www.yesand.biz 1

Driving to the coast with my children, I played

over in my mind thoughts about a course

design.

Arriving on a cold but sunny beach I found

myself pointing at the sky, using the fluffy

cumulus clouds as virtual “Post It” notes to

construct my course. With startling clarity I

"saw" the course; "The Flexible Thinking

method here, creative styles there, Solution

Focus at that end...," I mumbled.

Onlookers would have seen a lunatic waving his

arms at the sky but my children provided the

perfect excuse for lunacy. My impromptu "cloud

mapping" worked well, it allowed me to get a

sense of how the course would fit together and

I was able to design it quite quickly.

Now let’s track forward in time to a recent

meeting with a client. A programme director,

he had taken on the challenge of turning

around a failing, multi-million pound,

transformational change programme.

CLOUD MAPPING SITE ~ EXMOOR

Project managers were developing new plans

for ten different areas of the project and he

needed to be assured that the plans would

integrate. In addition, he wanted to ensure that

the plans were robust, took into account key

dependencies and that the plan owners’

colleagues would endorse them.

On the team, many people were new and those

with a longer history were low in energy from

fighting fires. Some team building would be

beneficial. We agreed a two day workshop to

tackle the situation. The challenge was how to

design it for maximum success.

Workshop Outcomes

We agreed the following:

Mapping

The Way

Do you and your colleagues have to prepare and share plans for business or

major projects?

Would an approach to present and share separate plans in an integrated way be

of help? One which helps people develop and understand the overall picture in

an interesting and participative way?

Read on….

www.yesand.biz 2

Workshop Design Challenges

CHALLENGE ONE – NEED TO BUILD TEAM

Though it was not an outcome, it was

important to build the team to ensure a

successful planning review. Consequently, the

client agreed to dedicate three hours to run a

Solutions Focus workshop.1 The focus was on

how the team would be working when the

project was on track and achieving milestones.

BUILDING THE TEAM – RICH PICTURE

1 [Please see our previous article on Solutions Focus or

request it from hi@yesand.co.uk ].

CHALLENGE TWO – HOW TO ACHIEVE

OUTCOMES

A common way to share plans is to have people

present them and others feedback but I

envisaged that people would be dozing in the

first presentation and comatose by the tenth.

We needed something participative and

collaborative so stealing a trick from my beach

exercise I decided to use mapping.

Mapping is a technique I use often. For this

workshop I decided it would be a collaborative

and enjoyable exercise to have the teams

create individual maps of the plans and then

pool their knowledge by building these in to a

giant integrated map. I used the type of

mapping that Buzan calls “Mind Mapping”.

For an explanation of Mind Mapping please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map

CHALLENGE THREE – HOW TO ENSURE

CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK

As the project had a history of issues, we

needed to ensure that participants would

review each plan in a considered and

constructive way. To this end, we used a

variation on De Bono’s Six Hats (please see

Page 4).

For an explanation of Six Hats please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats

Running the Workshop

The group of fourteen convened at a hotel near

St Paul’s in London. The room was not ideal,

having no natural light or fresh air but the

group was keen and open-minded about the

workshop.

WORKSHOP OUTCOMES The Group will have:

Developed a high level integrated plan

to implement the System that identifies

why this plan is different to previous

plans

Provided recommendations to

individuals so that they may adjust their

detailed plans

A sound awareness of each plan

www.yesand.biz 3

DAWN ST PAUL’S, LONDON

PREPARING FOR MAPPING

You may ask, why map? Why not just list the

plans on a sheet? Our experience shows that

creating maps enables people to think more

broadly, helps visualise relationships between

different aspects of a topic and is more

interesting than compiling lists.

To form the integrated plan, the group had to

draw their individual maps on a flipchart. As it

is crucial that the integrated map fits together,

I prepared a map framework on the wall before

the workshop.

PARTIAL FRAMEWORK

This framework consisted of two sheets of

flipchart paper on the wall and ten further

sheets of paper around them.

Next, I drew a central image and name for the

map on the first two sheets and plotted broad

lines from this to each of the ten sheets.

Try and make the map attractive with colour,

shading and thicker lines. The teams use these

“marker lines” as the point from which to start

their map. This framework also provides a good

illustration of what the final map will look like.

PREPARING THE TEAM

We warmed up with a “focus” session of

around thirty minutes’ duration. This enabled

the group to relax, review the purpose, clarify

objectives, see the workshop outline and set

the rules for the two days. Through this

exercise and the Solutions Focus session, the

group generated a great deal of energy to carry

forward.

RELAXING START

REVIEWING AND MAPPING PLANS

We arranged the review and mapping into

three sessions. In each session, the group split

into teams, each team reviewed a plan from

different perspectives, provided constructive

feedback to the owners and mapped the plan.

Use 3” x 5” Post It notes to work out the right

configuration of the paper

It’s quicker to use large flipchart markers for this

www.yesand.biz 4

In the first session I explained the end goal of

an integrated map to the group, using the map

framework to illustrate this.

Next, I briefed the group on their review

actions. I gave them a question template (see

box) and explained that they should:

1. Review the documented plan (verbal report

and / or reading)

2. Complete question templates

3. Feedback to plan owner

4. Prepare two flipcharts and record on

flipchart 1:

A brief summary of the plan

Benefits of the plan

Why this plan is different to previous plans

On flipchart 2 record:

The issues the project team must manage

to ensure the plan works

Further data / information that is needed to

ensure the plan can be completed

On whom or what is the plan dependent

Ideas to overcome issues

REVIEWING THE PLANS

The group split into four teams to review one

plan each and had 90 minutes to achieve this.

EXAMPLE REVIEW OUTPUT

Ensure that you record the brief on flipcharts or

on briefing sheets so that people can review

them when needed. Chaos can ensue if you

don’t

To ensure uniformity and ease of sharing

information, you should have a standard format

for the plans people bring. Brief the plan owners

on the format in plenty of time to allow them to

prepare it. It could be PowerPoint or Word

format

QUESTION TEMPLATE ~ EVALUATING THE PLANS

1. What benefits does this plan provide

over what has been done before? To

whom?

2. What makes this plan different to what

has been done before? Why will it work

now?

3. What issues must we manage if we are

to implement the plan successfully?

4. What additional data does the plan need

to ensure we can implement it

successfully?

5. Who or what is this plan dependent on?

How feasible is this?

6. What ideas do you have to overcome

the issues you have noted at “3 - 5”?

www.yesand.biz 5

MAPPING THE PLANS

Following the review, I briefed the teams on

preparing the maps and how they should

format them. Each map had the name of the

plan in a “cloud” at the point where the map

started, to make it easily identifiable.

Be prepared, they won’t all follow the format

suggested, but the starting point (the “cloud”)

is crucial. They had thirty minutes for this

exercise.

EXAMPLE MAP

Whilst the teams completed their maps, they

discussed the plan in greater depth and further

enriched their understanding of it.

It is essential that people record plan

information on each map at a high level,

identifying only the key aspects of the plan.

This enables the group to absorb information

and compare information across ten maps. Too

much detail makes it too complex.

See the example map for an illustration of this

point.

GROUP FEEDBACK ON PLANS AND MAPS

Each team placed their individual map on the

integrated map framework and presented it to

the group along with the review flipcharts.

They had five minutes to feed back and then

ten minutes to discuss the plan with the group.

Allow an hour to feedback three plans.

Each plan owner was able to see where others

were dependent on them, common issues and

ideas to overcome them. They also received

useful feedback from others in the group.

Plan owners took away their feedback flipcharts

to help them revise their plans.

CONTINUING THE WORKSHOP

As the group added more maps to the

framework, they began to see the overall

picture of the integrated plan.

The rest of the workshop consisted of

reviewing the final six plans in two sessions. As

people became more confident with the

process, they speeded up and we achieved the

review, mapping and discussion in 2.5 hours.

As the final map was integrated, there was a

sense of accomplishment and great energy in

the room.

For the first session, we split the review and

mapping stages to avoid overloading the

participants at the briefing stage. Once they had

carried out one review and prepared one map,

we combined the review and mapping of each

for the next two sessions

Ideally, everyone would be experienced in this

type of mapping but this is unlikely so a few tips

on map preparation are helpful. Send an e-mail

to hi@yesand.co.uk if you would like some tips

www.yesand.biz 6

FINAL MAP

CAPTURING THE DATA

When the integrated map is complete, take

digital pictures of each map and use mapping

software (I use Mind Manager Software2) to

make a hard copy map that you can share with

the project team.

Conclusion

Group Mapping is a very useful tool you can

use to share information, prompt discussion

and increase understanding.

It encourages participation, engages people

and can be done in a relatively short time. As

seen in our examples, people can use words,

figures and pictures to express their message

and the map provides a basis for rich group

discussion.

As one delegate said in feedback:

“The enthusiasm of delegates and the output of

a two day workshop impressed me.”

With the information you have here, time and

some facilitation skill, you can conduct a Group

Mapping session yourself.

Try it!

John Brooker Innovation Director. Yes! And…

2 Available at www.mindjet.com

CONTACT:

Write: hi@yesand.co.uk

Speak: 020 8869 9990

See: www.yesand.biz

MAPPING OUR BRANDS

Another client, a chemical company, asked Yes!

And… to facilitate a workshop for the marketing

team. They have grown through European

acquisition and have inherited a number of

different brands. They needed a workshop to

discuss a new brand strategy.

To educate everyone on the similarities and

dissimilarities of the brands, as well as

understand the pros and cons, they planned to

have presentations on the branding in each

country.

As the time available was very short and the

presentations would be after lunch (ideal for

napping), I suggested mapping the brands.

We asked the country managers to bring along

some slides, adverts and / or marketing materials

with pictures of the brands and an assessment of

the pros and cons.

We built a framework as before, except we gave

each country team two sheets to map on. The

teams developed their maps using the pictures

and we built a brand map of Europe.

Each team then made a brief presentation on

their map.

The exercise was very valuable in highlighting

the disparity in the branding across countries and

in building the knowledge of the teams, providing

core information for later discussions.

www.yesand.biz 7

About the Author

John Brooker started his career in the RAF and went on to become

a Senior Vice President with Visa International. He now does what

he loves; running his own company Yes! And…

The company mission is to create successful organisations by

facilitating flexible thinking.

John and his colleagues help teams to think more flexibly by

facilitating workshops, developing skills and advising management.

His particular interest is innovation.

John is a Solutions Focus Professional, a Kaizen Training Black Belt Facilitator and a NLP

Business Practitioner. He also has an MBA from the Open University and tutors on the OU

“Creativity, Innovation and Change” MBA Course.

His regular clients include major organisations such as Visa International and EADS as well as

Government departments.

As well as the UK, John frequently works internationally in Europe, Sub Saharan Africa and

the Middle East. He writes the “Creative Gorilla” articles on creative leadership and flexible

thinking, distributing it internationally twice a month. To sign up, send an e-mail with

“Subscribe” in the subject line and your first and surname.

DON’T HAVE TIME TO DESIGN AND FACILITATE?

Do you want to share plans or other information across your organisation? If you have the

time, you can use this article to design and run a workshop to help you do that, but if you

are short of time or prefer to be part of the workshop, you might like to talk to us.

In Yes! And… we are experienced in using Group Mapping and other approaches for

workshops and have many satisfied clients. We also train people in Mapping.

To discuss how you can use Group Mapping to develop integrated plans, share

information and motivate your team, please contact John Brooker:

Write: hi@yesand.co.uk Speak: 020 8869 9990 See: www.yesand.biz

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PASS THIS ARTICLE ON TO A COLLEAGUE WHO MAY APPRECIATE IT.