Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.

Help me prepare and run the exercise below. First ask for my participant count, time, setting, access needs and intended result. Check these against the stated limits. Use the supplied rules and materials. Explain any proposed changes before using them, and label them as adaptations. Do not invent source claims or require personal disclosure. Give me one step at a time when I say start. I manage the people, physical activity and clock; do not claim to observe the room. Ask me what happened before choosing a next step.

Reference revision: c9f92702e2ceedb5766e6061ebfab38c5e9e397720d02f54af8c53aa05bf7bff

# Developing Collaborative Perspective

Participants examine a single hidden puzzle piece, describe its details verbally without showing it, and work together to predict the overall image before revealing the full picture.

**Time:** 35 minutes. Source specifies 35 minutes across four phases: 5 min individual, 10 min verbal sharing, 5 min visual sharing, 15 min debrief.
**People:** 4 to 24. Table groups of 4 to 6 people. For groups of 7, create one group of 3 and one group of 4, or run one group of 6 with the extra participant acting as an investigative scribe who tracks clues without seeing a piece. Each participant receives exactly one piece.

## Choose this exercise

**Purpose:** Demonstrate the limits of individual viewpoints when diagnosing a complex situation from partial information.
**Use it when:** Use when starting an inquiry or project where team members hold fragmented context and need to combine clues before reaching conclusions.
**Skip it when:** Skip when the group needs to resolve an active interpersonal conflict or when tactile visual puzzles are unavailable.

## Materials and tools

- One physical jigsaw puzzle per group (under 50 large pieces, recognizable complete image)
- One envelope per participant to hold their single puzzle piece
- Scratch paper and one pen or pencil per participant
- Full completed puzzle image or puzzle box cover kept hidden until the final reveal

## Before participants arrive

1. Select a puzzle with a clear, recognizable scene where no single piece reveals the entire subject.
2. Place exactly 1 puzzle piece into a sealed envelope for each participant.
3. Keep the puzzle box cover or completed image out of sight until the final debrief.

## Say this to open

Today we are exploring how individual vantage points limit what we can see alone and why combining perspectives matters. Each of you has an envelope with one piece of a larger picture. Keep your piece completely hidden from others for now. Look closely at your piece and write down what you think the entire image might be.

## How to run it

### 1. Inspect individual pieces (5 minutes)

Say the opening script. Participants open their envelopes privately, inspect their single puzzle piece without showing it to anyone, and write their initial guess of the full image on scratch paper. For example, someone holding a piece showing blue shingles might guess a doghouse or a cottage.

### 2. Describe without showing (10 minutes)

Within each table group, members take turns describing colors, textures, lines, or shapes on their piece without showing it to anyone. Others ask clarifying questions. The group agrees on a shared prediction of what the whole picture shows based only on spoken descriptions.

### 3. Combine pieces visually (5 minutes)

Participants place their pieces face-up in the center of their table. They look at the actual pieces together, connect interlocking edges if possible, and revise their group guess.

### 4. Reveal and debrief (15 minutes)

Show the full completed puzzle image or box cover to all groups. Facilitate a room-wide debrief using the debrief questions, taking two or three comments per question.


## Debrief questions

- How did other people's verbal descriptions alter your initial guess?
- Where did verbal descriptions fail to convey what you actually saw once pieces were revealed?
- After seeing the full image, what critical context was missing entirely from your sample of pieces?

**Finished output:** A written initial individual prediction compared against a group prediction and the revealed final image.

## Remote

This activity requires physical puzzle pieces. To run a fully online version, replace physical pieces with private image crops. Distribute one unique cropped section of a photograph to each participant via direct message. Participants keep their crop hidden during step 1 and step 2, describe it verbally in video breakout rooms, paste their crops onto a shared digital board during step 3, and view the original uncut photo in step 4.

## Hybrid

UWT hybrid adaptation: Everyone uses the private image-crop version described under Remote, including participants in the room. Each person needs an individual device, a private way to receive one crop, and access to their group's shared digital board. Room participants use headsets, sit apart and keep their crop off shared screens until the reveal. Form groups from the full roster regardless of location using the existing 4-to-6-person plan and the stated 3-plus-4 option for seven. A lone remote participant joins a mixed group. Prepare crops, private delivery, permissions and breakout rooms before starting. Keep the existing verbal-description, prediction, reveal and full-room debrief stages; do not divide into separate location-only cohorts.

## Access and participation choices

- Provide high-contrast, large-format puzzle pieces for participants with low vision, or assign a partner to describe tactile contours and colors privately.
- Participants may pass on speaking during the verbal round by placing a written clue card face-down or simply listening to teammates' descriptions.

## If the session gets stuck

**A participant accidentally flashes their puzzle piece during the verbal phase.**

Remind everyone to place pieces flat inside their envelopes or behind an upright notebook while talking.

**A group insists their single piece is completely meaningless filler, such as solid blue sky.**

Prompt them to describe negative space, color gradient, and edge orientation, which provide boundary data to the group.


## Terms used here

- Vantage point: A specific position or perspective from which something is viewed.

## Sources and adaptation

Observed in Collaborative Discussion Project under activity title '1.2 Developing Collaborative Perspective'.

Retained the four-step structure, group sizing (5 to 6), and debrief focus from the Collaborative Discussion Project source. Added explicit framing of learning goals to the opening script, detailed subgroup arithmetic for non-standard counts, stated limits and separation rules for hybrid settings, and provided an envelope prep procedure to prevent accidental piece reveals. UWT clarified the delivery instructions on September 20, 2026 to preserve the stated task, make participation across locations explicit, and distinguish digital variants from physical procedures.

[Collaborative Discussion Project](https://www.collaborativediscussionproject.com/items-1/12developingcollaborativeperspective)

Current run sheet: https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/2-developing-collaborative-perspective/