Case Study: Four Visual Methods FasterCures Used to Advance Research Partnerships
First RMPP Roadshow
In late 2019, the FasterCures team within Milken Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think focused on accelerating measurable progress on a path to a meaningful life, hired Lizard Brain for visual notetaking at their annual Future of Health Summit. FasterCures leads a network of patient organizations focused on advancing research into diseases that sometimes fly below the radar of the big pharma companies and the disease research industry. FasterCures’ constituents focus on everything from diabetes, cancer, and rare diseases to diseases that disproportionately affect minority and disadvantaged patients. After the summit, we talked about how they wanted to develop a maturity model for research partnerships to help patient organizations think about how they collaborate with other organizations on research. We sketched out an outline for a facilitation approach that involved getting a bunch of people into a room together to think about how they partner with others on research and try to make sense of it all.
And then the pandemic hit. So much for getting a bunch of people into a room together.
This was around the time I was writing my book, Surviving the Horror of Online Meetings. Which, for obvious reasons, I put into overdrive and published sooner than I’d originally intended.
One of the key lessons ofSurviving the Horror of Online Meetingsis, if you can do it in the room, you can do it online. It just takes a little more thought, planning, and creativity.
Method 1. Virtual facilitation using MURAL
Gathering Content in MURAL
FasterCures and Lizard Brain worked together to shift the “big tent” approach of gathering content in-person into the virtual space. We convened an advisory group of thought leaders and conducted a series of meetings to inform our design process. We used MURAL digital sticky notes in lieu of paper sticky notes and gathered a LOT of content on how patient organizations partner together to conduct research.
Method 2. Vision map
Once we had the content, we took a step back and organized it into clusters by tiers and categories. Those clusters became the building blocks of an understandable framework. We sketched out the framework using different visual metaphors as a theme, starting with arrows and paths and horizons.
Draft Partnership Maturity Model
And then, someone from the group said, “You know, building research partnerships is like building a house. What if we used a blueprint?” Everything fell into place after that key design decision. The metaphor fit our goal: we wanted to make sure member organizations didn’t feel that there was a goal to advance toward some predetermined goal. Partnership is like the floors of a house: you go to the one that makes the most sense based on where you are and what you need. The second floor isn’t “better” than the first floor, it just is. Not every patient organization has the resources or the need to build the same house.
Thumbnail sketch of the Partnership Maturity Model as a blueprint
We brought the first version of the new Research Partnership Maturity Model (RPMM) back to a group of the participants who had originally provided us with content. In another MURAL session, they provided feedback, made suggestions, and changed language. We got into a regular rhythm of “wash, rinse, repeat,” where the combined design team from FasterCures and Lizard Brain would come up with a new version of the RPMM, facilitate a feedback session with member organizations, then huddle as a small team to decide on which suggestions we would incorporate into the next version.
To hear as many ideas as possible, we used a facilitation method called “think, write, share:” participants were given sixty seconds to review the RPMM and think about their impressions of the model. Then, they had sixty seconds to write their ideas into Zoom Chat. Finally, we copy and pasted their ideas from Zoom Chat into MURAL sticky notes to sort and organize.
Note takers were on hand during the virtual feedback sessions. They played a very important role in capturing the reactions from the members: each reaction and piece of feedback gave us insight into the different perspectives members would have on the RPMM. We worked their comments into the “audio track” of how we presented the model at the next session.
After twelve valuable iterations, we felt like the RPMM was ready for prime time.
Final Partnership Maturity Model
Method 3. Visual template
As the pandemic sputtered out, FasterCures decided to hold its first RPMM “Roadshow” in early 2023 in Los Angeles. The process for the roadshow would be:
Introduce the Partnership Maturity Model at a high level,
Invite speakers and panelists to do a deep dive into each of the RPMM’s four sections (Expertise, Patients, Money, and Relationships),
Participants discuss what they heard and markup printed copies of the RPMM with their own self-assessment of where they have developed capacity and where they might build capacity.
Participants complete an action plan based on their insights from what they heard and discussed.
The team at Lizard Brain came up with a visual template for an action plan based on the same blueprint motif of the RPMM and designed to follow the arc of the roadshow’s agenda.
Action plan visual template
Method 4. Graphic recording
We were sure to include graphic recording as part of the RPMM roadshow to capture the insights and takeaways from the four presenters and panelists. Participants actively engaged with the graphic recording, referencing the visual notes as they completed their own individual action plans.
For the first RPMM roadshow, we worked with the unsinkable Michelle Boos-Stones, who brought her deep experience and supercharged energy to the event.
Michelle Boos-Stone graphic recording
In the weeks following the first RPMM roadshow, we heard stories of how participants were using the RPMM to advance their strategic planning efforts. And in early 2024, the design team from FasterCures and Lizard Brain facilitated the second RPMM roadshow in Boston. This time, we invited the talented Angela Krieg to graphic record the workshop, and we invited a participant that had utilized the model to share their experience of how they’d used the RPMM to advance their research missions.
Visual facilitation had an impact in both the design phase and implementation phases of this work. We intentionally chose facilitation approaches that worked both online and in-person to gather feedback, encourage participation, and share ownership, accountability, and adoption of the ideas.
Angela Kreig Graphic Recording