Posters, colour, ideas: capturing thinking during a conference workshop

Posted by Guy Downes on March 19, 2010 under Graphic Recording | Be the First to Comment

Providing people with the opportunity to stand back and see their collective ideas during a conference workshop is important. One way to achieve this is by using creative posters that are drawn beforehand as templates. They are then used as a recording tool during the session allowing participants to capture their critical thinking.

Mirella Di Genua (a facilitator, stakeholder engagement and change management specialist), with whom I work regularly and highly recommend, recently facilitated a preconference workshop to explore how to better integrate community/stakeholder engagement in policy development. The conference was called ‘Community Engagement in Policy Development’ held in Melbourne in late February. Mirella tasked me with preparing some posters that she could use during her workshop.

The aim of the facilitation process was to identify with the participants:

• the edgy and top of mind questions that brought them to the conference;
• their views around community engagement in Policy Development;
• ways to explore the barriers and opportunities for engagement; and
• a vision and preliminary framework for greater community engagement.

As the workshop was highly participatory it provided the participants with a heightened focus for conference learning and facilitated the creation of relationships through the sharing experiences in the workshop.

Here are some of my posters beforehand and in use during the workshop (with some close ups to show some creative detail).