Visuals are central to facilitating engaging meetings, but many facilitators and trainers lack a strong design muscle. Stop making boring, meaningless slide decks and start bringing visuals into your meetings in a fun, purposeful and creative way that will have a real impact on improving the outcomes of your meeting.

This webinar is a teaser version of our online course Introduction to Facilitating with Visuals. It was recorded live and hosted by the Mid-Atlantic Facilitators Network.

In this episode of Beltway Broadcast, your Metro DC Chapter of ATD hosts Lauren Green. Lauren shares how to capture key insights and takeaways during meetings and events with words and images and discusses the benefits of creating an illustrative record of the session.

Visual tools help people see their ideas in a way that gets people focused and on the same page. Sixty-five percent of the population are visual learners, so if you’re not using visuals, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to engage participants.

Drawing as an adult is different than as a kid or an artist. Drawing as an adult can, of course, be something that you do just for fun, but it can also be purposeful and valuable in the workplace.

The way we frame a discussion has a direct impact on achieving the outcomes of a meeting. Meeting agreements are ground rules, metaphors or principles that help a group understand the expectations of behavior during a meeting.

Facilitators are not illustrators, nor do they need to be; however, basic drawing skills are an essential tool to be able to quickly draw models and create engaging and informative meeting visuals.

When questions and ideas are visualized, it’s easier to identify what knowledge and plans are missing. A visual template works like a silent facilitator, making meetings faster, smoother and easier to facilitate.

A model is a diagram that helps convey a key concept using strategically aligned words and images used in a meeting to encourage a specific mindset or prompt thinking in a new way. Here are eight essential models and how to draw them.

Energizers are the glue that keeps your agenda together, especially virtually. Energizers should always have a purpose, whether building connections, testing the technology or modeling the behavior.

Mural (and Miro) take time to feel comfortable with. We’re not saying don’t use it, we’re saying use it with intention. Start with your design and your participants in mind.