We all learn differently.

Two thirds of people are visual learners. So why do most ideas, actions and decisions get communicated using words?

Visual Facilitation – An Introduction

‘Visual facilitation’, ‘graphic visualisation’ and ‘infographics’ are all basically the same way of describing the process of transforming complex data or information into engaging pictures and images.

Whether you want to introduce a new project or make a brainstorming meeting more productive, visual facilitation can be one of the best weapons in your management toolbox.

How Can You Use It?

A graphic facilitator presents the information your team or audience needs in a clear and visually accessible way. Most companies tend to use visual facilitation to communicate the benefits of their product or service to their potential customers. Though this is a great way to use it, your first priority, as a manager, should be communicating these ideas to your team.

Visualisation techniques can help your team to better understand often complicated, abstract information in a very short space of time. Through real-time pitches, they can synthesise themes, metaphors, and abstract ideas that are often hard to quantify.  What’s more, using graphic visualisation will also make the whole process more enjoyable – for you and your team! Graphic recording and visualisation are both great ways to enhance meetings or events. By using carefully organised images, you can turn big ideas into clear, communicable actions.

People have been communicating strategies through graphic facilitation since the time of cavemen. Like the cave paintings of our Neanderthal forebears – that recorded pertinent information for their tribe’s survival in the landscape, key details about the weather, hunting and animals – modern day graphic facilitators help businesses see the key elements of their commercial landscape.

Putting it into Practice

There are a number of ways graphic visualisation can help in a meeting scenario, it will:

–       Help synthesise the key messages

–       Clear out the ‘clutter’ and ‘noise’

–       Make sure everyone’s voice is heard equally

–       Provide a visual snapshot of the meeting

–       Provide an easily shareable visual record of the meeting

All this points to greater involvement. It is a great tool to engage the whole team with an idea through visual stimulation, humour, and creativity. Employees are much more likely to walk away from a meeting remembering the key ideas and information if they were presented to them through appealing and quirky images.

Creating a culture of involvement will have a marked impact on your organisation’s bottom line. So, for meetings and events that are more productive and actionable, and to maximize involvement in an open and human way, give graphic visualisation a try, you won’t be disappointed.

Why not take a look at some of the work that our visual facilitators have been doing recently? Want to know more about how the INVOLVE team could help you make more of visual involvement tools? Why not get in touch?