Graphic Facilitator vs. Graphic Recorder?
Understanding these 2 different approaches to live, visual capture of group work
In this video:
- What I learned my very first day as a graphic facilitator in 1996
- How the 2000 International Forum of Visual Practitioners Conference shifted my view of my work and the field
- Two crucial differences that determine which approach fits your needs
- The pitfall of the two camps
Whether you've landed here trying to understand who to hire for your upcoming meeting, or you are looking to better understand your own professional work, I hope my two cents help.
Transcript edited for clarity
Hello, I'm Brandy Agerbeck of loosetooth.com. In this video, I'd like to talk about graphic recording, graphic facilitation, the definitions of each, the differences between the two, and how these definitions vary depending on who you ask.
My Background
In a previous video, I described how I got into this work. The short story is that in 1996, I started contracting with Ernst & Young. They were looking for a network of contractors to help run change management workshops using a process from a company called MG Taylor.
On the very first day, we were taught that all of us were facilitators.
No matter what role we were doing, we were there to help facilitate the participants—to help them get more work done and do better work. It was our job to make their work easier.
There were many different roles within that environment. You could have been writing assignments for participants, DJing and working the musical transitions between exercises, or rearranging furniture so the environment was set up perfectly for the next exercise. I was doing graphic facilitation—mapping out the group's conversations on giant dry erase boards as they were talking.
Again, from day one, we learned that we were all facilitators.
I did that work from 1996 to 1999 and learned a tremendous amount about facilitation and process from the MG Taylor methodology that Ernst & Young used, as well as about different kinds of clients and industries from Ernst & Young's clientele.
Discovering the Community
In 2000, I attended my first IFVP conference—the International Forum of Visual Practitioners. This is a conference for people who do this work, and that first conference was very illuminating.
One thing I learned was that many people who do this work call themselves graphic recorders. I also learned that a large part of the community came from The Grove, a company in San Francisco led by David Sibbet. I discovered that many people's approaches felt very different from mine.
I met many folks who had what I consider a very passive role in the room. Some people really liked to be a ninja and disappear when they were working—they preferred not to be seen. Others felt like the meeting was being channeled through them and put on paper. This is a perfectly valid approach, but one that didn't resonate with me.
I always felt like I had a more active role as a facilitator.
I may be the silent partner to a traditional facilitator, but I am facilitating nonetheless.
I felt like I had a more active role than what I was seeing from others.
The Ongoing Debate
Since then, in countless conversations with colleagues, there has been constant discussion about what is graphic recording, what is graphic facilitation, and how do they meet or not meet in the middle?
I think it's important that each individual feels comfortable with their job title and the way they talk about their work and present themselves.
I also think it's important that a community have a shared language—both internally so we know what we're talking about, and externally so there are common messages and terms going out to the world.
This way, our clients know what they're looking for when they're seeking us.
However, I also think that we as a community have spent an inordinate amount of time talking about graphic recorders versus graphic facilitators—who's who and what's what. We've spent a tremendous amount of time trying to find this magical consensus where we'll all agree on terms, and that's just not going to happen.
For instance, I came up with the MG Taylor methodology, where what I did was called graphic facilitation. It was a term that made sense and felt right to me. With The Grove methodology, I am not a graphic facilitator by their definition. A graphic facilitator, according to them, is somebody who both maps the conversation and facilitates the meeting.
So there's a difference in terms, and again, lots of conversation about this versus that. I personally would love to see more conversation happening with clients about these distinctions, rather than trying to reach consensus within our own community.
Graphic Recording vs. Graphic Facilitation: 2 Key Distinctions
To help educate both folks who want to become graphic facilitators or recorders and those who want to work with us, I'm going to talk about two general ways I find distinctions between graphic recorders and graphic facilitators meaningful.
1. Level of Collaboration
First is the kind of partnership I have with my clients—how collaborative is that relationship?
If we look at a spectrum with graphic recorders on one side and graphic facilitators on the other, with steps in between, I generally see that folks on the graphic facilitation end want to have a much more collaborative experience with their clients. They want to talk through the agenda and see what the role of visual tools should be.
Graphic recorders may be less likely to want that partnership. They might be happier to be hired to come in with their roll of paper and markers without necessarily having input or conversation around the agenda.
My personal approach is that I'm happy anywhere on that spectrum, and I take my cue from my client. I have 16 years of experience as a graphic facilitator and a unique perspective from working with many different facilitators. I've seen different working styles and processes, so my toolbox is full of possibilities.
If you want to talk through how to best use visual tools and my skills, I'm totally receptive. I'm just as happy to work where somebody calls and says, "We need you next week with your paper and markers. Let's go." I'm fine parachuting in with very little collaboration, because I know that when I get up to that wall, I'm still going to completely facilitate that group through my drawing, whether I've had lots of collaboration with my client or not.
Some folks only want to work collaboratively.
They hear the idea of being parachuted in with paper and markers and get frustrated that they're not being utilized in a more collaborative way. Others on the opposite end either have a preference not to be collaborative, or maybe they don't have the capacity—they're good at the specific role but don't have experience or ability to collaborate around facilitation more broadly.
2. Style of Visual Capture
The second spectrum is about the way the work looks. On the graphic recording end, these folks tend to be more inclined to get lots of detail when they capture and capture the language of the group verbatim. They may have a more journalistic approach where they're reporting and capturing exactly what's being said. This work also tends to be fairly linear and very detailed—detail after detail with less integration.
On the graphic facilitation side, you may see more work where there is integration of different points with each other, finding patterns, and making connections. Folks on the graphic facilitation side may be more inclined to organize content and synthesize it.
On the recording side, some folks believe that any kind of change in the client's language is editorializing and forbidden. I'm totally on the facilitation side of the camp where I say that my ability to distill down the client's language is helping the group. It's helping bring more clarity and understanding to what's happening, and I'm wired to be really great at synthesis.
If you were the kind of client who wanted somebody who gave very detailed capture, it would make me crazy, and I'd be a terrible match. But if you wanted somebody who was great at integrating all the ideas and making connections into an integrated whole, then I'm your person.
Finding the Right Fit
Fundamentally, whether you're a practitioner talking to your clients or a client seeking a practitioner, you need to talk through this stuff. Ask each other: How do you work best? What are you looking for? What do you think the group needs? This way you can find a good fit both in terms of the level of collaboration and the approach to capturing the work.
I'm not trying to make it recorder versus facilitator. I think we as a community have spent crazy amounts of time talking about this, trying to get consensus. We're not going to reach consensus, and I'm personally not a big fan of consensus anyway. I think consensus is highly overrated.
We work in this giant territory of visual tools to help people do good work. When you think about it more broadly, we're actually two siblings that are incredibly close to each other. We're both people who map out conversations live as people are meeting, and we understand how valuable that is. The differences and nuances are pretty minor in the grand scheme of getting up in front of people and helping map their conversations so they can do better work, whether they call themselves a graphic recorder or a graphic facilitator.
The Broader Field
This broad area of work holds many different things. It holds graphic recording and graphic facilitation, sketchnoting, visual notetaking, idea mapping, mindmapping—that whole area of personal visual note taking. It now includes things like RSA animate videos and whiteboard animations—that way of producing a visual to specific content, usually audio content.
It also includes data visualization, information graphics, and presentation design.
That's a whole big world of visuals, and we're — graphic recorders and graphic facilitators — one piece within that.
Hopefully this video has helped bring clarity about the nuances between graphic recorders and graphic facilitators. You are invited to find the title that works best for you as a practitioner, and I hope this gives you more information as a client about the types of ways of working with us.
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