In-House VTTC 2019 (Current) | Grafacity Visual Services

Visual Techniques Training Course

“I also teach what we do, from the beginning. I tell the felt tip pen from tip to toe. You get to know the paper, how it coils and how it lies.

You’ll love the chalks.

I must admit: I love doing this.”

– Szilárd Strenner –

In house Visual Techniques Trainning

Request for quotation

What is this?

OOur participants can attain techniques at the trainings that enable them to perform their managerial, consultant, facilitator, trainer or presentation jobs in a spectacular, efficient and interactive way.

…whether one has artistic vein, or thinks it’s better not even to try to draw a stickman…

Hungarian Telekom Plc. Visual Techniques Training, Budapest, 2017.

17 17.

Aims of the training

The ultimate aim of the training is to make a once well-known world accessible for our participants. We strive together to make our clients conscious users of the visual language, to enable them to animate even the over-professionalized, vacuous areas through the playfulness of drawing.

The training is an introduction to the usage of analog visual techniques. It enables people to plan and support development processes, to prepare large-scale templates and analog presentations of a high standard and also for the interactive usage thereof.

Maybe you won’t be or not even want to be a visual illustrator, but sure you want to convince people about something important day by day: that’s what preparing your first analogue presentation on the second day will be probably good for.

As trainer or facilitator, you can find yourself very often in situations where you should harmonise work, and in such cases it would be nice if everyone were at the same stage at the end of a complex, inspirational reflective process. That’s what your self-made templates will solve for you.

…and, once we’re talking profession: are you interested in coaching, or as a manager you have colleagues who need to see through and find solution for a complex issue? Imagine that here’s the drawing, the large-scale sheet and they will serve as super weapons in your hand: whether it’s individual or team consultancy, coaching, supervision, mentoring, therapy, i.e. any kind of – typically 1 on 1 –, situation based on understanding.

But can it also be that your only poster will “merely” be the welcome-poster made for the birthday party of your boss? So what then? This will also be a constructive way of stepping out of your comfort zone and inspiring others.

Besides all these, as part of the training we’ll tell you about the background of the visual facilitation, we’ll introduce to you David Sibbet, the founding father, and you’ll learn about the sources you can use when setting off to your own way of exploration.

You’ll get to know lots of new materials and tools, you’ll learn which ones can be combined and you’ll try so many hints and practices that your head will be buzzing at the end!

WHO ARE OUR TYPICAL PARTICIPANTS?

freelance and internal or corporate consultants
coaches
leaders
facilitators
trainers
supervisors
teachers / students
and various sorts of experts, dealing with group processes

POSSIBLE FIELDS OF APPLICATION:

Visual language in the everyday life: you’ll write in a more legible, calligraphic manner, use simple visual signs with more confidence: list signs, arrows, figures, „boxes”, etc. Whether you happen to draw on a napkin or on a flipchart, your notes will be more transparent, more structured, and will emphasize the substance.

Visual recording: you can practice the best-known Grafacity technique as tool for live knowledge and information-management at conferences, in consulting processes, board meetings, workshops, etc. Visual language everywhere and in large scale, where it would be a pity for words to vanish.

Facilitation with large-scale templates. You can prepare templates (structured forms, worksheets) for designed processes of facilitated individual or group processes (strategic and innovative workshops, product and process development, etc.), from A5 cards to a couple of meters long sheets.

Visual consultation: usage of analogous tools in 1 on 1 situations: coaching, consultancy, sales negotiation, etc., with the power of pictures and highlighting the essence.

Presentation: using the „medieval” tools, we won’t have any troubles with file extensions, USB’s and projectors. We deliver special experience, involve the negotiating partner, size up and present the whole picture, work with the system and leave a trace (not on the wall).

Who leads the program?

Szilard Strenner, general manager of Grafacity, graphic artist, illustrator, facilitator, visual coach, strategic and organisation development consultant. He leads and follows up the visual techniques training and gives over the obtainable knowledge.

More about Szilárd…

Frequently asked questions:

1. How many participants will there be?

There’s a maximum of 15 people in a group. Our experience shows it’s the ideal headcount, as it guarantees transparency and it gives us the opportunity to optimally combine the individual and small team work phases. This size ensures that there’s sufficient attention for all participants, and thus they can receive direct feedback from the trainer and peers.

2. Who are the participants of the training program?

Based on our experiences, a majority of them are freelancers or fellow workers of a trainer or consultant company, some of them work in Human Resources and a considerable number of them are from NGO’s with consultant and trainer background. However, there are also public activists, graphic artists and general managers. All of them are committed towards team assistance, organisational development and coaching. Most of them are from Hungary, Budapest or from the countryside, but we have had trainings with foreign participants too. This creates perceptibly healthy, varied teams.

3. Where does the training take place?

The training is in Budapest, at a place that is easily accessible by public transport. We share all venue and transport details with registered participants in due course.

4. What’s your process for supporting participants in implementing the material in their own practice?

After some of our earlier trainings, following the intense period of training, with the fading of experiences, participants got stuck in their own development and lost motivation.

Therefore at Grafacity we reinforce the Visual Techniques training by a 2 month follow-up, where participants share with each other their own works, questions, dilemmas and results on the group’s closed online platform. Here they can get new information, instructions and feedback, and peers can help each other as well.

Further possible forms of support:

individual consultation,
consultation in groups,
face to face meetings or online consultation.

We have also launched our Grafacity Visual Techniques Alumni group and workshop in 2017, where we meet up monthly to practise what we have learnt in the course, and to „sharpen our arms”.

5. What does the participation fee cover?

All tools and materials you will be using during the training
Training manual and exercise book
Rental fee of the room
Buffet and refreshments in the breaks: tea, coffee, snacks, vegetables, fruits
Great atmosphere
A two-months follow-up through the closed online platform set up for the group
individual consultation after the training: max. 50 minutes per person, and
in case of need, group consultation after the training: max. 3 hours.

6. What if I really cannot draw?

Most of the outside spectators who watch us drawing think that this job requires some special kind of talent or capability. Many put it on their application form too, saying „I cannot draw.” Despite this, the visual techniques trainings we’ve run so far proved that everybody, who participates actively and conscientiously and who performs the tasks that are part of the training, will be capable of independently preparing the individual, flipchart-sized or larger, textual and drawn visual tools he or she needs for supporting personal or group processes.

You don’t need to be an artist. We don’t even teach art. What we do is that we renew a communication system that builds up from simple elements. We broke down the tools of the visual process assistance into tiny elements that are attainable for everyone. Sufficiently trained participants can apply it with more and more confidence in their everyday work.

7. What does the 100% guarantee mean?

It means that we offer a 100% money-back guarantee. Don’t hesitate to apply to our visual techniques training: as for the participation fee, you risk nothing at all! If you have conscientiously worked through our exercises and we fail to keep our above promise, you can simply return your training book, the tools you got from us and within 30 days after training closure we issue a credit note and return the paid participation fee to your account.

We are certain about the success of the step-by-step led process so we’d like to ease your anxiety before you make this important decision.

We don’t see many such guarantees in the field of open trainings, and we didn’t offer it in the early years. However, based on our experience we are convinced that these tools are available for EVERYONE, and can be used successfully, regardless of earlier qualifications or artistic talent.

Efféle garanciával nem szoktunk találkozni a nyitott tréningek területén, és mi sem kínáltuk ezt az első években. Tapasztalataink alapján meggyőződtünk, hogy ezek az eszközök MINDENKI számára hozzáférhetőek és sikeresen felhasználhatóak, előképzettségre és tehetségre való tekintet nélkül.

8. Do you teach at the training how to use visual coaching tools of visual facilitation?

At the first, basic level of Visual Techniques Training we don’t teach usage of specific visual coaching tools. In practice, we have a look at what effect the note-taking on large-scale sheet takes on the individual consultations, but we don’t train the participants how to use the special tools of visual coaching.

During the two days we acquire the basics of visual techniques. The application of these techniques, i.e. in which situations and context the participant will use them, depends on his or her preparedness and on the competences he or she acquired earlier. We only cast an eye on the toolset of visual facilitation, and just briefly. And if we look at it from visual facilitation perspective, then what we basically do during these 2 days, is laying the groundwork for these tools.

9. What’s your process for supporting participants in implementing the material in their own practice?

After some of our earlier trainings, following the intense period of training, with the fading of experiences, participants got stuck in their own development and lost motivation.

Therefore at Grafacity we reinforce the Visual Techniques training by a 2 month follow-up, where participants share with each other their own works, questions, dilemmas and results on the group’s closed online platform. Here they can get new information, instructions and feedback, and peers can help each other as well.

Further possible forms of support:

individual consultation,
consultation in groups,
face to face meetings or online consultation.

VÁLTOZTATott szöveg_: We have also launched our Grafacity Visual Techniques Alumni group and workshop in 2017, where we meet up monthly to practise what we have learnt in the course, and to „sharpen our arms”.

10. What else is important? Logistics…

It’s worth coming in comfortable shoes and dark clothes. We’ll work quite a bit with felt tip pens and chalk and these may leave traces on your outfit.
Come reposed, as the 2 days are going to be REALLY intense. The program will engage hardly ever used nerve tracks and cerebral peripheries that are likely to be less trained. So, we’re all going to get tired.
Don’t worry about bringing your “I cannot draw!” thoughts along, because you’ll forget them all while drawing.
Lunch is self-sponsored or brought along, but we can help with organisation. We can order from the offer of great in-house facilities or those of the neighbourhood, the selection is wide (lactose-, gluten-, protein-, etc.-free and dietary food), but we’re also ready to organise other cold buffet or hot meal, should the group desire.

11. Do you take on in-house training?

Of course. Each year we make several in-house trainings and workshops for leaders, salesmen, teachers, in-house trainers and students. We configure the optimal training construction for clients from large corporations, universities, NGO’s too, adapted to their needs: it can vary from 2-3 hours’ workshop through a one-day or the “normal” 2-days groundwork laying programs.

The bottleneck is most often the venue: we’ll need vast and even walls to place our papers on.

12. We don’t have 2 days / we want to be trained only in this or that part / can you come for a single day as well?

Certainly, a single day can also leave lasting traces on the participant’s competence profile, if the expectations are specific enough: “We want to use it only in sales situations, for 1to1 negotiations.” or “It’s just so that our trainers make nicer notes on flipcharts.”

Even though the timeframe is much tighter in these cases, the group can attain the well-defined target with self-confidence. We get to know the necessary basics in a more focused manner, and exercise generally one technique (tool, application) which has been selected in advance (in comparison with the 5 visual toolset that the 2-day training can cover.)

13. How about the feedback on your trainings?

The feedback is good. Lately, we’ve been following up precisely on our participants’ satisfaction. The average rate for our open trainings measures … (on a scale from 0 to 10). So the satisfaction lately has been between 95-98%.

AND A FEW MORE ARGUMENTS:

…and it’s still not everything, as these visual tools can be useful not only in the professional life, but also in many areas of our personal life: learning, conversations at home, parenting, keeping a diary, heading a family discussion, or it can come handy even when making up a creative shopping list.

It depends only on us, in what extent do we make our lives more colourful and joyous.

Creativity is not a practice or something we take on for a few minutes for someone else’s sake, but a way of life. Our participants will attain a global language that they understood already before learning to speak. They learn not English or German, but a truly universal language. One that is understood everywhere but spoken only by a few.

In house Visual Techniques Training

Request for quotation