1-2-4-All

Split out the participants in smaller groups to work on something.

How to

Facilitator first presents the format:

  1. 1 min Alone: Think by yourself and come up with your own answers.
  2. 2 min In pairs: Merge or select the best answers.
  3. 4 min By pairs of pairs: Merge or select the best answers again.
  4. 4 min All together: Facilitator asks each group in round for their most important sharing. Popcorn format works great here.

Only then, the facilitator shares a question or a task for the group to work on.

In remote, pairs of pairs are difficult to manage. So use 1-3-all (3 min triplet breakouts) instead.

Benefits

This flow ensures everybody contributes. It also gives time for everyone to have solo reflection, and it prevents talkative people to take over all the speech time. It can be applied to complicated questions and is surprizingly time efficient.

Pitfalls

Extending the timings for complex problems or questions is a classic pitfalls. Long timeboxes are energy killers. It’s better to run the 1-2-4-all twice.

References

1-2-4-All is a Liberating Structures. See: https://www.liberatingstructures.com/1-1-2-4-all/.