Drawing clarity: embracing the messy middle through visual facilitation
When people come to me for visual facilitation, they often bring a story—a presentation to shape, an idea to untangle, or a complex discussion in need of clarity. And almost always, we find ourselves wading through the messy middle together. The messy middle, that liminal space between intent and action, between uncertainty and resolution. It’s the moment in the process when ideas stretch, knot, and sometimes fray before they weave into something coherent.
Recently, Ben Holliday’s reflections on the messy middle reminded me of Sam Kaner’s facilitation diamond—a framework for participatory decision-making. The diamond captures the expansion and convergence of ideas, mirroring the experience of storyboarding a presentation. We begin with an open-ended conversation, sketching and sifting through possibilities. At times, the sheer volume of ideas can feel overwhelming. But the structure of the process, and the act of visualizing it, helps guide us through.
When people talk, I translate their words into sketches—doodles that hold meaning, diagrams that map complexity. In group work, when conversations grow difficult, the visuals help. They provide a neutral ground, something external to anchor thoughts to, something tangible to refine and reshape.
Difficult conversations, after all, often lead to the most beautiful breakthroughs. As Peter Bromberg wisely put it, “When we avoid difficult conversations, we trade short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction.”
Psychological safety, as Amy Edmondson describes it, is not about avoiding tough discussions but creating the conditions in which they can happen constructively. Visual facilitation offers that space—a way to hold competing perspectives without letting them dissolve into discord.
For those looking to explore this practice, there’s a wealth of wisdom to draw from. Kelvy Bird’s generative scribing provides a beautiful example of capturing group dynamics visually. Scriberia’s approach to mapping complexity demonstrates how visuals can clarify even the most tangled ideas. Bikablo teaches the language of visual communication, making it accessible for anyone to integrate into meetings and presentations. Brandy Agerbeck’s work in visual thinking—especially The Idea Shapers—is a fantastic resource for those wanting to strengthen their own visual note-taking.
If you’re thinking about tools, Neuland offers high-quality materials for visual recording and sketchnoting—ideal for those who want to bring visuals into their facilitation toolkit. The Visual Facilitation Field Guide by Jeroen Blijsie, Tim Hamons, and Rachel Smith is a rich resource for both beginners and seasoned practitioners (fun fact: my hand graces the cover). And for those drawn to systems thinking, David Sibbet’s process models provide a framework for using visuals to make sense of complex structures.
Even in the smallest moments—like sketching notes during a meeting—visual facilitation invites us to engage with information differently. Eva-Lotta Lamm’s work on integrating light visuals into everyday note-taking is a great place to start. Whether it’s through sketchnoting, visual journaling, or storyboarding a presentation, these practices cultivate clarity in the midst of complexity.
The messy middle can be frustrating. It can feel like a tangle of competing ideas, an endless loop of iterations. But when we draw our way through it—when we embrace the expansion and trust the eventual convergence—it becomes something else entirely. A process not just of problem-solving, but of discovery. Of shaping something new, together.
