While our process of strategic planning and goal setting incorporates best practices and sets industry standards, the graphic facilitation techniques used by Fountainworks differentiates our process and yields benefits beyond the final product.
In short, we’re visual people! Studies have found that the use of graphic language has the following benefits:
- Graphics promote lasting images and retention of ideas. People retain around 65% of what they see and only 15% of what they hear. The combination of visual and auditory learning increases retention to around 80%.
- The visual process helps organizations reach consensus more often than without graphic language. With no visual language, consensus was reached by 58% of group studies. With visual language, 79% of groups reached consensus.
- Visual maps of information aid in understanding complex system relationships and support the groups’ ability to process large amount of information more quickly.
- Visual language can save valuable staff time and dollars, shortening meetings by as much as 24%.
Graphic methods are highly effective in supporting meetings and processes involving hundreds of participants or small group sessions. We consistently find that group participation increases and respondents are more deeply engaged when contributions are visually acknowledged. Groups are also more creative when they are supported with big-picture thinking, and achieve greater productivity when participants are able to literally see the process.
Mapping information on big displays is also a direct way to understand complex system relationships and the collective memory of the group. These visions, action plans, process relationships, histories, and other information can be distilled into large, “infographic” maps and murals that support knowledge sharing after meetings.