Materials needed:

• Blank cards or post-its
• Pen/pencil per person
• Flip chart paper
• Masking tape
• Focus questions

Staff and Participant Roles:

• Discussion Moderator: a staff member who leads all groups in the large activities
• Facilitator: a staff member at each table who leads small group discussions and takes notes on participant discussions
• Participant Leader: a participant chosen by each small group who reports out to the large group

Before the Meeting: Develop Questions

A successful activity is guided by good questions. Here are some quick tips to keep in mind when developing questions:

• Participants should be able to answer the questions without a lot of technical knowledge.
• Aim to ask questions that draw on participants’ experiences.
• Ensure questions reflect areas of your project on which your participants can provide meaningful input.
• Limit yourself to one to three questions – this process takes some time and you want to be able to get through them all!

For example, during your visioning workshop, you might ask: “What would you like to change about your neighborhood?” This question is easy for participants to answer as it draws on their own personal experiences and preferences. Once you have your questions, you’re ready to conduct the activity!

Step 1: Individual Brainstorming

One of the most challenging parts of facilitating meetings can be to get all participants involved in the process – including the ones who are less vocal! Card storming provides everyone the opportunity to write down their individual ideas on sticky notes before coming together as a small group. For the introverts in the room, or those who are internal processors, this step will be key to including their voices in the conversation.

Instructions:

The facilitator asks the first card-storming question and then instructs participants to silently write down as many ideas as possible on their own for a set amount of time. Note:

• Each idea should be written on an individual sticky note.
• The facilitator should ask the participants to write legibly as others will be sharing out their responses.

Step 2: Small Group Consensus

Once the individual brainstorming time is up, it’s time for small group consensus building! Participants likely came up with a lot of ideas on their own and once those ideas are combined, you’re up to a lot of sticky notes! Now it’s time to narrow them down and see what the whole group values most or prioritizes.

Instructions:

Go around the table and have each participant share out their answers to the question. Facilitators should then lead the group in a discussion to collectively decide on their top three to five ideas. The small group should choose a Participant Leader to post the top sticky notes under the question posted on the wall or on an easel board.

Step 3: Repeat Steps 1-2 (optional)

You have two options at this point:

1. Repeat steps 1-2 for the remaining questions posed to participants.
2. Continue on with steps 4-6 for your first question before starting over at step 1 with your next question.

Both options can work well – it just depends on the amount of time you have and how the activities are progressing.

Step 4: Large Group Report Out

This is a simple step: The Participant Leader from each small group should now report out their top sticky notes to the large group. Participants can ask clarifying questions about ideas and get a sense of how other groups interpreted and answered the question.

Step 5: Identifying Themes

After sharing all ideas, the Discussion Moderator will ask the large group to suggest where to place each idea to form clusters of sticky notes with similar ideas or themes (duplicate ideas should be placed together). The Participant Leaders should move the sticky notes according to the large group decision.

Step 6: Giving Names to Themes

Now it’s time to build some consensus among the whole group!

You’ll want to start by building themes with similar ideas. In your visioning workshop one group might have suggested “Add a sidewalk on Main St,” while another answered “Update the crosswalks at the South Street and East Street intersection.” Both ideas could be placed under a theme such as “Improve Connectivity” or “Pedestrian Safety.”

It is crucial to involve the large group in this discussion to ensure you understand the intent behind their ideas. If you don’t clarify with the participants, later, back at your desk, you’d have to make some assumptions about whether the participants want to improve connectivity or increase pedestrian safety. By having participants name each cluster of ideas, you’ll know for certain what their intent, motivation, and ideas really are. Also, by putting a name to the stickies, you make sure that all participants agree with how their feedback is being interpreted.

Instructions:

In this step of the activity, you’ll ask the large group to agree upon a theme name for each cluster of sticky notes. The Discussion Moderator should write this name on a sticky note and post it above the participant notes.

Step 7: Last Thoughts and Questions

Once all stickies have been posted, clustered, and themed, it’s important to give participants a chance to ask questions, point out missing information or ideas, and clarify their responses. Set aside some time at the end of the workshop to make sure all these items are addressed and ensure that everyone leaves with a sense that their time was well-spent, and their feedback was useful.