Pick a picture for how you are: a visual session opening

In order to connect with a group of participants or coaching client(s), it is often helpful not to jump right into the agenda but to open the room (and people's minds) for sharing their current mood. Pictures (in combination with a check-in questions) are a powerful means to access and express emotions & thoughts.

Prepare beforehand: 

• When working online: Get a free account on https://icebreaker.online. You can choose different (virtual) card decks and set up a session in a few seconds.
• When working in person: You can use a set of collected postcards, or curated card sets from http://metafox.eu or https://points-of-you.com. 
  
• Choose cards with light/friendly motives or also include darker ones, depending on the associations you want to prompt in your participants. 

How to facilitate: 

1. Spread picture cards in front of your participants.
   Choose a set of 20-60 pictures and spread them in front of your participants, e.g. on the table or floor. When working online in the icebreaker browser app, select a card deck and share the invitation link with your participants. 
   
2. Ask a check-in question: For an open start, an open-ended question works best, e.g. "How are you today?" or "How have you been lately?"
3. Give time to reflect and select a card: Ask people to answer this question by selecting a card that represents their answer.
4. Invite people to share: You can give the floor to the first speaker and have them present their card. After they shared, encourage them to nominate the next speaker. As the moderator, you can simply select the image for everyone to see.

It is up to the speaker to interpret the question in a professional or personal way, to tell about an incident this morning or a topic of the last months. Each person decides for themselves what to get off their chest before getting down to business.