Purpose
To make a pictorial representation of the elements that need to be considered or are important to a particular (project) situation, including stakeholders and issues, and the interactions and connections between them.
Steps
- Using a large sheet of paper and symbols, pictures and words, draw a "picture" (or "mind map") of the situation (project/group) that you wish to discuss.
- Start by asking people to draw all the physical entities involved, for example, the critical people, organisations or aspects of the landscape.
- Ask people to present their rich picture by describing the key elements and key linkages between them.
- If there is more than one group, compare their pictures and cluster the ideas that are similar and those that diverge. In this way you can identify the most important issues to discuss, such as critical topics to focus on or key stakeholders to include in.
Tips / Comments
A rich picture helps to open discussion and come to a broad, shared understanding of a situation. It does not tell you what has changed, although this may come up in discussion.
Think carefully about whom to include in a group. If you want to have a representative picture, then the composition of the group will be different than if you want to have focused perspectives to compare.
You can also use an existing map of the micro region, in order to draw the different items / pictures in.
