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Christiane first saw Bikablo® when meeting Marcel through her daughter’s school. She was intrigued. At the time she was looking to add something else to her toolkit and Bikablo® seemed like a perfect fit. “I felt limited in my ability to communicate complex concepts, and I also didn’t feel like I was having a lot of fun in my role.” Christiane attended one of the first Bikablo® courses offered in Melbourne, back in 2014.

Not only did Christiane learn a new skill that allowed her to inject some fun into her every day work, the course changed the trajectory of her career, allowed her to meet some amazing people, be part of unique events and play a role in changing the company culture at her workplace.

Christiane’s biggest insight from the Visual Friends course was how easy it was to learn. “It’s a technique that anyone can pick up. If you can draw a stick, you can draw Bikablo®.”

Practice

She began to put her new skill to use immediately. Christiane would ask teams to allow her to visually record their meetings or capture retrospectives. Her hand drawn posters began to appear all over the office. “I got a lot of really positive feedback. People felt the drawings added a different dimension to what was being said and helped them remember the key messages. At first the leaders were concerned scribing would be distracting, but instead it helped people focus on what was communicated.

For the next four years, Christiane worked with Marcel van Hove, Visual Friends Co-founder, scribing for various conferences, breakfast events and even international speakers.”It gave me an opportunity to meet some amazing people and have access to events I would not have otherwise had access to.” A particular highlight was scribing for Barry O’Reilly, the author of Unlearn and Lean Enterprise. He used her drawings in his marketing and training materials.

Christiane also did lots of drawing at work and began to play a role of a visual coach helping teams with visual templates, metaphors and concepts.

Why visualisation

Christiane considers visualisation a valuable tool for any area where teams work together to create a solution for their customers or company. “Bikablo® technique brings people together in a collaborative, creative way and helps them conceptualise and then deliver a solution. It removes a lot of assumptions and helps you understand what you are trying to achieve. It’s got a really strong relevance in the product creation space whether you are designer, a product lead or in human-centred design. As for collaboration and facilitation, it’s probably “if you don’t have it, what are you doing?”

Visualisation at AGL

Christiane’s visualisation journey has not only transformed her career but has played a role in changing the company culture at her workplace.

When Christiane first started using visualisation after attending the course, she inspired two other colleagues to follow suit. The three of them did a lot of graphic recording at AGL and using visualisation was no longer a novelty. Over the years people began to expect, prefer and even demand a visual way of working. “Now I get a lot of people asking me when the next course is, ask me to record for their events or develop a poster to communicate their message. There’s a real hunger for it. It’s changed from “come and help me” and “I really want to learn this.”