Sign Up — for facilitators

Samvinas

• Pipe in the items (actions, tasks, ideas to develop).
• Frame the ask in the Prompt ("Which will you take the lead on?").
• Export the results so owners have a record after the session.

Sign Up consumes whatever items you pipe in — it works as well on a shortlist from a focusing tool as on a set of named clusters.

Paper and pen

You need: one flip-chart sheet (or A4) per item, fat markers, and tape.

• Write one item at the top of each sheet and post them around the room, well spaced.
• Run it as a gallery walk: people circulate and write their name on the sheets they'll take on. More than one name per sheet is fine — that's a team forming.
• Give it a real time-box and stay out of the way — hovering turns commitment into compliance.
• The failure mode is vague interest masquerading as ownership. Frame the ask as taking the lead, not "sounds interesting" — a name on the sheet is a promise, and everyone should hear that before the pens come out.
• Harvest: read every sheet aloud — names and orphans alike — then photograph them and let owners carry their sheets away. The orphaned items deserve a deliberate decision: drop, defer, or find a home.

When & why

Reach for Sign Up at the close, when the group has chosen what to do and the question left is who. Ownership claimed in the room, in front of peers, outlives ownership assigned in a follow-up email.

• Read the sign-ups aloud to make commitments visible and real.
• Items with no names are information, not failure — better to learn now that nothing has an owner than three weeks later.
• More than one person on an item is a feature: pairs start faster than soloists.
• What usually follows: CSV Export so the commitments leave the room in writing, or the Event Report to close out the day.