Write It, Say It, Slap It

I recently attending a Project Management course provided by Martin Training Associates, and our instructor introduced us to a method call 'Write It, Say It, Slap It'. This method provided so many benefits that I had to share it on my blog. You can use this exercise for any project, brainstorm session, negotiation or meeting. This can also be used in your personal life, as well as your professional one. Each person is supplied with a marker and a pack of post-its. Everyone gets up from their seat, moves to the same long wall and the team is asked to answer some sort of question. "What do we need for the symposium?" "What is the most critical piece of training for new associates?" "What do we need to accomplish during spring cleaning?" Each person will proceed to write and idea/answer, then they say it aloud, and lastly, they smack that idea up on the wall. After 3 minutes, or so, have everyone return to their seats and ask that one person review the items posted with the team. The next step to this process is to start ranking priority or classing sub-groups. This will depend on the kind of project or situation the team is working on. If the team is trying to find out the most important training for new associates, you will be working on prioritizing high to low. Move the post-its around covering duplicate ideas and moving the priorities from top to bottom. If your team is working on a larger scale project, such as a symposium, you will start sub-categorizing and grouping these tasks and needs under larger groups. Travel/Lodging can be listed on a new post-it and several post-its listing things like hotel, food, bus rental, car rental, entertainment, audio/video, and air travel can be placed next to it. Eventually you will work your way up to the large project post-it 'Symposium'. If you are working on a home project like our favorite 'spring cleaning', take your family to the wall or dining table. Have fun using the write-it, say-it, slap-it method and then organize tasks under family members. No matter how large or small the project, or how mundane the subject (cleaning), utilizing every member of the team, and getting them engaged to give their perspective in 3 minutes can get you up and running. Example found on "The Centered Librarian" blog: http://centeredlibrarian.blogspot.com/2009/03/write-it-say-it-slap-it.html Flickr Photo of Post-It layout http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3239/2845921084_beb90b6f90.jpg?v=0