Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity

Chapter 12. Visual Planning: Using Graphic Templates to See the Big Picture

Many of the meetings that organizations hold are focused on planning. Teams do action planning at the beginning of projects. Nonprofits create plans for grant proposals to foundations. Business functions create plans for their annual budgets and goals. Management teams plan strategy. Where idea mapping and storyboarding address creative processes, planning is what organizations do to get agreement and alignment in preparation for action.

Years of leading strategic visioning processes gave The Grove insight into the repeating kinds of visual strategies groups want to use in planning. We have evolved standard graphic templates and processes for different kinds of planning, beginning with strategy. We formalized the tools during the 1990s, when the Internet was exploding and businesses were head over heels trying to both take advantage of the new developments and cope with all the changes. This is the story of how these came to be is a case study about the value of visual planning.

MAKING SENSE OF SLIDES

Twelve separate slide presentations created an avalanche of information for the center and lab directors at HP. By capturing key elements systematically on a big wall I was able to give them a complete overview of lab activity.

HP Labs Looks for New Business Ideas

The concept of having graphic wall templates for planning ...