Run a collaborative drawing session

• TIME REQUIRED

  15 mins
• EFFORT

  Low
• TEAM SIZE

  4 or more
• GOOD FOR

  Team culture

What you’ll need

Physical

If you’re together physically, you’ll need:

• markers
• something to write on

Remote

If your team is working remotely, you’ll need to set up an online tool.

When you choose a tool, think if anyone in your team has accessibility needs and that they’ll be able to easily use it.

Some free tools you can use are:

• FunRetro
• Microsoft Whiteboard
• Miro
• Mural
• Trello

But this is just a list of examples. There are a lot of tools.

Scheduling the session

Set up your meeting at a time where you’ll get the best results.

This means to think about the diverse needs of each of your team members.

Think of things like this:

• Do some people work better earlier or later in the day?
• Does anyone have kids or caring responsibilities that mean they need to start late or leave early?
• Is there a time to avoid due to other work commitments?

Step 1: break into groups

Break your team into groups of 2.

Have each person sit facing away from one another.

If you’re doing this remotely, pair people up in their own breakout rooms or put them in 1-on-1 chats on Skype, Teams or Slack.

Step 2

Give one person a pen and paper and the other person a picture.

If you’re doing this remotely, send your picture in advance and tell everyone they’ll need to have some way of drawing.

The ‘artist’ can use a pen and paper if they can also show their creation using video. Or they can use drawing software such as Microsoft Paint, which is available on most PCs.

If your team use Macs, you’ll need to search for software that works for you.

Step 3

Get the person with the picture to describe their picture to their partner.

The catch is, they can’t use any words to say what it is. For example, if they have a picture of a cat in a hat, they can’t say “oh there’s a cat and there’s a hat.”

Step 4

Set a time for 5 minutes.

Get the artist to draw what their partner described to them.

Once they’ve finished drawing, ask them to share their drawing with their partner.

Step 5

Bring the team back into one group.

Get everyone to share what they drew and chat about how they found the activity.