The short answer: passive boards are places in a workshop where people can put information in the middle of another exercise. For example, a question, a key learning, or a thought they don’t want to forget.
What is a passive board?
Passive boards are predefined spots in a workshop’s room where people can add information at any time during a workshop or meeting. They are passive because there is not a specific exercise or moment when we use them, but they can be used if needed at any time during the session.
These passive boards often get reviewed at the end of a session to ensure that the key information that was captured doesn’t get lost.
Examples of passive boards
In a short post by facilitator Rebecca Courtney she shared a few passive boards she uses in her own workshops:
Aha moments: a place to write down the main takeaways or key learnings
Q&A: a place to write down questions that pop up but that are not in the focus of the moment
Take a selfie: a place where people can stick a photo they make of themselves with one of these instant cameras so that you have a lovely portrait of each workshop participant
In my own workshops, I usually use only one passive board, but I use it in almost any workshop:
Parking: a place to store ideas, requests, tasks that are out of the scope of the exercise that is done at the moment but that we don’t want to forget. The parking helps teams have more focused conversations as they can say: “ let’s put this in the parking for now.” It’s also the place I use as a facilitator to put notes about stuff I don’t want to forget to add in the report.
What makes a good passive board
For a passive board to work well, there are a few things that need to be done:
Introduce it: you have to introduce the passive board, show where it is, and how to use it at the start of the workshop.
Remind it: from time to time, remind people that the passive board exists in case they might need it.
Review it: if you never review the content of a passive board during the workshop or at the end of the workshop, it feels as if this was just a silly exercise for nothing.