Directly involvement of participants in visualizing own work forms with photographs for enriched associations in collective dialogue.
Concept & technique
Participants are encouraged to look back on projects that has inspired and energized them and to imagine a project they will be proud of in the future. Then selecting from a variety of images, they individually pick one picture that best encompasses both projects. Taking turn, each person describes the picture chosen and in groups discussing what the picture symbolizes that has importance for the organization’s work. Proceeding they collectively cluster the pictures together with an optional statement summarizing their thoughts. Trying to find a pattern among the images and statements, they discuss the implications and meanings these represent for their common work.
Research foundation
The method has been tested in different forms among several Idea Work partners. The photographs chosen often relates to subjects such as teamwork, reaching goal, energizing, getting overview, and connecting people. Using visual methods in collaborative ideation aims at both fuelling individual association and dynamics in group processes. The photographs invite participants to share their experiences and ideas based on images that do not constrain to any prerequisite view, but open up for multiple layers and meanings instead of accentuating potentially corrosive connections (Dutton 2003). The power of any image is that it transcends language semantics and at the same time embraces them. An image evokes immediate associations; the perception of the visual leads to a mental image, hence the ascribing of meaning (Barthes).
Readings
- Pitsis, T.S., Clegg, S.R., Marosszeky, M. & Rura-Polley, T. 2003, ‘Constructing the Olympic dream: A future perfect strategy of project management’, Organization Science, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 574-590.
- Berg, I, Dolan, Y. & Trepper, T. 2007. More Than Miracles: The State of the Art of Solution-focused Brief Therapy. Haworth Brief Therapy.
- Dutton, J.E., 2003. Breathing life into Organizational Studies: Journal of Management Inquiry 12(1).
- Barthes, R., 1964. The Rhetoric of the Image.