Silent writing is a technique used to gather data and information from the team. It is designed to ensure that everyone gets to contribute. If used in a retrospective, this fits the “Gather Data” phase.
Option 1 – Individual writing
Online
Preparation
Use an online whiteboard with preferably anonymous access for all participants. (Mural, Miro are obvious choices. https://zapier.com/blog/best-online-whiteboard/ has a list at the time of writing.) Distribute the link to all participants.
Introduction
Introduce the theme, have the participants join the board, and confirm that they understand how to add notes to the board.
Exercise
Then ask participants to add notes that briefly describe their contribution. Allow five to ten minutes. If the contribution of notes slows down, say that you’ll allow another minute. This give people time to finish long thoughts that might otherwise be lost.
If the board allows for participants to view each others notes as they are added, encourage people to read them and add anything the notes might remind them of. (Some boards have a function that has anonymous notes be invisible until approved. You don’t need that for this exercise.)
Move on to the next step, usually Affinity Mapping.
Face-to-face
Preparation
Provide Post-It notes, markers, and make sure there is a whiteboard or similar available where the notes can be displayed and handled.
Introduction
Explain to participants that they will briefly write down their contribution to the theme on Post-Its. Use Post-It best practice.
Exercise
Encourage them to stand and add their notes on the whiteboard. It only takes one or two doing this for the others to follow. This allows them to seed each other’s ideas.
All five to ten minutes, but let things slow down before stopping, so longer thoughts have time to be expressed.
Move on to the next step, possibly Affinity Mapping, to use the data and information on the board to fulfill on the session’s intention.
Option 2 – Serial writing
Online
Preparation
Use an online whiteboard (see above for resources). Prepare frames (or their equivalent) that can accommodate as many notes as there are participants, and create as many frames as there are participants. Create a separate frame to contain the summary of the others. The exercise description will make this clear.
Introduction
Introduce the theme, have the participants join the board, and confirm that they understand how to add notes to the board. Align the frames, and optionally, number them so participants can keep track.
Have each participant claim a frame by adding a blank note to make it clear the frame is claimed.
Exercise
In their own frame, the participant adds one note with their initial contribution. They then move to the next frame, read the note there, and add their own note to build on the previous one. Then they move to the next frame, and so on. They move, of course, from the last frame back to the first one. Once they return to their original frame, they place a different colored note on the edge of the frame to indicate that they’re done.
Once all frames are done, have them read their frame, and synthesize all the notes. Suggest they consider what’s the same, what’s different, and what surprised them considering their original note. Have them create a summary note of the entire frame, and move that note to a separate summary area.
Using the notes in the summary area, move on to the next step, possible Affinity Mapping, or a prioritization exercise.
Face-to-face
Preparation
This exercise needs to be held in a meeting space with a table the participants can sit around, and has a white board.
Distribute Post-It notes, markers, and larger sizes of paper (legal or foolscap). Give each participant a sheet of paper, and have them mark the paper so they will recognize it later. A number works better than, say, initials.
Have the participant sit around a table, so that materials can be passed around.
Exercise
Ask participants to briefly write down one contribution to the theme on a Post-It note. Use Post-It best practice.
Have them place the note on the piece of paper, then move the paper to the person on their right.
They then read the note just passed to them from their left, add a new note to build on it, place it on the piece of paper, then pass it on to the right.
Repeat this process until their original piece of paper returns to them.
Then have them summarize and synthesize the notes on their piece of paper, and write the result onto a new Post-It, that they then place on the white board in a summary area.
Using the notes in the summary area, move on to the next step, possible Affinity Mapping, or a prioritization exercise.