Many meetings is conducted by people sitting around a table and just talking, and it seems that we often just talk around the issue or having problem to unite around what we are trying to solve. I have learned that I often have problem with doing several things at the time like listening, formulate an answer to a question, sorting out thoughts and going back and forth between different ideas and pulling facts from memory. We are also often driven with a feeling of what we think is correct or not, but without having all the “facts on the table” and since most of us just can hold between 3-8 things in our head at the same time, where very few of us can hold more than 5 things at the same time, we will have a hard time to come to a conclusion because we will not have the same “picture”.
I know from experience that when using visual aids, like post-it notes and drawing on a whiteboard, often clarifies things and it is easier to talk around the issue, we have a much easier time to see a pattern if we can see the things in front of us, but often there is a resistance to use these tools together in a group. But we know from TV, specially from crime shows that we need to get all the facts on the table using pictures and text, take a step back and a pattern will emerge and we catch the killer. The same thing works when talking about issues, new requirements and plans.
Today I was listening in on a meeting about a small project, it seemed that no one could agree on anything (the issue, the challenges or how to proceed with the meeting) and it seemed that we got nowhere, after 45 minutes it started to feel hopeless and people started to get restless, so I prompted on using post-it’s to explore some of the ideas.
We wrote down the things that was needed to be done and posted it on a whiteboard.
We saw quickly that the original ide was not that huge of a workload or complicated as many felt.
We all felt comfortably that we choose the right solution and everyone knows what to do.
We also agreed on a plan on how to do it.
All in less than 40 minutes.
I was not always a believer; I thought that I could hold everything in my head and never learned to write things down, I am not good at drawing or have a nice handwriting, and I did not like to stand in front of people, not even colleagues, and I did not think that I was “visual”. All but about drawing or having a nice handwriting has changed.
