Category: Visuals

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Visuals bring clarity about the complexity

My takeaway from conversations that I captured visually

Our brain has great difficulty understanding a complex system with only words. A visual can bring clarity about the complexity and eventually show that what appears to be complex is just complicated.

Over 200 colleagues from across the JRC, the European Commission’s science and knowledge department, met for the launch of their future new transversal working structures, the JRC scientific portfolios. The goal was to engage and discuss around the journey they are about to embark upon together. As with any departure, there was excitement but also some fear sometimes in the face of the unknown.

During a large World Café exercise, colleagues discussed the many outstanding issues, roles and responsibilities, collaboration, resources, to name but a few. At the end, each conversation table shared their main conclusions with everyone. The large number of points, open questions, as well as the numerous interlinkages, made it difficult not to qualify the portfolios system as complex.

My task was to take visual notes of the conclusions, the typical graphic harvesting of a World Café. Because it was too much, too dense and fast, I just noted on post-its the key words and few arrows. Afterwards I put on a large paper a first draft of all of that. Only then did I reorder the points and the connections to create a mind-map on my iPad.

In his report after the event in which he used my visuals, Stephen Quest, the JRC Director-General, said “the portfolios must not become another layer of complexity. Rather, we need to use them to help navigate our complexity.” I am happy and proud to have been able to bring clarity to this apparent complexity with my visual, and I hope I have reduced it to something only complicated.

Graphic recording at the JRC portfolios launch event

Two other graphic recordings of the presentations the day before:

Graphic recording at the JRC portfolios launch event Graphic recording at the JRC portfolios launch event

And the video to illustrate my visual thinking process in three steps: post-its > draft on large paper > mind map on iPad.

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How to reduce workload?

Who has never wondered how to reduce their workload? But who has never found a solution to the question, which is not episodic or ridiculous in terms of real benefits?

My colleague Oliver Kozak brought his scientific and systemic approach to present how continuous improvement can help us to really reduce worlkload.

The objective is to free up enough time to be able to start improving, in order to free up even more time up to 40% to be able to improve continuously and ultimately create much more value at work (by moving from the Spend-It-All team model to the Time-Investor team model). How to get there concretely? By improving in three areas: (your) work processes, team efficiency, and organisation development. Important: you have to go slowly, step by step, with persistence day after day, be patient, and get support.

My visual notes of Oliver’s presentation.

How to reduce workload? sketchnotes
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Three models of change

I read in the train this Leandro Herrero’s article on the three models of change and to better remember it I sketched it.

In a nutshell, the article rightly says that traditional change management, the destination model, is often just a one–off. The journey model is about learning and experience. And the building model is about creating a long term culture with change-ability in the organisation DNA.

Three models of change, sketchnotes
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Trust: an essential ingredient for teamwork

My colleague Valeria Croce asked me to record visually two fantastic sessions she organised on “Trust” with renowned speakers. I reproduce here, to accompany my visual notes, the essential passages of the articles that Valeria wrote after the sessions, as a report.

Resilient teams: how trust underpins care and performance in teams

Resilient teams: how trust underpins care and performance in teams - Sketchnotes

To trust each other at work is even more important in the context of hybrid or remote work, with limited human interaction and the difficulty to reach out to new people!

Chris Tamdjidi shared with us the evidence and learnings he collected through the years working with teams inside and outside the Commission, focussing on the important role of trust in teamwork. He observed that:

  • It is difficult to build a culture of collaboration: while most teams have established processes to perform tasks, they don’t have established processes to improve how they work together,
  • During Covid he observed an increase in individual productivity, but a decrease in collaborative productivity: it takes more effort to connect with others and collaborate in a remote setting.
  • We risk to work in micro-silos, narrow connections because of remote working – we maintain the relationships we already have, it takes efforts to build new ones.

This is why it is important to build team habits that help strengthen collaboration, team resilience and trust, especially in a hybrid environment. These habits are: Habits of attention; of connection; and of positivity.

Why being trusted (or distrusted) matters

Why being trusted matters? - Sketchnotes

Trust is critical to create an environment where colleagues collaborate, share knowledge, engage and contribute to the achievement of the shared purpose. Yet, trust-based relationships require time to be built. What can we do to start building trust from the very beginning of a new collaborative project with colleagues from outside our team or unit?

Hilary Sutcliffe and Vanja Skoric shared lessons they learned working for over 130 civil society projects.In a nutshell, they identify four areas, where most barriers to trust and collaboration can be found, namely:

  • Prior experiences and assumptions
  • Skills and procedures
  • Culture and incentives
  • Process concerns

Three aspects that are crucial to overcome barriers are: A (truly) shared purpose; a trustworthy process (based on seven drivers of trustworthiness: openness, integrity, competence, inclusion, respect and fairness); and a visible impact.

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Graphic recording of the JRC Science Summit 2022

I knew that the JRC, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission that I joined only a few months ago, is a furnace of ideas and projects, and that the colleagues who work there are incredible people. I can see now how much I underestimated both things after I participated in the JRC Science Summit.

During 3 days, JRC colleagues offered sessions and workshops on the subjects that fascinate them, on which they work, all related to the present and future of the centre. As a graphic recorder, this was my task during the 3 days, I was amazed by the enthusiasm, the quality of the research, and maybe I didn’t understand everything either.

I was inspired by the visual identity of the event for my visual notes. I reused the color code to distinguish each of the 3 days while marking the continuity between them. Prior to the event, I created a separate canvas on my iPad for each of the 3 days, which I completed live during the event. Here is the result of the 3 canvases assembled to each other and the 3 taken separately:

JRC Science Summit 2022 - Graphic recording
The 3 canvases assembled to each other
JRC Science Summit 2022 - Graphic recording
Canvas for Day 1
JRC Science Summit 2022 - Graphic recording
Canvas for Day 2
JRC Science Summit 2022 - Graphic recording
Canvas for Day 3

Below is a small Prezi animation that goes into even more detail:

I want to thank my colleagues in the JRC who organised this event for giving me the opportunity to capture it visually, and especially Elke Hanssens for helping me put the material together.

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Knowledge Management and Collaboration in international organisations: Edge or Curse?

Three drawings to illustrate in an offbeat way, and probably memorable way, the participants’ conversations during a session on knowledge management.

The session hosted by Huy-Hien Bui and Fania Pallikarakis, whose full title is “Knowledge Management and Collaboration in international organisations: Edge or Curse?”, was held as part of the Friends of Career Development Roundtable (FoCDR) workshop in Brussels on 17 June 2022.

KM and collaboration workshop - Sketchnotes
KM and collaboration workshop - Sketchnotes
KM and collaboration workshop - Sketchnotes
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The joy of drawing the meeting of two graphic communities

I’d the privilege to visually harvest the first ever meeting of 2 communities in the EU institutions that are close to my heart, the data visualisation and the graphic designers communities.

As mentioned and repeated by the Directors-general of DG COMM, JRC and the EU publications office, these visual thinkers are crucial for the EU communication. With their visuals, communication is more impactful, clear, transparent, meaningful.

As communities, they expressed the same main needs: more sharing among members and communities, and peer support. Wishing them to work more together in collaboration with scientists, communicators, and policymakers.

A tribute to these colleagues who think and work visually:

Workshop of different communities - Graphic recording

I discovered after that my graphic recording app, Procreate, records in time lapse my work (all mistakes, attempts, modifications, corrections, etc included). You can watch in less than 5 minutes how I captured live the whole event that lasted a few hours. Interesting, instructive, isn’t it?

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