Having kept ourselves engaged for the past few weeks with the topic of moderation design, in particular project meetings, in the coming weeks, as promised, there will be a selection of methods, you can use for your workshops and training courses.

Let’s get started today with the so-called “Issue cards and topics list“:

To generate a list of topics, for example, in advance you start with the issue cards.

The method of issue card is used, to “scramble” knowledge and ideas from a group, information, to collect possible explanations, solutions to problems, and creative ideas. The advantage of this classic moderation method is that all participants get to speak, no contributions will be lost and chatterboxes will dominate less. However, repetition can often happen during the collection of issue cards.

The concept card is something more formalised than other methods, therefore it needs a good methodological introduction. There should always a good overall issue at the centre, e.g. “What do we want to deal with today?” or “What topic will be important for us in the future? ”

The ideas on the issues raised will be collected on cards. Only one idea per card should be listed.

The cards are then pinned to the wall, put into order and categorised. It would be best if the participants sort their own contributions. When in doubt, the author of the card will decide, where it will fit best.

Multiple cards with the same statement can be pinned visible under each other. The frequency of the reference should not be lost, finally, it has a meaning! In general: do not discard any cards!

If you realise that too many cards will be produced or with large groups, you can let the participants write the cards first and then ask them to choose the 2-3 most important ones and to only pin those. The others may be evaluated later.

Where do you go from there?

From the collected categories a list of topics will be created. Then the selection will be made (e.g. by gluing points), which topic should be further worked on. The issue is also relevant here.

You can then continue to work on the selected topics in small groups for example.

This was the first contribution on the topic of “methods“. Was this helpful to you? Have you already applied this method and do you want to tell us of your experiences?

In the next article we deal with another method – “the constellation”.

Enjoy the summer! All the best, Birgit