Participatory Design

Activity clock

The Activity clock invites participants to organize and balance their daily time through an effective visual representation.

Affinity diagram

The Affinity Diagram is a visual and participatory tool that organizes ideas into categories to facilitate group analysis and informed decision-making.

Backward Planning

La Planificación retroactiva ayuda a identificar los pasos necesarios para lograr un objetivo trabajando desde el resultado final hacia el presente, promoviendo la estrategia y la claridad grupal.

Benefit Map

The Benefit Map is a visual tool that connects projects with the positive impacts they generate, helping to prioritize actions and maximize results in participatory contexts.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming fosters collective creativity and collaboration by generating multiple proposals to address a specific challenge.

Collaborative Competition

Collaborative Competition is an activity that combines teamwork with problem-solving in a friendly, competitive format to foster creativity and learning.

Collaborative data portrait

Collaborative Data Portrait is a visual activity where participants create a group portrait using graphically represented data, fostering self-expression and team connection. 

Collaborative mind map

The Collaborative mind map is a visual tool that allows groups to explore, organize, and connect ideas on a topic in a creative and participatory way.

Collaborative Oracle Card Creation

Collaborative Oracle Card Creation is a participatory activity where participants co-design a deck of oracle cards with meaningful symbols and messages, fostering creativity and collective reflection.

Collaborative sketching

Collaborative sketching is a visual activity that encourages the expression of ideas and the joint development of solutions through quick and simple drawings. 

Collective DIY Mascot

Collective DIY Mascot is a participatory activity in which a group builds a symbolic mascot together, adding one element at a time across weeks. The result is a creative, emotional representation of their collective identity.

Collective Rube Goldberg Machine

Collective Rube Goldberg Machine is a participatory activity where teams collaboratively build a whimsical chain reaction device to perform a simple task, using creativity, problem-solving, and everyday materials to spark teamwork and fun experimentation.

Comic Strip Creation

Comic Strip Creation is a participatory activity that allows participants to express learnings or explore topics through graphic and creative narratives.

Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice brings together people with shared interests or challenges to exchange experiences, build collective knowledge, and generate solutions collaboratively.

Community Auction

The Community Auction is an activity where projects symbolically compete for resources, fostering collective evaluation and critical analysis of priorities.

Community Garden

Community garden is a participatory activity in which neighbors, students, or community groups come together to create and care for a garden in a shared space. Through collaborative work, they grow food, exchange knowledge, and strengthen their connection with the environment and the community.

Confidence Vote

Confidence Vote is a fast participatory dynamic that lets groups gauge consensus, commitment levels, or uncertainty on a proposal by voting with hand signals or visual cues.

Crazy 8

Crazy 8 is a fast-paced brainstorming activity designed to spark creativity and generate innovative solutions by sketching eight ideas in eight minutes. Perfect for teams aiming to think outside the box!

Creation of instructional resources

The Creation of instructional resources is a participatory activity that allows participants to design educational tools while consolidating their learning and developing creative skills.

Creative Mark Exploration

Creative Mark Exploration is a participatory activity that encourages experimentation with strokes and textures to discover personal styles.

Data-driven decisions

Data-driven decisions is a collaborative activity designed to help teams classify key questions, explore research methods, and balance qualitative and quantitative insights to drive better decision-making.

Diagnostic Walk

The Diagnostic Walk is a participatory activity that uses direct observation of the environment to build a collective diagnosis and propose solutions grounded in local context.

Diaporama

Diaporama is a creative activity where participants collaborate to create and present a series of images or slides that narrate a story or concept, fostering visual communication and critical thinking.

Dot Voting

Dot Voting is a participatory technique that combines analysis and prioritization to identify the most relevant proposals within a collective process, promoting collaboration and group consensus.

Emotional map

The Emotional map allows for the identification and visual analysis of emotions, helping to understand their impact on projects, spaces, or experiences.

Empathy Map

The Empathy Map helps to better understand people's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors to design more human-centered and effective solutions.

Exquisite Corpse

Exquisite Corpse is a participatory activity where each person contributes to a collective creation while seeing only fragments of the previous work, generating unexpected and collaborative creative results.

Feature prioritization

Feature prioritization is a participatory exercise designed to identify and organize the key elements of a project or design, ensuring a focus on the most relevant and viable aspects.

Flowchart

Flowchart is a collaborative technique that allows participants to analyze cause-effect relationships within a central topic, identify “critical knots,” and assign responsibilities for strategic planning.

Four Corners

Four Corners encourages dialogue and the exploration of perspectives by allowing participants to choose and analyze different positions within a group setting.

Future scenarios

The Future Scenarios activity allows participants to imagine different development possibilities to anticipate risks, seize opportunities, and generate innovative ideas. 

Guided Visualizations

Guided Visualizations is a participatory activity where participants co-create a visualization in a chain format, exploring creativity and group connection through collective storytelling. It is ideal for fostering reflection, relaxation, and shared imagination.

Heat Map Voting

Heat Map Voting is a visual and collaborative technique for prioritizing key aspects within a set of ideas by distributing multiple votes across specific elements.

How Might We (HMW)

How Might We is a Design Sprint methodology that transforms pain points into positive, collaborative questions, guiding the team toward creative solutions.

Idea Storm

Idea Storm is a collaborative activity inspired by Round Robin that fosters co-creation and innovation through the development and improvement of collective ideas.

Identity sliders

Identity sliders is a participatory and collaborative activity to collectively build the vision and values of a group or project, fostering dialogue and cohesion.

Innovation Workshop

The Innovation Workshop fosters creativity and collaboration to generate novel solutions to specific challenges in a dynamic and participatory environment.

Inquiry Workshop

Discover how the Inquiry Workshop fosters critical thinking and collective exploration by generating key questions that guide research, project design, and problem analysis.

Interaction map

The Interaction map is a visual activity that enables participants to identify and analyze key relationships within a system to make informed decisions. 

Mask Making

Mask Making is a creative and participatory activity where individuals design and create their own masks as a form of symbolic, artistic, or emotional expression. It is ideal for exploring identity, emotions, and cultural themes in educational, community, or therapeutic settings.

Model Building

Model Building is an activity that allows participants to represent ideas or solutions using simple materials, fostering creativity and hands-on learning.

Narrative workshop

Engage in a Narrative workshop to share stories, foster empathy, and build collective solutions. Ideal for team building, reflection, and creative problem-solving.

Ordering the sequence

Ordering the Sequence helps organize milestones or events within a process, promoting collaborative analysis and visual understanding.

Participatory Action Research (PAR)

A cyclical methodology where communities investigate their own problems, generate knowledge collectively, and take transformative action. Research done by communities, not on them.

Participatory Infographic

Participatory Infographic transforms key information into collaborative visual representations, fostering creativity and active learning.

Participatory photography

Empower participants through participatory photography, a creative activity to capture and analyze realities, foster critical reflection, and inspire collective action using visual storytelling.

Participatory Service Blueprint

A co-design tool that maps a service's full anatomy — visible interactions and backstage processes — built together by the people who use and deliver it.

Photo Storytelling

Photo Storytelling is an activity where participants select random images and use them to construct a story, fostering creativity and group engagement.

Project bank

The Project Bank is a participatory activity for presenting, evaluating, and prioritizing proposals, fostering collaborative resource allocation and the strategic development of ideas. 

Prototype gallery

The Prototype gallery is a participatory activity that allows teams to present initial models of their ideas, receive feedback, and collaboratively refine their proposals.

Puppets

Puppets is a creative dynamic where participants design and manipulate characters to explore themes, solve problems, or tell stories in a playful and reflective way.

Radiodrama

Radiodrama is a collaborative activity where participants create audio narratives using effects, voices, and sounds to convey messages or tell stories in a creative way.

Reflection with Images

Reflection with Images is a creative activity that uses visual elements to express emotions, ideas, and learnings.

Role Simulation

Role Simulation is a participatory activity in which participants work in teams to create and act out different scenarios, exploring possible outcomes, dialogues, and decisions.

Sandwich

The Sandwich dynamic is inspired by visual and collaborative techniques used to structure information in a creative and understandable way.

Shared Book Boxes

Shared Book Boxes is a participatory activity that promotes free access to reading through the installation of small community libraries in public spaces. Through collective decoration, book exchange, and shared care, this activity strengthens social bonds, fosters culture, and creatively and collaboratively transforms the environment. It can also be developed in digital form by creating open, themed virtual libraries.

Shelling Corn

Shelling Corn is a collaborative activity where participants shell corn to reflect on community, teamwork, and the value of individual contributions.

Situationist Drift

The Situationist Drift invites participants to explore urban spaces freely and subjectively, fostering creativity and critical reflection on the environment.

Six Thinking Hats

Edward de Bono's parallel thinking method: 6 structured perspectives — facts, emotions, caution, optimism, creativity, and process — for more complete group decisions with less conflict and cognitive bias.

SMART Goal-Setting Workshop

El Taller de redacción de objetivos SMART enseña a los participantes a formular metas claras y efectivas mediante la reflexión y colaboración.

Sociocracy: Consent-Based Decision Making

Governance system using consent — not consensus — to make decisions, organizing work in circles with clear roles and distributing power equitably across the organization.

Speed Storming

Speed storming accelerates idea generation by fostering quick and dynamic exchanges among participants.

The Clothing Chain

The Clothing Chain is a creative and collaborative activity where teams build chains using clothing items or personal objects to foster creativity and group cohesion.

The Ladder of Abstraction

The Ladder of Abstraction is an activity that guides participants in reframing problems through both expansive and specific approaches, fostering strategic and innovative solutions.

The Letter

The Letter is a reflective activity that allows participants to write meaningful messages to explore emotions, thoughts, and personal connections.

The Nine Questions Technique

The Nine Questions Technique is a participatory methodology that provides a comprehensive structure for designing, planning, or evaluating projects. It promotes collective reflection and collaborative work by addressing all essential aspects of a project in an integrated way.

The Strongest Bridge

The Strongest Bridge is a collaborative activity where teams design and build bridges that must withstand progressively heavier weights, reflecting on resource optimization, collaboration, and creativity in practical scenarios.

Theory of Change

A participatory framework that maps how a group's activities generate real change. Connects actions, outputs, outcomes, and impact — and makes visible the assumptions that must hold at every link.

Urban Sketching

Urban Sketching is a participatory activity where individuals draw real-life urban or community spaces through direct observation. It encourages artistic expression, fosters a deeper connection with the environment, and transforms everyday places into sources of inspiration and shared reflection.

Visioning Workshop

Strategic planning methodology for co-creating a concrete image of a desired future, establishing the foundation for collective transformation and change processes.

Visual Inspiration Workshop

The Visual Inspiration Workshop uses images, colors, and symbols to explore ideas, emotions, and concepts in a creative and collaborative way.

Yes, but...

Yes, but... is a brainstorming activity where participants explore creative reasons to avoid taking a specific action, using avoidance as a tool to analyze barriers and encourage critical thinking.

Zine Creation

Zine Creation is an artistic and collaborative activity where participants design and assemble a small handmade publication, exploring a topic from multiple creative perspectives.