From Our Live Scribes to You
Our graphic facilitators support nearly 300 events every year at ImageThink, and they’ve learned a thing or two about agenda design along the way. After 10 years of leading the charge in visual strategy, we’re ready to share some of our top learnings for mapping a successful strategy session. Here are a few tips to get the ball rolling for your 2019 strategy.
Be Clear On The Purpose
Defining the parameters of your meeting’s purpose is a critical first step that often times gets overlooked. Specificity is key, from the exact challenges you’ll be discussing, to the desired end result of your time together. Everything in your agenda should build towards this unifying goal.
Picture A Strong Narrative
Start off your meeting or conference on a good note; be a storyteller. Start with a hook to get the energy going and build towards a finale which leaves everyone both satisfied and excited for what’s to come. Try stacking your topics and exercises in different orders to see what ways one can build on and inform the other. Save time at the end of the day for reflection on a day well spent, and to identify owners for upcoming tasks.
Our Graphic recorder is building context for the meeting by drawing out the big ideas on a whiteboard.
Draw Out Your Exercises Beforehand
We’ve found it’s a good idea to do a test run of your exercises ahead of time. Gather a group together before the actual meeting to test the activities you want to lead, take notes or sketchnotes, and tweak accordingly.
Never Round Out The Time
At a recent meeting, our graphic recorder noticed a very interesting tactic by the meeting facilitator: time was blocked out by 27 minutes, 13 minutes, 4 minutes… but never by the half hour, 15 minutes, or 5 minutes. Getting specific with blocks of time will help folks in the room be more aware with how they are using it, meaning more engagement, more focus, and better end results at the end of the day.
Our graphic recorder, visualizing the big ideas at a meeting after the initial agenda setting.
Build In Break Time
Building in time for mental breaks is the only way to be sure that the rest of your timeline doesn’t get disrupted when someone needs to excuse themselves, or when energy starts to flag.
Is your meeting idea exciting enough? Does your company have what it takes to stand out from the herd? Leave us a shout out and we can help elevate the experience by picturing your big ideas.
