A Collection of Collaboration Canvases for visual Teamwork

Visual templates help to get a collaboration to the next level. This is a collection of canvases or templates to collaborate. Work visual.

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End of Year Reflection

With the new year around the corner, you might want to look back and celebrate together the year you’ve had. Here are canvases that help to look back in a structured way and help to capture learnings, takeaways, smiles and memories:

ABC Write down the ABC on a whiteboard and identify memories, achievements, fun facts. Check out https://buffer.com/2016 for inspiration.

Swimlanes / Historical Scan Crowdsource the year’s events in swimlanes (e.g. personal; team; company; world).  Mark outstanding events and others which depicted a trend. Name trends and eras & jointly brainstorm what the year ahead might bring. Check out the Historical Scan method by Technology of Participantion (ToP) to learn more about sequencing the co-creation of a “Wall of Wonder” with this canvas.

Highs & Lows Collect remarkable moments of your team along a timeline and position them according to their contribution to your team’s spirit.

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Using canvases in group processes

In a series of three workshops I explored the state of practice in using graphic organizers / canvases to advance group processes. More than 50 change agents, process guides and facilitators contributed.

Start the presentation of our findings and find out how to use a canvas as the communications-tool it really is and get the conversation of your group on a productive level:

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Get over the fence with this Project Canvas

I recently had the pleasure to discuss the impact of canvases as co-facilitators in group work with Karen Schmidt.

She launched Over the Fence, an open-source initiative for people in projects. Their Project Canvas is an easy-to-use approach for systematically understanding, designing and starting new projects. You can download it for free.

Karen taught me that a powerful canvas draws on a metaphor. So unlock the full potential of the project canvas and get the e-book with practical hints and the project journey cards that help you to use the canvas as the conversation tool that it really is.

(via Download Your Project Canvas Over the Fence – Projects Newly Discovered)

[anjaebers]

Structure a debriefing with this canvas

Events, meetings or workshops create such a wealth of impressions, experiences, new ideas and questions. Yet often it is difficult to capture them systematically and this treasure of insights gets lost.

I developed a canvas that helps to structure a group’s thoughts after a meeting. It builds on the three W (what? so what? now what?’) of Liberating Strctures.

How to use

Print out a copy of the canvas for each contributor to the debriefing

Allow 5 minutes for each one to reflect individually

Share and consilidate depending on group size e.g. following the 1-2-4-All structure.

Downloads Debriefing Canvas Nachbesprechungstemplate

[anjaebers]

Ten minutes. One pen. One Page. Write from the heart. Make someone's day.

This great collection of templates helps to overcome writer’s block with just the right start & sequence for a variety of occasions. Download, take your pen and make someone’s day with a letter.

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Not particularly a template to use as a team.  But: It can help to improve team spirit ;-)

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On Target?

A template to take the pulse of the group after a conference, workshop, meeting or lesson. Can capture spontaneous feedback on up to four dimensions.

Here is how it works:

Write the task How effective was our meeting/conference/webinar for you to.. as headline on a large sheet of paper or whiteboard.

Draw a target with at least 3 circles underneath

Add separating lines for up to 4 aims of your meeting and name each quadrant

Introduce template to participants and hand out dots to participants; one dot for each aim

Let them “shoot” when leaving the room

Download & remix (for Paper by 53 users)

[sessionlab]

Team Canvas - Get your team on the same page

This is a guest post by Alex Ivanov. Alex and his team developed a simple-to-use and very visual framework called Team Canvas for teambuilding and team alignment that is available freely to anyone under Creative Commons licence. We are grateful to Alex for having shared this great tool with the facilitators’ community, and also glad to announce that you can find Team Canvas resources on TrainedOn both in the library and as a Featured Session - so you can seamlessly integrate it in your next session plan if you decide to do so.

On average, only 46 out of 100 workgroups within organizations end up creating value for companies, and up to 92% of freshly created startup teams are destined to fail for various reason. A study mentioned by Harvard Business School professor Noam Wasserman suggests that 60+% of those reasons are related to problems within teams, e.g. miscommunication, unresolved conflicts, co-founder disagreements, key players leaving teams at pivotal moments and so on.

What makes it even worse is that the tools for team maintenance and leadership for various reasons are not easily available to small teams like startups and creative agencies, and are not widely used within even bigger companies.

Here is a simple question: Is there something you personally can do to make the team you work in more successful and productive? We suggest that simply put, yes.

Weiterlesen

[canvases2collaborate]

Event Planning

Use this template in the first conversation with your team to jointly understand what kind of event you are planning.

How to use:

Print out large scale or project on the wall.

Discuss

Set dots / lines in a dominant color to indicate what your event is aspiring to

You will discover that this template is a great conversation starter to collect ideas for elements of your event.

Have fun!

Download & remix (for Paper by 53 users)

[canvases2collaborate]

Clock face

An universal template to capture instances in daily routines. Great to identify media moments when planning communication measures.

Does many things at the same time:

Structures the thinking and helps to look at one moment in time in group

Helps to empathize (”what might that person do at 11 am?”)

Helps to focus in collecting information.

Sketch a clock face on a large sheet of paper. Put on the table. Use a pen as the timing pointer and move from one moment to the next. Describe moments along.

For paper by 53 users: Download & remix

[anjaebers]

Photo-Rallye

Four cardboard tableaus with 10 frames each, 4 Instax cameras and 4 films made a fun activity for the 40+ children at our party while the grown-ups had a pleasant menue.

For me, this underpins the power of an empty frame - we are used to fill in or complete. That’s why canvases work so well.

Variations of this activity - also for grown-ups:

Replace photographs with sketchnotes, quotes, little objects

Just determine the overall theme (e.g. “10 Moments of glory in our organization”)

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Timeline

A classic concept to put items into a sequence. As this is a concept known in many contexts (classroom, infograph, agenda), a group can work with it right away.

Start with an arrow and some time indicators and arrange items collectively.

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Pyramid to visualize hierarchy

A basic canvas to structure items - like requirements for a new feature or venture in your team - in a hierarchy.

Put large-scale on a flipchart. Have items on sticky notes so you are flexible to discuss and move.

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Transform a flipchart into a magical elevator

Take a group on a travel in time - here is how:

Draw two arrows on a flipchart

Introduce the chart as the Magical Elevator

Travel forward and backward in time by “pressing” the buttons up or down

Pro version: Have numbered buttons on a second flipchart behind the one with the arrows and time-travel to given years.

[canvases2collaborate]

Stay focused with a billboard

Billboards with the meeting’s purpose are an easy and powerful means to stay focused.

Give it a try with a large sheet of paper & the purpose written large scale. Play with frames to underpin the general tone of voice.

Remix a billboard here.

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Learning designer Mathias Jakobsen has taught over 2,000 professionals on how to boost and manage creative thinking. Learn the one simple trick that Mathias uses to help his clients think creatively, and to view old information through fresh eyes.

[canvases2collaborate]

Matrix

Matrixes are a great way to structure & categorize items. They can work like maps, still keeping the details but also enabling an overview - one of the pre-requisites to act on information.

Start off with just with two lines on a large piece of paper and you’ll discover that already the naming of the axes propells your conversations to the next level.

For Paper by 53 users: Download & re-mix

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Realtime Brainstorming and Collaboration

Currently testing Stormboard in order to facilitate brainstorming in a distributed team.

It comes with a vast collection of templates - check it out!