Now make a point...

Seeing what's going on – the general mood, which agenda item is the clear favorite. Visualization makes this possible and works not only with markers but also with simple tools like rating points. But how exactly does it work? We'll now explore this question in more detail.

One vote per participant

Those who have been around for a while already know – it's about the single-point question . Each participant can, for example, place a single rating point on a template when asked a question like "How are you feeling right now?" and thus visualize their mood. This can be done silently, but can also be accompanied by an explanation: "I'm placing my rating point in the positive range here because I feel really comfortable with this group and this topic today."

As you can see, the template for the rating can be continuous or scaled.
Once all participants have submitted their evaluations, a visual mood barometer is generated for the group and the trainer.

The result was unanimously agreed upon.

When it comes to weighting issues for decision-making, the multi-point question is used. Here, participants prioritize the individual issues. They receive several points for each issue, depending on the number of issues they prioritize.

But how many exactly? That's relatively simple: you just divide the number of topics by two to get the required number per participant. Of course, there isn't always an even number of topics. In that case, following the basic mathematical principle of rounding up, half a point becomes a whole point.

Example: 3 topics – (3/2= 1.5 – rounded up to 2) – 2 assessment points per participant.

Invisible voting

If one wishes to reduce or eliminate mutual influence in a multi-point question, there is also the option of "invisible" voting.

Participants write the number of the item they wish to vote for directly on the item itself. This determines its position in the evaluation grid when the vote is made visible.

Simplifying complexity

For particularly complex topics that quickly become overwhelming, it's worthwhile to break them down into manageable individual points. These parts can then be considered and evaluated separately. The total points for the entire topic are then calculated by summing the points from these individual points.

If you'd like to delve deeper into the topic, we recommend one of the many standard works on moderation methods. If you'd like to get started right away, you can find our extensive range of evaluation points in the Neuland shop here .

Read also: The winner on points is…