Marcel van Hove
Co-Founder Visual Friends
Co-Founder Visual Friends
Almost every meeting I sit in and every workshop and training I attend – I doodle. It helps me to organize my thoughts and capture key insights I had. So why do I do it on A4 paper and not in my private notebook? Learn more about graphic facilitation and how to do notes now.
During meetings people often ask me to have a look at my notes and if I would do it in my private notebook, I guess that would not happen so often. It could be seen as lurking into Marcel’s private diary. Who in their right mind would do that? Furthermore I can just put finished A4 drawings in the middle of the meeting table to share them. I don’t need to explain, I just put them in the middle. It happened that someone started picking up the finished A4s and put them up on the wall with blue tag. At this points my note taking activity becomes a group activity and collaboration started. People refer back to the pictures.
So why not using a big sheet of paper. 1.5 meters wide and 3 meters long? I think if I am invited to participate in a meeting as a mate it could be seen as an act of overtaking the meeting or even worse – showing off what a tale poppy I am. Who in their right mind would do that? Remember you are not invited to the meeting as a professional graphic recorder – you just know the value of graphic facilitation in a meeting and want to support the meeting with your doodling!
What’s about A3? I brought A3 paper along and people asked me straight away what I am up to. It is not common to have bigger size paper than A4 on the table. You can do that next time or even better hand over the markers to a person in the meeting who is inspired and wants to participate.
Bottom line, for me A4 paper is the golden middle way . Every office seems to have unending resources of A4 paper – you can steal as much as you want from the printer next to you – At least until facility management catch you.
Have a look at my last vivid stream of thoughts..
Would you like to become a visual leader as well? Join us in the visualisation class here.
Marcel combines agile team coaching with visual thinking. Marcel believes that a group of people drawing together on a whiteboard can change the world. He loves high-performing teams and therefore coaches teams every day.
