Community Possibilities

Most communities generate more ideas than they can act on, and then feel bad about it. This practice separates the imagining from the committing, so a group can dream widely and still leave with two or three real possibilities that have a person and a first step attached.

• Communities asking what to do next
• Groups with more energy than direction
• Turning recurring complaints into experiments
• Planning sessions that usually end in a long list nobody reads

Sticky notes, markers, and wall space. Optional: dot stickers for the prioritising round.

Be clear with yourself about what is genuinely open. If budget, venue, or timing are already fixed, say so at the start — nothing kills trust faster than discovering afterwards that the decision was made. Prepare one framing question that names the community's actual situation.

1. 1

   Name where we are

   5 minutes

   Briefly describe the current state of the community honestly, including constraints. Then pose the question: What could we do together in the next few months?

   Suggested facilitator language

   “Here is what is real right now, including what is fixed. Within that, what becomes possible?”

   Make this your own. These words are here if they're helpful.

2. 2

   Generate widely

   8 minutes

   Silent writing, one idea per note, quantity over quality. Explicitly invite unrealistic ideas — they usually contain a realistic one.

   Suggested facilitator language

   “Write anything, including things you think are too ambitious or too small. We are not deciding yet.”

   Make this your own. These words are here if they're helpful.

3. 3

   Post and read

   5 minutes

   Everyone posts and reads the wall in silence, then clusters similar notes together as a group.

4. 4

   Find the energy

   7 minutes

   Ask people to stand near the cluster they feel most drawn to. Bodies in the room are a better signal than a show of hands. Notice which clusters are empty — that is information too.

5. 5

   Shape the possibilities

   10 minutes

   In those groups, sharpen the idea into a sentence: what it is, who it is for, and what the smallest first version looks like.

6. 6

   Test for commitment

   7 minutes

   Each group reports back with one sentence and answers one question: who will do the first step, and by when? An idea with no name attached goes into the maybe pile rather than the plan.

   Suggested facilitator language

   “This is not a vote and nobody has to volunteer. An idea can be good and still not be for now.”

   Make this your own. These words are here if they're helpful.

7. 7

   Close honestly

   3 minutes

   Name what is going forward, what is parked, and who will follow up. Say what happens next and when the group will hear about it.

• What is one thing you are more hopeful about than you were an hour ago?
• What did we decide not to do, and is that okay?

• Do not let the group commit to more than two or three things. Over-committing is the most common failure of this session.
• Parked ideas should genuinely be kept somewhere and revisited, or people stop offering them.
• Watch for the most confident person's idea absorbing everyone else's energy — the standing round helps prevent this.
• Follow up in two weeks. This is the step that decides whether the session mattered.

• Offer a seated version of the standing round using dot stickers.
• Offer to transcribe for anyone who prefers not to write.
• Make it clearly fine to join a cluster without taking on a role.
• Keep the reading wall at accessible height and read clusters aloud.

• Run only the first three steps as a pure idea harvest, and hold the commitment round in a later session.
• For larger groups, do the clustering in table groups first, then merge.
• Use a time horizon instead of an open question: what could we do before the end of the season?