Vote With Your Feet — for facilitators

Samvinas

• Add it from the Warm-ups section of the toolbox. Each step holds one statement, so for a series of statements add a step for each.
• Put the statement in the step's Prompt (Basics tab). On the Settings tab, label the two ends of the line (by default Strongly disagree and Strongly agree).
• Names: Show names at the reveal is on by default, and participants are asked for their name once per event. Turn it off for a sensitive statement: nobody is asked for a name, and the reveal shows anonymous dots.
• Roles (optional): list up to eight roles, one per line (e.g. Funder, Researcher, Practitioner). Each role gets its own colour, and at the reveal you can show one role at a time.
• Focus the step to open it. Participants move a slider to place themselves, and their position saves as they move. While voting is open the projector shows anonymous dots, so nobody is swayed by who stands where.
• Press Close and reveal on the step's row in the flow list (it also shows how many people have placed themselves). The dots become names, in role colours.
• Reopen and Run again are on the step's Data tab, along with a table of every name, role and position. The event report and CSV list everyone in order along the line.

Paper and pen

You need: a long strip of masking tape across the floor, and a sign for each end of the line.

• Read the statement aloud and point out the two ends.
• Ask everyone to decide where they stand before anyone moves, then move together. Otherwise people drift towards where their friends are.
• Once people are placed, ask two or three people at different points to say why they are standing there. The ends are the obvious choices, but the middle often has the most interesting reasons.
• The failure mode is a crowd in the middle. Push the statement harder, or ask people to "lean one way or the other" before they settle.
• Harvest: photograph the line from one end, and note the reasons you heard.

When & why

Reach for Vote With Your Feet when you want to show a group how differently its members see something, before you start working on it.

• Write a statement people can disagree with. "Our customers are happy" splits a room; "Customers matter" doesn't.
• The reveal starts the conversation. Invite people from different points to explain where they stand, and listen for the assumptions behind the positions.
• Roles show patterns. With roles set, showing one role at a time can reveal that the funders and the practitioners stand in quite different places, which is worth discussing openly.
• Protect people on sensitive topics. Turn names off when standing visibly in one place could cost someone something.
• What usually follows: discussion, then a clarifying or generating tool such as Five Whys or Brainstorm on the question the split has raised.