How do you complete post-it notes in workshops?

I’ve facilitated lots of workshops online and offline and a point I make to participants more and more often is this. Please remember that while you may have a rich discussion in your group, what gets taken away afterwards is the (virtual) flipchart page with the post-it notes you have created. It’s really helpful if you can try and write these in a way that is self-explanatory the following day to someone else who is drawing upon the workshop material.

Sure, we could audio record every conversation that takes place. But realistically, who has the time and resource (even with auto transcribing) to dig back into such detail? OK, some smart alec out there is saying ‘Chat GPT’. Maybe. But just for the moment, those post-it notes are really key.

So please, work harder in your next workshop to make all that time and effort in coming together to explore thorny issues worth it. Write better post-its!