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: 80cb4075db6aa2ff412060e57d5126bb7acc50d389e613e75478e2150577f164

# Saturate and Group

Participants write individual observations onto sticky notes to cover a shared wall, then cluster them into named themes. Groups summarize each theme into an actionable finding statement.

**Time:** 60 minutes. Evidence mentions 60 to 180 minutes. This run sheet sets a baseline 60-minute session suitable for one round of synthesis.
**People:** 4 to 24. Small groups of 4 to 7 people, each working at a dedicated wall or board. If numbers do not divide evenly, form groups of 4, 5, 6, or 7 without creating groups smaller than 3.

## Choose this exercise

**Purpose:** Cluster raw qualitative observations into coherent themes to identify patterns without premature evaluation.
**Use it when:** Use after field research, customer interviews, or project discovery when a team needs to make sense of large amounts of unstructured data.
**Skip it when:** Skip when the goal is rapid prioritization of already defined options, or when participants do not have actual data or experiences to share.

## Materials and tools

- 1 pad of 3x3 inch sticky notes per participant
- 1 bold felt-tip marker per participant
- 1 roll of painter tape
- Dedicated wall space or foam core boards (at least 4x6 feet per small group)
- 1 pad of 4x6 inch sticky notes (or different color sticky notes) per group for theme headers

## Before participants arrive

1. Clear wall space or position mobile whiteboards so each group has dedicated standing room.
2. Place sticky note pads and markers at each table or work station.

## Say this to open

Welcome. We have collected raw observations and data. Our job now is to saturate this wall with what we saw and heard, then group those notes into clear patterns. For example, if our research prompt is 'What surprised us about onboarding?', write concrete facts like 'Three users missed the activation email', not broad topics like 'Email'. Write one observation per note in large print. Do not filter your thoughts yet.

## How to run it

### 1. Introduce prompt and writing rules (5 minutes)

State the core focus prompt (for example: 'What did we observe about user pain points in onboarding?'). Demonstrate writing one clear observation per sticky note in bold print. Remind participants to capture facts, direct quotes, and concrete behaviors rather than generic labels. Anyone may write as many notes as they have observations.

### 2. Saturate the wall individually (15 minutes)

Participants work silently to write observations, quotes, and facts onto sticky notes. As each note is finished, the author immediately places it onto their group's wall in an unorganized spread. Stopping condition: writing slows and participants have posted all immediate observations.

### 3. Group related notes collaboratively (20 minutes)

Participants stand together at their board. Without formal turn order, they move notes into clusters based on shared traits, related experiences, or repeating tensions. Anyone may move a note. If a note fits two clusters, write a duplicate. Stopping condition: all notes belong to a cluster, with standalone notes left distinct.

### 4. Name themes and write findings (15 minutes)

For each cluster, the group creates a header using a large sticky note. Beneath each header, the group writes a one-sentence finding statement explaining what the cluster reveals about participant needs or experiences. Example header: 'Sign-up friction'. Finding: 'Users drop off when forced to create a password before seeing product value.'

### 5. Brief gallery walk and debrief (5 minutes)

Groups spend three minutes circulating to read neighboring boards. Ask each person to look for one cross-cutting pattern. Reassemble as a full room. Ask for two volunteers from different groups to share one major pattern noticed across boards.


## Debrief questions

- Which cluster surprised you by combining notes from very different moments?
- What is the clearest tension or unmet need shown on your board?
- Where did you find notes that resisted grouping, and what might that tell us?

**Finished output:** A shared wall organized into distinct thematic clusters, each labeled with a header and a concrete finding statement.

## Remote

Set up an online canvas tool such as Miro or Mural with dedicated boards for each subgroup. Participants generate digital notes simultaneously during the saturate step, work in breakout video rooms to group notes into clusters, and label each theme with a colored text card.

## Hybrid

To keep parity, choose one mode for all participants. If working digitally, replace physical wall materials entirely and have in-person and remote participants collaborate inside the shared digital canvas using laptops. If working physically, assign a dedicated in-person partner to each remote member to scribe and position physical sticky notes on the wall from spoken or chat input.

## Access and participation choices

- Participants who prefer not to stand may sit near the board or hand written notes to a peer runner.
- Participants may focus on clustering and organizing existing notes rather than writing new ones.
- Participants may pass on speaking during the gallery walk debrief.

## If the session gets stuck

**Notes are too vague, containing single words like 'Communication' or 'Time'.**

Pause the room. Remind everyone that a note must contain a full observation, such as 'Staff had no shared calendar for shifts', so that anyone reading can understand the context.

**One participant takes over the board and directs all grouping decisions.**

Introduce a three-minute silent sorting rule where everyone moves notes without speaking before returning to verbal discussion.


## Terms used here

- Saturate: Placing every raw data point or observation onto a board until the space is filled.
- Finding statement: A single sentence explaining the meaning of a pattern of observations.

## Sources and adaptation

Observed in Relationship Makers Handbook, pages 349-350.

Retained the core mechanic of saturating wall space with post-its, clustering into themes, and deriving findings from Relationship Makers Handbook. UWT structured the 60 to 180 minute source range into a 60-minute agenda, set clear subgroup arithmetic, added explicit examples, provided an aligned hybrid setup, and structured the debrief.

Current run sheet: https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/saturate-and-group/