Hello, my name is Matthew Barzun, founder of BrickPath.com.Today we're going to talk for a few minutes about whiteboarding. So this is awhiteboard video about whiteboarding, kind of a play within a play. Anyway, I'ma huge whiteboard fan and I wanted to share with you some lessons I've learnedover the years about how to do good ones and avoid some of the mistakes. Sowithout further ado, let's begin "Whiteboarding 101."
First, 3 basic rules about good whiteboarding. First, set upthe stage. So in our case here, setting a stage means who are the cast andcharacters? First, there is you or me as the presenter at the whiteboard.Secondly, there are those people sitting in the room watching you do yourwhiteboard, the audience. Then there is, of course, the whiteboard itself andthe work you do on it. So that is setting the stage.
Number 2, frame the debate or the issue, so some tried andtrue techniques here. One might be a spectrum. You draw four people A, B, C, Dor you could do one of my personal favorites, the grid high-low, low-high, thatsort of thing. Or three, you could map, let's say the workflow of how somethingworks today. Or finally to use a sports analogy, you could draw, if you weretalking about football, you could draw a football field. So then they know whothe characters are, the frame of the debate within which we're talking.
And finally third, propose your solution. So, in this caseon this spectrum, hey, we could do anything from A to D. I'm advocating Ctoday. We could talk about that or on this grid, I'm really advocating we gohere or this is broken, so let's redirect it there. Or you know, hey, we'rerunning horrible plays here, let's change our offense.
So now for some quick do's and don'ts. First do's. Color isyour friend. Think about it. I just used green for do. I'm about to use red fordon't, which leads me to do number 2, which is conventions are your friend.What I mean by that is time generally we all think goes left or right. So asyou're doing a diagram, follow those conventions. High-level things are up top.Details are down low. Stick with things like that.
Now for some don'ts. Don't talk down to your audience.You're not up there lecturing at them. PowerPoint is horrible at that.Whiteboarding ought to be opening up for discussion. So don't talk down andnumber 2, don't use the whiteboard as a playground for bad ideas and randomwords. The whiteboard is a visual medium and ought to be used as such. Thehighest compliment of a good whiteboard is that if you left the room andsomeone came in, they could look at it and the board would speak for itself.And the best sign that you've done a good whiteboard is someone maybe, your archrivalor archenemy in your group comes up, wants to grab a pen and they don't eraseyour whiteboard. They actually come up and just add to it. Then you know you'vedone a good job. So I hope these tips and tricks have been helpful and in yournext meeting, I hope you'll use a whiteboard to that effect.
