What do most training sessions, practical workshops and business gatherings have in common? They all include a flip chart.
Sometimes flip charts are really well used – but rarely when recording ideas and comments. They can, however, be superb tools to use when pre-prepared. Some examples would be:
- For showing instructions. Picturing agendas.
Working through a displayed graphic track.
These can be neat, colourful and clear. But there’s always two sides to a story…
- The person holding the pen has a perceived ‘power’ by writing.
- Spider scrawls you can’t read, alongside exhausting one colour scripts.
- Filled pages get turned over (and forgotten).
- Distorted diagrams exhibit wonky lines and jumbled intelligence.
The writer is the only ‘worker’. The rest sit or stand and watch on.
What to do?
You can master this craft with facilitation training. But there are only a few people who can truly teach the technique, so choose wisely. Even after training, many still don’t get it. Post-it notes are often used with small, illegible copy with countless colours and are haphazardly placed. The outcome of which is fried brains.
Adopting a precise process combined with custom made cards is a proven tried and tested highly-effective method.
