Pro Tip: Save time on synthesizing

David Finnegan

Jan '23 in General discussion & questions

One of the biggest time sinks I see in workshops is facilitators wasting time grouping post-its before voting.

Here’s what I do instead;

1️⃣ I ask everyone just to vote on whichever post-it has their preferred wording.

2️⃣ I synthesize AFTER voting is complete.

This way, instead of going through a bunch of irrelevant post-its that no one voted for anyway, I only need to synthesize the dozen or so post its that actually have votes.

Plus, you don't end up burying a better phrasing at the bottom of a pile of post-its, and you don't kill the momentum of the workshop by spending 10 minutes sorting through a massive pool of ideas.

I'd say this tweak is at least twice as fast as the alternative, which really adds up over the course of a half, or full days workshop.

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