Drawing Together

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Reveal nonverbal insights, diverse perspectives, and emotional patterns regarding a shared experience through constrained visual sense-making.

Use it when: Use when a team is reflecting on a complex change, project journey, or shared challenge and verbal discussion has hit repetitive loops.

Skip it when: Skip when the immediate task requires a hard factual decision, technical data analysis, or when participants lack the psychological safety needed to sketch publicly.

Group arrangement: Individual drawing followed by pairs or triads, concluding with a whole-room harvest.

Timing: Source recommends 40 to 60 minutes for two drafting cycles and structured debrief. Set to 45 minutes for standard delivery.

Materials and tools

• 2 large drawing sheets (A3 or flip chart paper) per person
• 1 sheet of scratch paper per person for practice
• Assorted colored markers (water-based, at least 3 colors per person)
• Pre-cut shape sticky notes (optional access supply)
• Masking tape or pins for displaying work
• 1 timer for the facilitator
• 1 blank flip chart pad and marker for facilitator demonstration

Before participants arrive

1. Place drawing paper, scratch paper, optional pre-cut shape sticky notes, and colored markers at each seat.
2. Set up a blank flip chart pad where the facilitator can draw the five symbols during the opening.
3. Reserve open wall or whiteboard space for posting drawings.
4. Select a single narrative prompt before the session begins.

Say this to open

Welcome. Today we will map our shared journey using a visual language of just five simple shapes, with no written words. I will introduce the symbols, we will take a quick practice round, and then you will tell your story on paper. Let us review the visual alphabet first.

How to run it

1. Introduce the visual symbols 5 minutes

   Draw each shape live on the flip chart: Circle represents wholeness or unity; Rectangle represents support or structure; Triangle represents a goal or direction; Spiral represents change or transformation; Star Person represents relationships or people. Explain that size, color, repetition, and placement add meaning, but no letters, numbers, or words are permitted.

2. Practice drawing symbols 5 minutes

   Instruct participants to take scratch paper and draw each of the five shapes using different sizes and colors. Give participants three minutes to experiment freely, then ask them to set their practice paper aside.

3. Draw first draft 10 minutes

   State the chosen narrative prompt clearly, for example: 'Tell the story of our team journey through this change.' Instruct everyone to draw in complete silence on their first large sheet using only the five symbols. Stop the round at ten minutes.

4. Draw second draft 10 minutes

   Provide a fresh large sheet. Invite participants to redraw their story, intentionally altering scale, color, grouping, and layout to emphasize key emotional turns or focal points. Maintain complete silence until the ten-minute timer rings.

5. Interpret drawings in pairs or triads 10 minutes

   Divide participants into pairs or triads. One person shares their drawing with their partner, remaining completely silent. The partner then spends two minutes describing what story, patterns, and tensions they observe. After the partner finishes interpreting, the drawer may take 30 seconds to state what surprised them or what was unseen. Swap roles until all partners have had their drawing interpreted.

6. Harvest collective patterns 5 minutes

   Invite participants to tape their drawings to the wall. Have the room look at the collection together. Ask two participants to share one recurring pattern across the room, and take one observation on what shape was conspicuously absent.

Debrief questions

• What recurring shapes or patterns show up across our different drawings?
• Where did the interpreter see something in your drawing that you did not consciously intend?
• What did expressing our journey in shapes reveal that verbal conversation missed?

Finished output: A shared visual gallery of individual experience maps and an agreed list of recurring structural or emotional patterns.

Remote

Use a shared online whiteboard board (such as Miro or Mural). The facilitator pre-configures individual framed workspaces with digital shape libraries and digital shape stamps for the five symbols. Conduct drafting rounds individually with webcams off or muted. Form breakout rooms of two or three for the silent interpretation step, utilizing screenshare. Conduct the final debrief in the main room looking across the digital gallery.

Hybrid

In-person participants draw on paper and upload a photo to the shared digital whiteboard, while remote members draw directly on their pre-assigned board frames. Run the partner interpretation round by pairing remote people with remote partners, and in-person people with in-person partners. Reconnect the whole room on the shared screen for the final pattern harvest.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may use simple pre-cut shape sticky notes or basic digital stamps if fine motor sketching is challenging.
• Anyone may decline to post their drawing publicly and instead describe observed room patterns during debrief.
• Participants can pass on receiving peer interpretation and instead observe a partner drawing.

If the session gets stuck

The drawer interrupts their partner interpretation to explain what they actually meant.

Gently pause the room and remind drawers that their task is to listen in silence; the learning comes from the gap between author intent and viewer perception.

Participants write words, dates, or explanatory arrows on the paper.

Remind the room that words must be omitted. If words appear, ask the person to fold or flip the sheet and translate those words into size, placement, or choice of shape.

Terms used here

• Star Person: A stick figure formed by an inverted V for legs, a horizontal bar for arms, and a circle for the head, representing human relationships.