Sometimes a group needs a fictional situation to catalyse its thinking, focus its conversations, or use as a training exercise. Here are some examples and tips for constructing great fictions.

Meet the people

A couple of weeks ago I was introduced to Sam, Naela, Eileen and Tod (not their real names). They are all fictional people who might spend their money on a particular type of product or service. They are a mix of men and women, different ages, different life stages, different financial commitments, different family shapes, different job prospects. A group I'm helping to facilitate will use pen portraits of these characters to spark conversation about what considerations people take into account when making that decision, and how much of a priority environmental or social criteria might have. A similar 'pen portrait' exercise (with Edna, Samir, Sarah and Colin) was used to explore providing flood risk information to members of the public in this project. You can meet them in this detailed methodology report.

Meet the organisations

Sometimes the pen portraits are of organisations rather than individuals. A few years ago, a series of training workshops on collaboration meant I made up a town (Wetford) and various organisations who cared about its river (the Wet Rivers Trust), the local park (Friends of Pleasant Park), its overall direction (Wetford Town Council), its economy (Downtown Regeneration Company Ltd) and its water (Pleasant and Wet Water Company). Each one had a one-page description and we ran various exercises role playing stakeholders and discovering shared goals, as a way of training the group in some consensus building techniques.

Five top tips

Here are five top tips about constructing pen portraits and fictional situations to help spark a group's thinking about a topic.

Keep it as short and simple as possible. People won't have a lot of time to read, and you just need to plant a seed for their conversations, not provide the whole blooming garden.
Check your cultural references. Find someone who understands the people in your group, to read the materials ahead of time and tell you if your references are too obscure, have some alarming other meaning or are clichéd.
Check your technical accuracy. Someone on the client team, for example, can check that you haven't made any mistakes with facts or unintentionally included something contentious.
Have fun - but not too much. Don't spend all of your time budget on this, and don't let your creativity make the materials hard to use or understand.
Be clear about the type of exercise it is - for example, whether you are providing clues to a particular kind of outcome (e.g. Boogli Fruit negotiation game, or a murder mystery game) or whether the conversations are intended to be more open than that. Sometimes participants assume there's a 'right answer' you're hoping they'll work out. If that's not your intention, make it clear.

MAKING THE PATH BY WALKING

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