How to add some magic to your next planning session

At some point in my career I realized a small investment in technology can pay big dividends.

My first remote clicker let me walk, talk and click (look Mom!).

My first mini-video recorder (remember the Flip?), audio recorder, movie editing software and auto-back-up system—all made life better and moved my business ahead.

And then there was the Magic Wall.

The Magic Wall (some call it a ‘sticky wall’) took my facilitation options to a whole new stratosphere. Finally, I could coordinate a room full of geoscientists, or middle managers, or software designers to design a new strategic plan without a truck-load of flip chart paper.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself – first let’s look at the problem with traditional group brain storming and planning exercises.

First, the problem

If you’re helping your team or your client dissect any kind of mission-critical problem (like stale coffee in the lunchroom) you’ll likely start with a brain dump.

Some call it brain storming, I call it frustrating, because I, the lonely facilitator who is getting paid to make this all come together, now has to wade through too many ideas in too few minutes.

A brain dump is when the team gratefully poops out all their frustration, lame ideas (let’s be honest here, making coffee more frequently, is not a game changer), irrelevant points like coffee farmers in the Peru highlands are getting a bum rap from greedy importers and, of course, the gems we all came for

The trick, with any brain dump, is to cut through the chaff to get to the wheat.

Before using a Magic Wall, I might have had 20 flip chart sheets – many with unintelligible scribbles – that I had to put in order, prioritize, weed through and make sense of.

And for the next 20 minutes I would work up a sweat trying to keep this part of the day interesting and quickly get to the part where I needed the team’s input again. Not fun.

Enter the Magic Wall (you are going to thank me for this).

What is a Magic Wall?

The Magic Wall I use is made of a thin nylon material with a spray-on adhesive glue. I get them from the Institute of Cultural Affairs (I have no idea what one has to do with the other.)

The beauty is that normal paper sticks to the wall. You can also easily peel the paper off, move it and re-stick it – hence the “magic” in the name.

This allows me to collect individual ideas, quickly organize them, prioritize them, label them – all while keeping the audience engaged.

In fact, audiences love seeing their ideas multiplying in front of them. And at the end of your efforts you have a big, bold attractive map, or schedule, or plan, or grid ready to be transformed into a document.

Setting up the Magic Wall

(Above: A Magic Wall after the magic has happened)

For the audience, I pack about 10 1/2 sheets of 20lb (regular photocopy paper) 8 1/2X 11 paper stock for each participant (I use a home paper cutter to cut regular paper in half). For extra points, use different colours to mean different things. For example: red = stop doing, green = start doing, yellow = change how we do it.

I also bring blank legal-size paper sheets for quickly labelling groups of ideas or solutions. This is really helpful for big audiences to help them keep track of what’s developing on the wall.

I give the audience sharpies (fine point) and instruct them to only write 3-5 words on a single sheet.

(Above: A basic kit to set up your Magic Wall)

The Magic Walls I use are big – 5’ X 12’ (1.5 X 3.6m), so it’s a great idea to scout out the room first. Taping over doorways or removing wall sconces might get frowned on. If the full Magic Wall won’t fit, just fold it over (you’ll need help, trust me) so the extra material is tucked in behind and you have a smooth sticky wall facing your team.

A couple of tips

Once you get familiar with the Magic Wall I’m sure ideas will start flowing, like: party games (Hey! Let’s toss the kids and see if they stick!), wall clothes organizer, organizing your receipts for tax time (just fold and mail the sucker to your favourite accountant).

In addition, here’re a few I’ve gathered:

• for big groups, make up pre-printed banner signs (I use legal size paper) with the team names, or subject topic names, or any grouping titles. I position these along the top of the wall before the work begins so the team can see in advance some structure to their work.
• re-spray the glue on the wall (outside!) after 8-10 uses to keep it sticky. I use 3M spray adhesive sold at craft stores, but there are alternatives. Packing the wall is easy (it takes two people), just stretch it out, fold it over, lengthwise, on itself so the sticky side is protected and then continue to fold like you might fold a tarp.
• bring both narrow painter’s tape (to position the Magic Wall on the wall) and wide tape (to fully anchor and finish off the border).
• don’t spray the wall indoors (I did this once in a meeting room – I don’t think I was ever invited back).
• don’t try to make your own. I tried—the results weren’t pretty.
• before you tear down the wall, take a picture of the whole wall and then take individual pictures of each section. The section pictures can be inserted into your report to provide a nice visual reference point.

There you go – easier than pulling a rabbit from your hat, but it’s still magic.