Poster Session

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Enable a group to compare multiple ideas or project concepts quickly without sequential long-winded presentations.

Use it when: Use when many participants bring distinct ideas, models, or project proposals to the table and time does not permit separate slide decks or full-room verbal briefings.

Skip it when: Skip when the group must reach fine-grained consensus on a single detailed document, or when the core challenge requires numeric analysis rather than conceptual communication.

Group arrangement: Individual work or pairs for poster drafting; full group for gallery browsing.

Timing: Gamestorming specifies 20 minutes for poster creation plus open browsing time. UWT sets a 35-minute total running time with structured 10-minute viewing and 5-minute debrief.

Materials and tools

• 1 sheet of flip-chart paper per participant or pair
• Assorted chisel-tip colored markers (at least 2 per person)
• Painter tape or masking tape to mount posters
• 1 pad of sticky notes per participant (for silent comments)
• Fine-tip pens for writing sticky notes

Before participants arrive

1. Clear perimeter wall space around the room so up to 24 flip-chart sheets can hang at eye level.
2. Pre-cut tape strips and set out markers and flip-chart sheets at work tables.

Say this to open

There are more good ideas in our heads than time to explain each one out loud. Your task is to make a visual poster that explains your idea without you talking. It has to meet two constraints: first, it must be self-explanatory so someone walking past understands it on their own. Second, it must be visual, using drawings, diagrams, and labels rather than walls of text. You can illustrate a Before and After, a System of connected parts, or a step-by-step Process.

How to run it

1. Introduce challenge and constraints 3 minutes

   Speak the opening script. Direct participants to choose one clear visual framing: Before and After (why care), System (what parts connect), or Process (how steps unfold). An example of Before and After is sketching a cluttered inbox with sad faces next to a clean triage dashboard with happy faces.

2. Draw the posters 17 minutes

   Participants work independently or in assigned pairs at their tables. They sketch their concept onto flip-chart paper using markers. Give a five-minute warning and a one-minute warning. At time, have everyone hang their poster on an assigned wall space using painter tape.

3. Circulate and review posters 10 minutes

   Ask everyone to stand and walk the perimeter gallery at their own pace. Instruct participants to read quietly without pitching their own poster. Give each person sticky notes so they can leave specific questions or observations directly on posters as they browse.

4. Debrief patterns and next steps 5 minutes

   Gather the full room back together. Call on 3 to 4 participants to share common themes or striking differences they observed across the posters. Point out any unresolved questions left on sticky notes to carry into the next agenda item.

Debrief questions

• Which visual metaphors or diagrams made an idea instantly understandable without words?
• What common patterns or overlapping ideas showed up across different posters?
• Where did you notice major gaps or contradictory assumptions between proposals?

Finished output: A physical or digital gallery of self-explanatory posters annotated with participant questions and reactions.

Remote

Set up a shared digital canvas (such as Miro, Mural, or Google Slides) where each participant gets one dedicated rectangular frame. Participants spend 17 minutes using shapes, digital stickies, icons, and lines to build their poster. During the 10-minute gallery walk, all participants turn off microphones and browse frames freely, adding digital comment stickies directly onto other people's frames.

Hybrid

In-person participants draw physical posters and hang them on the wall; a designated runner takes high-resolution smartphone photos and pastes them into a shared digital canvas. Remote participants create digital frames. Project the digital canvas in the room so in-person participants can view remote posters, while remote participants view photos of the wall posters.

Access and participation choices

• Participants who prefer not to draw can use diagrammatic boxes, flowcharts, bulleted callout cards, or pair up with a visual sketcher.
• Any participant may opt out of creating a poster and instead serve as a gallery reviewer leaving feedback notes.

If the session gets stuck

Participants write paragraphs of dense prose instead of making the poster visual.

Remind the room at minute 5 of drawing that viewers will not read long paragraphs during a fast gallery walk; instruct them to circle key nouns and turn sentences into labeled arrows or boxes.

Posters fall off the wall during the gallery walk.

Use wide painter tape folded over at the corners before the session starts, and keep extra tape rolls handy near the display walls.

Terms used here

• Gallery Walk: An exhibition format where posters are displayed on walls and participants circulate silently to view them like paintings in a museum.