoon image of a smiling person drawing a heart on a sheet of paper. Cartoon image of a sheet of paper on which there are drawings, and above which there is a pencil whose top is like that of a funnel, and several speech bubbles are on their way down into this funnel.

      Who can draw and where?

      Everyone can use drawing as an effective tool for communication. Technology has given us new means to draw, adjust, and share our drawings with one another.

      Cartoon image of several charts and a white board on which diagrams are drawn. Cartoon image of a person who is drawing and writing on a board on an easel, and three people sitting around a table looking at this person. Cartoon image of three people holding stationery while standing in front of a white board, with one of them drawing on it.Cartoon image of a person drawing a diagram on a tablet, which is being projected on to a large screen, and another person uploading an image to cloud storage from a smartphone. Cartoon image of three people standing on a part of an arrow on the floor, drawn by one of them, which is continued forward as a drawing on a board put up on the wall in front of them.

      Why draw together?

      To see the bigger picture, we need a greater knowledge base than we see on our own. Visual collaboration is when we draw together to learn from other perspectives and build shared responsibility and ownership. Drawing together can create a common language across cultures, positions, and national borders.

      Cartoon image of four people discussing a large, completed jigsaw puzzle that is put up on a wall in front of them. Cartoon image of four people conversing with each other, while holding pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle that is being arranged on the wall in front of them. Cartoon image of four people holding a large poster, and having a common speech bubble that says “ours.”Cartoon image of four people holding a large poster together. Arrows lead from them to the right, showing individual members explaining the poster separately to other people. Cartoon image of nine people standing on part of the surface of a planet, with three each holding a poster, and all of them together sharing a thought bubble that contains a dot, a straight line, a wavy line, a triangle, a square, and a circle.

      Vocabulary for Visual Collaboration

      Visual Collaboration is a guidebook for working more visually in meetings, projects, and processes. These three terms are good to know:

      Facilitation enables a group to work together effectively and therefore make better decisions. Good facilitators can:

      – Put themselves in someone else's place.

      – Create a shared sense of identity in a group.

      – Energize a group and engage it in the service of a stated purpose.

      – Find, formulate, and ask good questions.

      – Listen actively and with focus.

      Visual facilitation is facilitation with structured use of pen and paper.

      The concept of visual facilitation stems from the concept of graphic facilitation, which was formulated in the 1970s by a group of organizational consultants in California who used visual techniques and tools to find solutions to complex issues.

      Visual facilitation uses visual representations to facilitate interaction in a group of people, using structured visual content. It is a systematic way of drawing together with others.

      A good visual facilitator can capture communication in handwritten text so content is accessible to the group being facilitated. A good visual facilitator can translate the content of a process into drawings that are informative, straightforward, and comprehensive.

      Visual facilitation can be as basic as facilitating a process by means of simple visual tools, like a few color-coded sticky notes, and a well-formulated question.

      System visualization is a concept for visual collaboration. Through the lens of systems theory, we observe and structure knowledge visually.

      Inspired by a wide range of front-runners in visualization, design thinking, change theory, facilitation, process management, and systems theory, as well as our own experience, we have developed the practical method of this book: the Five Building Blocks of Visual Collaboration. Each building block supports the overall purpose of system visualization: to facilitate communication and systems understanding in a group through targeted questions and visual representations to achieve valuable results.

      Cartoon image of several people engaged in a discussion, with some of them sitting around a table, some standing, and some drawing on a white board and using it to aid explanations.

      Visual collaboration is also when ...

      Boost your visual literacy

      To gain the benefits of visual collaboration, here is a way to quickly get skilled at drawing.

      Image of a dot, a straight line, a triangle, a square, a circle, and a wavy line, placed side to side. Cartoon images of a house, a city (several buildings), a country (just a rough outline), a planet, and the solar system.

      You just need to practice combining basic shapes. With a dot, a line, a triangle, a square, a circle, and a wave you can draw a house, a town, a country, a planet, or an entire solar system.

      Drawing with basic shapes is an easy, rapid, and intuitive way of visualizing.

      Cartoon image of the human brain with a thought bubble containing a picture of trees under a clear sky and on grassy land, along with a simpler drawing of the same. Also, an arrow with images of a dot, a straight line, a triangle, a square, a circle, and a wavy line, placed side to side, is also pointing at it.

      You only need to draw a fraction of what the eye sees to create recognition and understanding. Start seeing the world through a lense of basic shapes, practice drawing easy objects, and expand your visual vocabulary along the way.

      From basic shapes to icons

      Think of a word you want to represent visually and draw it as simply as you can.

      Image containing several icons of humans and several other miscellaneous objects.Image containing several icons of humans and several other miscellaneous objects.

      From icons to templates

      Make simple visual templates with the icons you create.

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