# Draw What I Mean — Facilitator Guide

> Folder: `draw-what-i-mean` · Category: communication · pairs (2 people) · 12 min · offline + online · print props · tool pack
> License: CC BY 4.0

Back to back, one partner describes a small composed picture — three to five simple shapes in a fixed arrangement — and the other draws it from the words alone. Then you compare. Three rounds, one variable changed each time: ordinary words, then a shared word list, then the right to ask questions. The gap between what was meant and what got drawn is the lesson, and the round-by-round comparison tells you which repair actually closed it.

**How this differs from `blind-portrait`:** Blind Portrait puts one description through a wall of silence and shows you the damage. This folder isolates the causes — vocabulary first, then feedback — so the team leaves knowing *which* repair worked, not just that communication failed. Run Blind Portrait to open a session on instructions; run this one when the team already agrees something is leaking and needs to know what to fix first.

## Objectives

By the end of the activity, participants will have:

1. Seen on paper how far ordinary words drift — size, position, count, missing element.
2. Felt a **shared word list** close most of that gap with no extra effort from either partner.
3. Used a clarifying question from the receiving end, and measured what it recovered.

## When to use this activity

- A team routinely builds from spoken or half-written instructions and keeps shipping the wrong thing.
- You want a fast, hands-on demo of why a shared vocabulary and clarifying questions beat "just explain it better".
- You have 12 minutes and can seat pairs back to back; no drawing skill needed — they are line shapes, not portraits.

## Setup

**Clock:** twelve minutes for the three rounds and the bridge. Give it twenty if the room debriefs properly — the comparisons are the material.

**Space:** two chairs per pair, back to back, no table shared between them. The describer holds the picture card facing themselves; the drawer holds a pen and the sketch sheets.

**Materials per pair:**

| Item | Source |
|---|---|
| 3 × picture card (Round 1 / 2 / 3) | `draw-what-i-mean-prop-cards.pdf` — one per round, same difficulty |
| 1 × shared shape-word card | `draw-what-i-mean-prop-cards.pdf` — both partners may read it in round 2 |
| 1 × rule card — *back to back, words only* | `draw-what-i-mean-prop-cards.pdf`, or read it aloud |
| 3 × blank sketch sheet | any plain A4; the sheet template is on the print page of the same PDF |
| 1 × pen per drawer | marker or ballpoint, not pencil — a confident wrong line is the evidence |
| 1 × blank card per pair | `draw-what-i-mean-prop-cards.pdf` — for authoring a picture in the team's own terms |

**Grouping rule:** pair people who actually receive briefs from each other. If everyone already shares a tight domain vocabulary, pair across teams instead — the round-2 effect is bigger when the shorthand is not already there.

**Roles:** describer (may not show, point or draw), drawer (may not peek; in round 3 may ask anything), and you on the clock.

## How to run it

| Time | Phase | Facilitator does | Participants do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–1 | Set up | Seat pairs back to back. Hand the drawer three sketch sheets, the describer three picture cards face down. | Take cards; nobody sees the other's material |
| 1–4 | Round 1 — free | "Describer: say it however you like. Drawer: words only, no questions." | Describe, draw, resist the urge to look |
| 4–5 | Compare 1 | "Card up, beside the drawing. Note what drifted." | Mark the drift: size, position, count, missing element |
| 5–8 | Round 2 — word list | Hand each pair the shared shape-word card. New picture. "These words are now legal — and they are the only new thing." | Both use the named shapes and position words; draw; compare |
| 8–11 | Round 3 — questions | "Drawer: you may ask anything. Describer: you may still not show it." | Drawer interrogates; describer answers; compare |
| 11–12 | Bridge | One line each: which round closed the most gap, and what your work calls that. | Say it out loud; keep the three sheets |

Then run the debrief — see `draw-what-i-mean-debrief.md`.

## The card

Each card shows three to five simple shapes in a fixed arrangement — a circle above a tall rectangle, two triangles flanking a square, a line under everything. Nothing needs drawing skill: the difficulty lives entirely in the words. The three cards are deliberately similar in difficulty so the only thing changing between rounds is the rule. The shape-word card names shapes, positions, sizes and counts, which is what turns "a thing over there, kind of big" into "tall box, round one on top-left, two pointy ones either side."

## Failure modes

1. **The describer starts drawing for the partner** — in the air, on the wall, on their neighbour's paper. Rescue: back to back is not staging, it is the instrument. Hold it.
2. **Round 3 becomes a joint rebuild.** Rescue: questions are allowed, showing is not. The drawer still holds the only pen.
3. **It reads as a kids' game.** Rescue: land the bridge on a real artifact — "put your round-1 drawing next to the ticket you misread last month."
4. **A pair finishes in ninety seconds.** Rescue: hand them the blank card to author a fourth picture in their own domain terms; that is the hardest version of this exercise.

## Variations

- **Online:** one camera on the describer's card only, the drawer on a shared whiteboard. Keep back-to-back in spirit — no screen share of the picture, no questions until round 3.
- **Large groups (20+):** every pair runs at once; at the end, tape the three rounds of every pair to the wall as a gallery and walk it. The pattern across the wall is the debrief.
- **Domain reskin:** author the blank cards with shapes from your own work — a screen, a service, a data store, a dependency arrow. Round 2's word card then becomes your team's real glossary, and the exercise turns into a test of whether that glossary exists.
- **Long version (25 min):** add a fourth round where the pair may *only* use the shared word list and no other nouns, then debrief on which words went missing from the list.
- **No-print fallback:** describe a room the drawer has never seen — same three rounds, no cards at all. Weaker evidence, same argument.

## Facilitation notes

- The strongest moment is comparing round 1 to round 2 — same describer, same effort, only the shared word list changed.
- Say up front that nobody is graded on drawing; these are line shapes, so the shy drawer still plays.

## Put it on the wall

Print `draw-what-i-mean-activity-poster.pdf` (A3) to put the run of show, the three rounds and the bridge question on one wall while you facilitate.

## Props in this folder

- `draw-what-i-mean-prop-cards.pdf` — poker-spec print sheet (63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides): three picture cards, shared shape-word card, rule card, bridge card, author-your-own blank, branded backs
- `draw-what-i-mean-guide.md` — this run sheet
- `draw-what-i-mean-debrief.md` — six debrief questions and the failure modes of the debrief
- `draw-what-i-mean-run-sheet.pdf` — the print edition: this run sheet + the debrief, bound as one A4 document with bookmarks
- `draw-what-i-mean-activity-poster.pdf` — the whole tool on one A3 wall sheet: run of show, the three rounds, the bridge, watch-outs
- `draw-what-i-mean-start-here.md` — one page, thirty seconds, then print and go
- `SKILL.md` — machine-readable manifest for AI agents
- `*-Letter.pdf` — US Letter editions of the print documents

## Agent version

Every file in this folder has a stable public URL — an AI agent can fetch the cards, the debrief and this run sheet with three curl commands (see `SKILL.md`). The paper version needs nothing but two chairs, three cards and a pen.