Drawn Together Through Visual Practice
Page 29
What helps me distinguish what work is mine to take on and what work might be better suited for another practitioner?
If we brought a common message to our clients as visual practitioners, what would we say about who we are, what we do, and how we act?
Illustrations by Sam Bradd
My self and my visual practice:
What is the scope of my visual practice?
What ethics guide my visual practice?
What are my primary talents?
What skills do I need or wish to acquire?
When I’m caught by surprise, by something that is said or happens in the room, how do I refocus?
When I am working with emotional content, how do I take care of myself?
What qualities do I need to have as a competent visual practitioner?
What’s one value that I bring to my work? What are some of my other core values?
What can I learn from accessing vulnerability and humility? How do I bring these into the room and to the group?
If I’m working in an unfamiliar context, what resources can I turn to? For example, I might not know the relevant words or images. What do I need to learn or ask before I arrive in the room so I feel prepared?
How can I work to support diverse experiences, across difference, to value and hold all voices and perspectives in the room?
My relationship with the client:
What do I need to share with my clients about the potential of visual language and practices?
What practices can I share to help clients adopt visual thinking?
How can I help clients reflect on the impact I can make?
What do my clients need to know about me and my unique capacities?
What do my clients need to tell me about their projects for me to do my best work?
What enables visual thinking practices to flourish in an organization?
Jennifer Shepherd and Sam Bradd • Reflection and Visual Practice
My relationship with the artifact I am creating:
How do I hold the client’s intent and meeting outcomes in mind while I’m working?
How do I respond when someone asks me to change a drawing?
How do I nourish my creativity?
How do I develop my personal visual vocabulary to keep it fresh and relevant?
What do my visual icons say about my worldview and my appreciation of context?
What technology and platforms do I use for my work, and why?
What helps me choose the emotions, words, and unspoken dimensions (or “elephants in the room”) to capture?
How can the room setup help me do my best work?
When does it matter to accurately represent an idea visually?
My relationship with participants:
What do I need to know about myself to be in service to the group?
What do I need to know—and care—about the group to be in service to myself?
What matters about how I am introduced? What do I need to tell someone who is
introducing me?
What feedback can I ask participants for that can help me reflect, learn, and grow?
If I can’t just show up, set up, and get to work, then what is needed to connect with participants and
the environment?
Can I think of a time when a participant came up to me and described how the visuals changed the experience for them? What did we learn in this conversation?
How do I tap into group dynamics and choose what belongs on the page?
What is my role in orienting participants to the power and potential of visual thinking methods?
How can I help participants use the visuals to reflect?
What emotional impact could our work have for participants? What could thinking about this bring?
My relationship with the facilitator(s):
What conversations do I want to have with the facilitator before a session begins?
Knowing sessions vary, what helps me stay nimble and respond in the moment?
What do I need to know about facilitation to help me be a good partner?
Participants’ relationship with the artifact:
How could the room setup influence participants’ ability to reflect and make sense of their work?
Do participants see the artifact as “something I’ve done for them,” or as “something I’ve done with them?” Does it change how I do my work?
What helps participants feel connected to the artifact and offer input or feedback to the creation? What can happen before, during, and after?
What do participants do as they look at the artifacts?
What activities could I suggest to use the visual artifacts to help participants reflect?
What helps participants make “Big Picture” connections?
How can I measure what matters?
How can I help participants see things they couldn’t see before, and how can they show me things I couldn’t see before?
What activities could help participants reflect on their own drawings?
The client’s relationship with the artifact:
What is the specific purpose of the visual artifact to be created? Who is it supposed to help, with what, and how?
How will this artifact have use after the meeting?
Jennifer Shepherd and Sam Bradd • Reflection and Visual Practice
How could the artifacts be used for reflection after the meeting?
Have you been in a session where the process of creating the artifact was of greater value than the artifact itself? What is different about these times?
Our work and the future:
How might our work be relevant to people outside the room?
How do our drawings influence culture?
If visual practices were integrated into every profession, what would that look like?
How does visual practice shape a future? What becomes possible?
JENNIFER SHEPHERD makes it easy for everyday leaders to clarify what matters, discover new possibilities, and intuitively make their next move. She believes individuals, organizations, and communities can achieve great things when they tap into the latent wisdom within and between them. Jennifer inspires leaders like you to access this wisdom and use it to generate insight and collaborate well. Jennifer is the Principal of Living Tapestries, a consulting practice based in Ottawa, Canada. She holds a Master of Arts in Human Systems Intervention and is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator.
www.livingtapestries.ca
SAM BRADD is a graphic facilitator and specialist in information design. He uses visuals for people that want to engage, solve problems, and lead. Together, we’re drawing change. In the last 15 years, Sam has collaborated with the World Health Organization, Google, indigenous organizations and researchers on three continents. In 2016, his side project the Graphic History Collective published a new book of comics because how we tell histories can change the world. He has a Masters in Education (University of British Columbia). Contact: @sambradd and www.drawingchange.com.
Copyright © 2016
Reference
D. Schon, The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. London: Temple Smith, 1983, p. 55.
.
-o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share