Breakout Groups — for facilitators

Samvinas

• Set the number of groups and build the group template — the sequence of tools each group works through.
• Choose how items are divided: a slice each, or the full set to every group.
• While groups work, add an Instructions tool to give them standing guidance; use a group's Edit button if one needs a different flow. The parent Timer stays visible inside groups.
• Use Gather Results to pull a chosen tool's output from each group back into the main flow.

Each group is its own small event. Gather Results is the pipe home: it brings a chosen tool's items back to the parent, where any downstream tool can consume them.

Paper and pen

You need: one flip chart (or a table with a big sheet) per group, sticky notes and fat markers at each, and a written task card.

• Divide the room — counting off round the circle ("1, 2, 3, 1, 2…") gives mixed groups; self-selection gives friendship groups. Choose deliberately.
• Give each group a station: flip chart, materials, and the task written at the top of the sheet. If the items are divided, deal each group its share of the numbered notes.
• Announce the timebox and what "done" looks like before anyone moves.
• Harvest with a gallery walk or a two-minute report-back per group — then photograph every sheet before anything is moved or merged.
• Failure mode to avoid: a spoken-only brief. Groups mishear tasks; the written card is what they'll actually do.

When & why

Reach for Breakout Groups when the whole room is too big to think together — small groups dramatically raise participation, and parallel streams cover more ground (one problem per group, or many angles on one).

• Give a clear task and a time box; vague breakouts drift into chat.
• Three to six per group is the sweet spot — big enough for variety, small enough that everyone speaks.
• What usually follows: Gather Results, then a whole-room focusing tool — Voting across the combined harvest, or Clustering to merge overlapping output.