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Large-Scale Group Work

Recently, one of our workshop participants asked me if The Grove had any experience with large-scale group work. Her question related to a meeting of 250 leaders in her organization’s human resources division who needed to have an in-depth conversation about developing successful people strategies.

We have had many opportunities to work with large groups and have very successfully incorporated graphics into those processes. Here are some ideas I shared with our client. We thought they might be useful to a broader audience.

For a 150-person meeting The Grove facilitated, participants received several puzzle pieces in their registration packets. They put their pieces together as a mixer/warm-up exercise at the start of the conference. The pieces were part of a large, 3x4-meter photo-collage of the organization’s operations and leaders. Each piece could be added to the larger photo in its appropriate historical place. This worked exceptionally well to focus participants’ attention and move to big-picture thinking, which were goals of the session.
I have had people contribute en masse to a large history chart. We had people bring all the overheads, slides, drawings and other images that had been associated with a big IT project. They created a collage on a 15-meter long wall. We then sat down and told the story that they had visually assembled, transferring key material and learnings to a big graphic that I created interactively. This helped people focus on their successes from the past so they could move forward with insight to plan their project.
I’ve seen large groups use hexagon-shaped sticky notes to cluster elements in large affinity diagrams. These are hard to read from a distance, but can be developed and elaborated upon by large numbers of people if you have identified people managing the process who have a sense of how they will cluster the items. The key to success in this exercise was the proper clustering of information so participants could make connections and associations among the various visual elements.
I created a huge mandala for a group of 200 managers. They met in small group tables and wrote stories from the future—like news reporters—about how the organization would look five years from now. When the managers stood and read their stories, I recorded the results in front of the room, clustering the items from the various groups in rays of similar objects. The center of the mandala was a large headline of the overarching vision of the group. This process helped the managers open their thinking to new possibilities as they created options for change. This group was so excited about the results that it had a group picture taken in front of the mandala. That is a sign of ownership of a collective vision!
The largest event I ever graphically facilitated was a gathering of 1,800 people attending a symposium called "LA in the '80s: An Urban Feast." The event featured 35 speakers who gave short, five-minute talks about different aspects of Los Angeles. I recorded all the talks on a large, 25-meter wide by 3.5-meter high piece of photographic backdrop paper, stuck on a huge wall erected across the stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles, California. As the people gathered, I created a cityscape of Los Angeles with spray cans of paint and huge jumbo markers. As the symposium progressed, I clustered comments in large headlines over the parts of the city that were relevant to the topics—for instance, comments about water were written near the drawing of the Department of Water and Power, crime issues near the Courts, business ideas near downtown towers, etc. The keys to success for this scale of a graphic display are planning, selecting the right visual metaphor to hold the conversation, having the right tools nearby, involvement of several skilled graphic recorders, patience and lots of rest. This visual helped the symposium members truly see the big-picture of the environment they were discussing.
Another idea is to have small groups report out in a visual, graphic way that can be staged as a gallery walk. I’ve managed very large meetings this way, and then had people have a town hall meeting or some kind of reflection session after they have had a chance to review the different outputs from the small groups. Any of our large-size templates can support various conversations in this manner. The Cover Story Vision Graphic Guide® works well for collaging or drawing visions. The Context Map Graphic Guide® is an external environmental scan. The Five Bold Steps Graphic Guide® helps groups capture visions or plans and determine the first and best actions to reach the vision. The gallery walk allows time for participant to see the linkages and commonalties in their thinking. This brings groups into alignment before moving to their next steps.

We would be delighted to assist you with other ideas and options for large-scale group work. Or, if you would like our consultants to design and facilitate these challenging sessions, we can do that too. Give us a call at 800/49GROVE or 415.561.2500 or contact us via e-mail.