 Absolutely. Are you ready to get started? Yes. All right. Good afternoon. My name is Lynn Kazayli and I'm from Down Under in Australia and very pleased to be here in Bangalore. Now if you haven't got a notepad in front of you, you can't continue. So I'm going to give you 90 seconds to get tooled up and get equipped for this session because it says workshop. Work. Shop. Workshop. You'll need a notepad and pen or if you've got a tablet you'll need some capacity to draw. No typing. Doesn't build muscle memory. We want to build some muscle memory today to get some visual agility or some visual mojo, some visual confidence in communication to be able to engage and collaborate. Any pen, any sort of marker, write on the tablecloths if you need to. There's not enough paper going. That's right. Just share the pages around. There we go. All right. So let's get started. I'm interested when I go to conferences and events as a delegate and as a speaker to find out how people are capturing the wonderful ideas that they get as they're hearing speakers. But then as I get to know you and then I get to see some of the speakers at the conference, I'm also interested to see how people convey information and how they present and pitch their message and influence and persuade. And then most of all I like to hear about how people collaborate and work together, especially in the agile space because we want to make sure that we're the sort of people that people want to work with. You know, Dr. Phil, great American psychologist, he says, how much fun are you to live with? If you're in a relationship, it's a great thing to think about. But when you're a colleague, a work colleague, have a think about how much fun are you to work with? And I want you to be an enjoyable and fun, not necessarily entertaining kind of person to work with, but someone who's worth working with. And with some of the work that I do, stepping in and out of businesses and hearing about more about agile over the last couple of days, we hear about things that we're needing to deliver quality software sooner, that we're wanting to reduce waste and we want to create value and we want to solicit feedback. And we also want to leverage time and play well with others. So we've got a lot of these driving things that we need to do. But then when I do step in and out of businesses as a communication specialist, I hear things like misunderstandings, conflict, ambiguity. Oh, I thought you were talking about, oh, is that what you mean? Reworking, going over things purely because of misunderstanding, breakdowns in communication. And on top of that, we have to innovate faster, deliver quicker and collaborate better and be just awesome, agile superstars on the planet. So the girl with the dragon tattoo is one of a trilogy of books by the author, Steve Glasson. And the girl in that movie, she has a fetish with ink, tattoos everywhere. I have no tattoos, but I have another ink fetish. And it's with chisel tip markers. The girl with the chisel tip marker. And I think there are three key ways that you can make use of a humble marker, but particularly a chisel tip. And I want to share that with you today. And that's why it's a workshop. I'm going to talk for a little while, but then we're going to do some active stuff around building your visual capability. Now, I think you know the power of visuals. But I wonder how many of you actually are using them every day? People say, Oh, you've seen your book, or I've seen the work that you're doing. I wonder, when did you pick up a marker last and use visuals to communicate and collaborate with others? That's the question. This is not about art. With respect to the art project going on. This is not art. This is about communication, collaboration, the race to meaning and understanding. The person who understands and communicates the quickest is the winner. This is about co creating, co designing, co elaborating, which means together. But I also think it's about your ability to influence, to engage and to persuade people with your thinking. Now, have you walked in here going, Oh, I can't draw. Who's thinking that? I can't draw. I don't draw. Oh, you're all artists. Fantastic. So two people put up their hand. Who can draw? Okay, and who can't draw? Yes, alright. So this is not about art or whether you can draw or not. That's very much about you. That's very self centred. This is about them. This is about users. It's about your colleagues. It's about the stakeholders, the sponsors. It's about the team members you work with locally and remotely. It's about them. And it's about them understanding you, getting your thinking and getting your messages. Jim Benson of Kanban fame. He was in Australia last year and I did some of my visual notes for one of his sessions. And he had a look at it and he said, you know, I think a lot of people are afraid to show their thinking. So not only might we be afraid to stand up and speak, but now I'm talking about standing up and drawing. Two things. What if you're speaking and drawing? How much more embarrassing could that be? So today, I'm going to give you some skills so that you can capture your thinking, convey it to people and work well with others and not worry about whether it's good enough or whether you can draw or not. Because here's what I think you can do with the chisel tip marker. I think there are three key uses or three key applications. So you might want to start the visual process by replicating this typical Venn diagram. If you've drawn one of those before. So if you're ever wondering how could I use visuals? That is hand drawn images. How could I use them? Here are three key ways that I think you can use them. The first one is to capture. So to capture your thinking, your ideas, your thoughts, capture feedback, capture conversations. Often when we're in meetings and conversations, all the great thinking evaporates up into the air conditioning vents. And I think we can use visuals as a way to sort of net it and bring it in and capture the great ideas, conversations, feedback, suggestions that people have. We can use it as a filter, as a distilling process. Thank you to the people who've retweeted my visuals that I've created on the iPad yesterday and today. What I was doing was capturing someone stands here blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, speak, speak, speak and I'm capturing just the essence, the key points. So first of all, you can use visuals to capture your thinking, capture ideas, capture information. Distill it, summarize it down. You don't have to write everything. So here's an example. There's me at the wall. You might know this as graphic recording or scribing or sketch noting. And its increase in popularity is booming. So people are using it at conferences like this to capture key points that are being discussed. So I train people in this, but I also use it, so there's a visual of the agile manifesto. There's a visual of the Atlassian business where they're talking about using agile in organizations beyond software. And there's some pictures of me using the iPad. And the best stylus in the world is that. I've tried them all, but I find that using finger on the iPad is the best. The app I use is called brushes, but there are plenty of other drawing apps. Sketches, ink flow, Procreate, iPad. If you've got an iPad here, get one now. Just get a free one so that you can start practicing and start using it. So that's capture. But it's only the tip of the iceberg. It's only the little first part of the big picture around visuals. The second area or the second way that you can use visuals is to deliver your message and to deliver information. I'm doing it now. I'm doing it now. I've drawn a model and I'm using this model to convey information, to be my structure. I'm not standing here flicking through 32 slides with dot points. In fact, I worked with the PMO project manager of Bupa in Australia, so Global Healthcare Brand. And he was about to embark on his Asia Pacific tour. He was taking his 32 slide deck and his laptop and he was going around all the offices to roll out the new project methodology. And I challenged him. I said, pull the plug. Go unplugged. Don't use PowerPoint. I'd have to use PowerPoint. But we worked together quickly and briefly and we distilled his 32 slides down to seven flip charts that he created live in the moment in the room every time. At the end of his first day's presentation, he sent me a text and it said, wow, it was awesome. He said, people got up out of their seats at the end of the presentation and started interacting, picking up a marker, adding to the flip chart, pointing at it, touching it. I'm not seeing you run up here touching this screen. It's very difficult to collaborate, interact and touch this digital thing. And this is some of the irony or the paradox. We work in this highly technological field but some of the best skills we use are human, the basis of human communication. So I encourage you to use visuals to convey your message just like these people are here. So senior leaders with Nestle, TabCorp, National Australia Bank and here are some of the flip charts from the Bupa presentation that went around the Asia-Pacific region. It's a great way to keep people engaged. And then the third way that you can use visuals, so at any time you're thinking, yeah, but how could I use this? Think to capture, to convey, or the third one, this is where the magic happens, to collaborate, to sit down together and problem solve. Don't just talk, get a page in front of you or a whiteboard in front of you so you can map it out. So I can see what you mean. I see what you're thinking. It looks like this. This is all strong visual language. And here's some visuals from the team along the bottom from Nestle so their new product development team. They had a spreadsheet for, if you had an idea at Nestle and you wanted to put it into practice, you had to follow their 72 steps to bring that product to fruition. You know, encouraging innovation. Bring your idea up now follow these 72 steps. So what we did was not so much re-engineer the spreadsheet, the spreadsheet still exists. The detail sits back here, but in front of it we created a visual map of the key steps that you must follow that sit as almost chapter headings for the spreadsheet. You cannot engage people in a global organization like that with a spreadsheet. Hey, have you got a great idea? Quick, follow these steps. No. Have you got a great idea? Follow this visual journey on four big visual charts that were reduced down and included in training manuals and books and were laminated and distributed around the organization. Guess what's happening now? People are following the process. They're actually remembering the process because they can see it in their mind's eye. So I like to say that a small visual anchor can hold a weight of information. A small visual anchor will hold a weight of information. You don't have to write everything down. So capturing information, ideas thinking, delivering information and conveying it, or working together. But I think there's some more to this model. A bit like how air flows over an aeroplane wing. Across the top you've really got to choose carefully. Pick your context. You may not want to draw pictures of rainbows if you're talking about a crisis. And you may not use capturing techniques if it's collaboration that you're wanting to do. So choose your context. And then along the bottom I think there are two other things to consider. Firstly, competence. I learned the skills that I have and I teach people with visual thinking skills. So we're going to learn some of these skills today. You can regain your competence so that you'll be better at this, that you'll feel more confident. And I think this is this is the piece that's missing for a lot of people. That sense that I will stand up and draw something and people won't know what it is. Well here's the tip. If you draw something like I did once, a team were talking about sticking their neck out. So I drew a giraffe. Except I didn't really make the neck long enough. And it looked more like a llama. So what did I do? I wrote the word giraffe with an arrow. And people said yeah that's right a giraffe. So if you've drawn something it doesn't quite look as you were expecting. Just write the word and put an arrow. And it will go straight to the brain. People will get it like that. They won't judge your your drawings. So the intersection in the middle when you're able to capture, convey and collaborate I think is what's called visual agility or visual mojoes having that ability to be able to step into any situation, step up, have the confidence. You've got some skills to do it and you'll be able to help a team perform quicker, communicate more clearly and your message will be getting across a lot, a lot better, a lot swifter. Okay are you ready? Yes! For what? Great question. Here's the question. Here's the thing. John Mayer who I think has just become single recently. I think he's split up from Katy Perry if I read the headlines correctly. But John Mayer is a great singer, songwriter, producer, TV host, author, highly creative man. He said if you started something two weeks ago by today you'd be two weeks better at it. If you started something two weeks ago by today you'd be two weeks better at it. So let's have a look at what we can do today to continue doing over the next couple of weeks and we will have this visual thing totally sorted. So are you ready to roll? Here we go. I'm going to draw on my iPad today and have a little wonder. Shoulder rolls, you ready? Because how often do we sit at computers typing or standing and talking and some of our handwriting skills may be diminishing. So shoulder rolls, let me see that. Come on. Oh what's she doing? Oh this is silly. Okay all right here's the girl with the chisel tip marker. Here's the description. Here's what it's all about. Two main types of markers in the world. Most conference venues and workplaces have this one. It looks like this and it's called the bang bullet tip, bullet tip marker. So it's got a rounded tip and lovely that someone provided a marker here. So I picked it up and I had a look and it's a bullet tip. So it's got a rounded tip. If you know this already this will be lovely revision. If you don't know this right now, now could be an incredible changing moment in your life because here's what a bullet tip marker will do for you. Consistency. It's as if I'm speaking at the same volume the whole time. It's incredibly boring. Bullet tips only give you that one sort of layer or level of communication intensity. So when you look at a whiteboard or a flip chart or a notepad that's been written with a bullet tip marker it's all the same volume. But here's why I like chisel tips. I was watching the ski jump at Sochi, the Olympics last week, terrifying. One of the reporters went and stood at the top of the ski jump and she could barely go out onto the take-off area. She said it's so steep and that's exactly what a chisel tip marker looks like. Because you've got two or three tips. If we write with the high point of the chisel and if you don't have one handy I've got a couple in my bag so I can have a look at them later. But if you make sure the high point of the chisel hits the page you get something that looks like a bullet tip. So straight away bullet tip markers are redundant. They need to all be packaged up and sent to outer space because they are just not useful. We've already made them redundant. I will never buy a bullet tip again. Repeat after me. I will never buy a bullet tip marker again. They were cheap. So here's why I like chisel tips. Now I'm simulating this here but I'll perfectly show you with real ones that if I made that whole side of the ski slope hit the page it's going to come out thicker like that. So now I've got some visual variety. I can have some communication at this level. It's like a volume knob. Some at say level five and then when I need something to be really loud important bold like a heading a big decision that can be bigger and bolder and louder. But similarly if I flip the pen around and make sure that the lower point where the where the ski jumper comes off the jump if that hits the page that's this part down here it's a lot lighter. It's like a whisper. So now I've got these visual communication power. Some points are going to be volume five. Some can be nine ten very loud and some can be whispers sitting in the background. And if you're still using a bullet tip I'm going to come check on you in a few weeks time. Your communications is going to be less powerful less impactful and I want you to have powerful impactful communication. So let's get some skills going on. The first thing we're going to get you scribing in your book is the foundation of all visual thinking. Lines. Really exciting. Here you go. Keep pace quickly with me. Let me make that a bit thicker. So lines we've got drop lines so that's just making the marker drop down the page quickly. Ninja strokes quick strokes are straighter. Don't stand there trying to make a line straight just so drop lines horizon lines level with the horizon and then as if you're throwing the pen across the page they're called throw lines and you can go wobbly dots and dashes. You'll be able to go back have a look at some of the visuals I've tweeted yesterday and today and you'll be able to see them in a whole new life because I'm beginning to unpack the tools that I use to capture convey and collaborate. The first foundation is line. The second is you know if I got a room full of architects I have designers, artists they'd say the world's made up of three main shapes what are they circles squares triangles circle squares triangles so before I start trying to sketch anything to communicate my ideas I think firstly what shape is this what shape are they talking about or I can use the shape as a container to hold some important text. So let's first talk about circles circles are great to represent things to do with community oneness wholeness collaboration communication watch people's hand gestures they'll say this whole project needs to be killed off that whole team our whole organization watch people's hand gestures they are speaking in circles so you would say thank you very much I will base this discussion or I'll capture these points and I'll represent them in a circle so don't worry if it's crooked or doesn't meet up properly we've had enough of clinical powerpoint correctness we want to see some human artisan handmade beautiful handmade breads handmade curries made with love same with your communication so circles and the best friend the oval how about a circle in a circle in a circle with some little feet and a throw line with an arrow and now we've got something that's starting to represent a target a goal and objective and outcome so if I looked around the room after one of your planning sessions or meetings or workshops I might see pages of scroll and scribble but my brain is looking for patterns and if I can scan around the room and see a visual of a target with some information on that page my brain will immediately sort and package that information and say that is all to do with targets goals strategies circle in a circle in a circle classic Venn diagram if you've got three things to present Todd Little did this morning he talked about what was it ability passion and fit similarly I've talked about capturing conveying collaborate so when you've got three things that come together a Venn diagram or maybe what you're thinking could be represented in more of an evolutionary model that you need to do this first then will evolve to this then we'll go to that then that so instead of clicking insert chart element or smart art go have a look and then draw those so a team I was working with last week did it really quickly they changed their charts that they'd inserted the digital ones from PowerPoint recreated them hand drawn and inserted them in PowerPoint and then drew them live people going wow look it's not perfect it's human it's been made by human circles terrific for representing processes or iterations you know spirals springs all right let's keep moving have a look at squares squares or the best friend of the square is the oblong squished squares are great to represent structure process do this then this then this follow the rules don't step outside legislation says the boss says stick within the lines so squares and structures are good to represent what did we see yesterday in a session on windows so very structured but we can zoom in or zoom out having a look across the horizon here in Bangalore I saw structure so he's a quick way to draw a city or town or some buildings but if I just look at that and see that horizon on the horizon I may not know what it is so give it the label give it the verbal Dan Rome in his book the back of a napkin he also wrote the book blah blah blah he says years ago we used images on cave walls and hieroglyphs to communicate but then we learned words and unfortunately if it were a seesaw it's tipped in favor of words and we spend a lot of trying time trying to get clarity with words so he says and I agree let's just bring the balance back so if I've drawn something like that I want to have a picture but keep having a vision keep having a verbal or a word with it now this could be a city but I could write the word city but I think I'm going to write the word Bangalore so now we know that this is a specific city my brain gets the pattern yes got it thank you very much so squares great to use to represent say a process or a number of steps whenever I have to represent information in say twos threes four sixes eights nines I'll think about how it might fit into a structure of a square and then the third shape before we start drawing fancy stuff is the triangle so that's more about hierarchy achieve this then this then this Maslow hierarchy of needs apparently he never put it into a triangle somebody else did so that it was easy for us to understand and remember and many a business model has been represented by a triangle same with squares same with circles so use them to use them to represent the things you're thinking about and wanting to convey with up to others think about using shapes to capture your thinking and think about using shapes when you're working with others and collaborating so triangles you can show hierarchy progression or my favorite the ladder so now it's starting to embed a metaphor into achieving a number of layers so one of the tools I work with with organizations is a ladder of engagement how do we get from lower levels where people are disengaged or stagnant up to neutral up to higher levels of being engaged and advocating and engaging others so a ladder metaphor works for that but the classic triangles fast forward circle squares and triangles are on so many of the devices we use and that we design create for others so let's use them in our own communication fast forward one of my favorite triangle shapes actually it's triangle and oblong are you ready for awesome it's the block arrow yes even better if you put words on the inside the tip is write the words first then the shape they'll always fit write the words first then the shape so shapes can be great containers for text and your thinking so when the teams communicating collaborating think about capturing these things in shapes here are some other shapes cloud shapes speech bubbles thought bubbles so we can borrow from the world of cartooning so here's what this person's thinking so if I was working with a group and they were giving me suggestions if I was facilitating a meeting I wouldn't write them in a boring list on the board I might write them all like popcorn across the page in speech bubbles here's what people said here's what people were thinking making your writing worth looking at making your communication worth engaging with and I'd love to show you some more icons we're going to build up some more over the next next few minutes tell me what's the global sign or global icon for innovation light bulb light bulb here's how it goes squiggle squiggle squiggle circle squiggle squiggle dash dash dash squiggle squiggle squiggle circle squiggle squiggle dash dash dash dash have a go at that squiggle squiggle squiggle so that's for the bulb element part the bulb that screws in then the circle shape then another squiggle for the element and then some what are called emphasis lines that again borrowed from cartooning is to show life and energy and that it's on so when I'm capturing my thinking and innovating I'll always draw a little light globe in the corner of a post-it note or the corner of a flip chart or the corner of my notepad to go this was my thinking at the time a symbol that my brain will be able to recall and store and go to quickly I was sitting out by the pool here yesterday and I noticed all the birds circling and I remember drawing birds in school primary school so let's draw a couple of birds and two of these are flying information so two birds flying information and then connect them with some drop lines now I've got a book so I can put some horizon lines in there for gosh any sort of icon any sort of book publication as long as you give it the visual and the verbal so I've drawn icon now say what it is what's the name of a great book the what's and the where seven seven habits of highly effective people great so I might just go seven habits shorthand with an arrow great book if I want to show the closed book two drop lines or an oblong and then a diagonal at the top and closing that top so anytime you've got to represent a document a report a plan minutes notes any sort of publication report anything that's going to be produced created by humans I'll use an icon or a symbol like that either making notes in a meeting capturing notes from a conversation or maybe using it when I'm presenting to a team and recently a team were talking about delivery as we do and one of the guys in the session said what would you draw for delivery and someone else in the room said I know draw a guy on a motorbike holding a pizza and I said good luck with that because that's complicated I've got to draw the person and the motorbike and the pizza to represent delivery there are much more simpler icons than we realize and we live by them every day coming into the airport at Bangalore I'm looking for the little picture of the person with a hat that says customs or immigration I'm looking for the symbol of the square with the handle that says baggage collection I'm looking for the symbol of the vehicle that says transport so our lives get driven as we know by a lot of the icons that we create let's use them for ease of communication and one of the best ways to draw delivery is that give it some emphasis lines to show movement or progress and it's much quicker than drawing a guy on a motorbike you know oh he's holding a pay oh come on it's too complicated my brain will be going what what is that all right let's get some skills building and some icons into your mental vocabulary fresh page this is going to be big work fresh page it's called the speed sketch game are you ready I'm going to read out some icons some names of things and you're going to sketch them really quickly and you'll save your judgment till the end won't you so if you could here's a challenge if you can draw up a grid of 25 squares I know mathematically challenging huh because we're going to have 25 icons ready ninja strokes four drop lines four horizon lines and a border around the outside and you should have 25 squares so what I'll do is I'll read out some of the things that I sketch most frequently and I'll give you a couple of seconds and you're going to sketch one in each box as we're going I'll tell you some of the ways that I use these these icons are you ready yes okay first one think about what shape is it that'll help you sketch it the first one is top hat a top hat brick wall brick wall brick wall I'll often draw a brick wall when I want to represent obstacles barriers things getting in the way of a team or project brick wall hula hoop hula hoop hula hoop morse code morse code morse code communication tool from years gone by morse code tape measure a tape measure or ruler measure or ruler ruler tape measure or ruler so I'll use that to represent metrics measurement evaluation an igloo an igloo if I was an eskimo I would live in an igloo so I sketched that last week when a team said they were putting the freeze on a particular project a diamond ring diamond ring great to represent value precious engagement commitment you know diamond ring ice cream cone ice cream cone newspaper it's great to hear the the pens going quick strokes good picture frame picture frame picture frame either hanging on the wall or sitting on a bookshelf picture frame that's right someone left your team you might put a picture of them in in a picture frame uh bull's eye bull's eye or target bull's eye oh we've already done that one bull's eye bull's eye ball and chain so if you're a prisoner a ball with a chain that you couldn't run away from the prison camp ball and chain I'll use that to represent when people are being held back or there is resistance so I might write words and then have a ball and chain connected to a visual icon there spider's web spider web good for danger risk trouble a broken heart broken heart shooting star shooting star shooting star flying across the horizon I'll often sketch that to show success strengths winning coat hanger coat hanger a pencil credit card credit card a ghost a ghost a t-shirt a t-shirt a wine glass wine glass come on it's a speed sketch game nearly there coffee cup coffee cup a crowd of people a crowd of people should have you should have two left yeah the internet and the last one light at the end of the tunnel light at the end of the tunnel when people are feeling challenged but they can see the end in sight they often say I can see light at the end of the tunnel so well done you've done the speed sketch game have a quick look share with your neighbors see how similar your sketches are and then I'll I'll wrap up the session so just a moment to have a look and then we'll come back to the bigger group ladies and gentlemen if I can have you back to the group just to wrap up picture of your coffee cup team did some global research and they asked thousands of people to draw a coffee cup and most people draw it with an oval shape of an angle so you can just see inside the coffee cup so if you've drawn it like that you're very normal if you've drawn it slightly differently you've got some innovation going on there of these icons you've now got 25 probably 30 icons all of these you can enlarge so I will often use an image of something let's say we were talking about a roadmap then I might draw a squiggly line and create a road that I can now write information around it in a meeting or workshop it's never a straight road is it it's always a windy journey but if it was a straight road I might draw it going off into the horizon and I could use this as a template I could draw it on a white border on a flip chart and here I could be writing information I could put any of the things we've talked about speech bubbles thoughts a road sign any of the things we've already done you could overlay onto a template like this so think about beyond your small drawing how you could make it bigger so that you can capture convey and collaborate so to keep you on top of this for the next two weeks there's probably some shopping you might need to do the first thing is chisel tip marker at least get one at least one even better if you've got one for paper and one for whiteboard so chisel tip marker if you're using an iPad or tablet get an app that you can practice so that you can share notes from meetings with your distributed teams don't keep it to yourself share information out and if you're using post-it notes put pictures on them as well not just words now you've got some icons you can add and that speed sketch game shows that you can think of many different types of icons i'd love to give you some icons today if you want to come up and see me at the end or give me your business card i'll send you 30 more icons with some space to practice in a pdf and some suggestions of what those icons are or how i use them i always i also put out a newsletter each week and today's newsletter it went out and it had a picture of some musical notes so i was talking about collaboration communication performance production and use musical notes as the way to communicate that now my book visual mojo's here at the conference i've had some of them shipped specially to india and normally after today these will be like 1600 rupee to get them here but today and tomorrow i've got them here that like 500 rupee i don't want to take them home this is a workshop you know what you're going to do you open the book you get a pen and you draw in the book were you taught never to draw in books i want you to write in this book this will give you muscle memory the connection between the visual and the brain and there's suggestions in here on how to keep building your skills there's 60 icons in there so i'd love you to take home a copy of my book it's for sale at the bookstore here today yes that's a thumbs up and i've got some an online course that i run called visual mojo that's through my website and i've got a four-day special just for agile people so you'd like to learn more about that that's nine modules but above all that i'd like to encourage you to keep using this human communication skill that we are already good at but we can continue to be better we've got to deal with volatility uncertainty complexity ambiguity and we need to lead the way with our communication skills please come up to me during the rest of the conference and show me how you've been capturing your thinking and other people's presentations i'd love to see some of the icons you're coming up with so go with mojo enjoy the rest of the conference and thank you for coming to the session