Note & Vote: every team leader should know this!
Next time your team needs to generate ideas or a circular discussion is preventing a decision, break out the sticky notes and sharpies and try Note & Vote.
This simple but powerful exercise is a great way to introduce your team to a better way of collaborating.
All ideas are captured.
Everyone contributes. It’s much more inclusive than regular meetings where senior team members and extroverts dominate the discussion, and others are reluctant to speak up so their ideas are lost.
Bias is reduced, groupthink is avoided, and all ideas are considered based on their merit.
Everyone participates in voting and an outcome is reached much faster than with an endless discussion.
Note & Vote is an essential building block for structured meetings and workshops.
Follow these three easy steps:
Set a timer for five minutes.⏱ Ask everyone to write as many ideas as they can, silently and without discussion, one idea per sticky note. Show them an example related to the topic.
Print their ideas with a sharpie (not a ballpoint pen!), so they can be easily read by others.
Focus on quantity over quality.
When the time is up have everyone place their stickies together up on the wall or whiteboard (or virtual whiteboard).
Again set the timer for five minutes. Distribute three voting dots to everyone, and ask them to review all the ideas on the wall and vote – again silently and without discussion. Participants can just remove any duplicates as they see them.
People can vote on their own ideas
They can put multiple dots on one stickie note
Visualize the results by reorganizing just the top-voted stickies according to the number of votes received.
That’s it! In a very short time, your team generated a mass of ideas, and is aligned on a prioritized list to move forward with!
Learn how to make better decisions faster, and lead a more productive and happier team.
Thanks for reading Collaboration with Rhino! 😊 In future editions, I’ll be sharing content around collaboration, facilitation, innovation & team building. I would love to hear your comments and suggestions!
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If you are wondering if an objective facilitator or workshop could benefit your team, book a free call with me to discuss your specific challenges.