Whiteboard Sketchnote Mondays

Let me tell you the story of how sketchnoting wireframes on whiteboards with developers saved my bacon as a designer.

Sample whiteboard sketchnote wireframe from back in the day.

YEARS AGO, I was a design contractor at a financial services company. I was hired to help development teams build new web applications based on retro applications.

Creating new applications from retro apps was a fun challenge, but as an individual designer on a team of 50 developers, product owners, and business analysts, it meant I was the bottleneck in the software creation process.

I had to alleviate the pressure.

The solution? I began creating live, interactive sketchnotes with development teams on whiteboards throughout the workspace.

Here’s how it happened.

Phase 1: Experiment with live sketchnotes on whiteboards

I started small by creating live whiteboard sketchnotes for small feature discussions with a few developers. I didn’t ask if I could do this; I just went to the whiteboard with a couple of markers and started sketchnoting what I heard, offering my feedback as a user experience expert.

Typical whiteboard live sketchnote with black ink for the design and orange and blue ink for the descriptions and interactions.

Developers, product owners, and business analysts all appreciated seeing the discussion unfold on the whiteboard as we discussed the problems we faced, with their ideas and comments embedded in the sketchnote.

Phase 2: Capture and share the sketchnotes with the team

In an ideal world, I would use the sketchnotes to create a mockup for developers to reference when building a feature.

However, creating sketchnotes with everyone in the room offered a great alternative: I could take photos of the sketchnotes, post them on a SharePoint site so my developers would have a handy visual reference if they got to the feature first.

Sometimes I would use multiple ink colors to help separate ideas.

It worked great for alleviating pressure on me: I’d create mockups whenever possible, and when developers built a feature from the sketchnote before I could make a mockup, I’d review their work and provide feedback.

Then, our entire team was relocated to a new, larger office space featuring a 20-foot-long, floor-to-ceiling whiteboard. Time to level up my sketchnote game!

Phase 3: Whiteboard Sketchnote Mondays

With a massive whiteboard, table, and chairs for a team to sit nearby, and proof that whiteboard sketchnotes worked, I approached my business analyst teammate Hassan with a crazy idea called Whiteboard Sketchnote Mondays.

Having both the idea drawn out and discussion points embedded in the wireframes worked especially well for features that might sit in a backlog.

We dedicated Mondays to hosting multiple development teams at the big whiteboard, where they queued up the features they planned to work on next, and then visualized these features using our established system of live whiteboard sketchnotes.

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Hey, I’m offering a live workshop in Birmingham in July! Details:

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The Whiteboard Sketchnotes process

Here’s how the process worked:

1. Once the development team and product owner convened at the long table near the whiteboard, we would present the feature we wanted to design, including demos of the existing feature in the retro software.

2. The team would start discussing ways to improve or rethink the feature. As the discussion unfolded, I would listen and sketchnote ideas on the whiteboard.

3. My standard tools were a black whiteboard marker to capture interface elements (windows, dropdowns, text fields, etc.) and a second or maybe a third color marker (typically red, blue, or orange) to annotate how elements worked.

4. Most of the time, the team didn’t notice what I was doing, but I was documenting everything. When the discussion reached a natural pause, I would step in and present the sketchnotes I had made on the whiteboard wall for their review and adjust as necessary.

5. The session would end with the team voting on the best idea (or two) to move forward with, and I would star it on the sketchnote with any comments.

6. I would take a photo of the sketchnote on the whiteboard, and that photo would be saved on a SharePoint site for the team to reference, usually with the feature name and any identifying project codes from the management software.

7. Either I would create a mockup, or I would advise the developers who built the feature from the sketchnote to move the feature forward.

Whiteboard Sketchnote Impact and Reflections

Here are some observations and reflections from the experience:

• Trying to keep up with developers discussing their software ideas was a challenge due to the technical jargon, and I had to understand the concepts we discussed (homework). Keeping my sketchnotes simple really helped.

• One of the developers once asked me, “How are you drawing what I’m thinking?” He loved that I was capturing his thoughts on the whiteboard.

• I especially LOVED when developers would ask to come to the wall and draw out their ideas. I did my best to capture their descriptions, but it was always a treat to see a developer map out their thinking on the board.

• The most innovative features in the software were created in those whiteboard sketchnoting sessions. Sometimes, multiple sessions were needed to get it right.

• If we were asked, “Who designed this feature?“ the answer would be: all of us.

• The team began to look forward to our Monday Whiteboard Sketchnote sessions, several colleagues telling me it made their Mondays fun again. Yes!!

• Never trust whiteboard markers in a meeting room. I always brought my own set of fresh markers and kept tabs on when they dried out so I would not be skunked with a dry marker when I needed one.

Steal this idea!

If you work in design, development, or product development, consider creating practical, simple sketchnotes with your team to move projects forward. Remember: your sketchnotes don’t need to be beautiful! In fact, just legible works great.

Ideas, not art!

Remember that visually mapping projects as sketchnotes might give you insight you won’t see any other way.

June Live Lab: Whiteboard Sketchnotes

I’ll be hosting this month’s Live Lab Workshop, teaching whiteboarding techniques with a special guest, so be sure to become a Paid Lab Member to access that!

Thanks again for the chance to share something fun in your inbox!

— Mike

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Sketchnote Lab is Mike Rohde’s space designed to bridge the gap between sketchnote theory and practice. The goal is to guide you in integrating sketchnoting into your everyday life. Learn more about Sketchnote Lab.

Mike is the author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, bestselling books that teach regular people how to start and keep sketchnoting.

He founded the Sketchnote Army and hosts the Sketchnote Army Podcast, where he interviews visual thinkers to understand what makes them tick.

Mike offers recorded, live, and in-person workshops to help accelerate your sketchnoting practice and coaching for personalized, 1:1 sketchnoting guidance.

Become a paid Lab Member to support Mike’s work.