Training game
Blind drawing
One person describes a picture, the other draws it with a finger on their phone and may not ask a single question. A few minutes later you compare the original with the drawing and the whole room understands what one-way communication costs.
What is the Blind drawing game?
The oldest and most effective precision-of-communication exercise, moved onto the participants' phones. The trainer splits the room into pairs, gives each pair a picture and decides who describes and who draws. The describer sees the picture on their own screen only and may do nothing but talk. The drawer gets an empty sheet, draws with a finger and asks nothing.
The trainer sees every drawing being made, next to its original, so it is obvious where a description fell apart. When the step closes you go through the comparison together, and one button starts a second round with the roles swapped - which is where you see what the group has just learned.
See it in action
The description travels one way
Features
Key capabilities
You make the pairs
The console pairs everybody at random and you adjust by hand: who describes, who draws, who works with whom. With an odd number of people, one pair gets a second drawer.
Ready-made and your own pictures
Eight shipped drawings across three difficulty levels, plus any image of your own from a File Folder - a process diagram, a floor plan, a technical drawing.
Drawing with a finger
Participants draw with a finger on a phone or with the mouse on a laptop. The drawing saves itself, so refreshing the page loses nothing.
Every drawing, live
On the trainer screen each drawing appears as it is made, next to the original. You see who is stuck without walking around the room.
Step, debrief, swap
Close the step, go through the comparison and then let the same pairs play again with the roles reversed, in one click.
Remote and in the room
Participants join with a code or a QR code, no account needed. In the room they talk face to face; remotely, in breakout rooms.
Step by step
How it works
Create a session and project the code
Participants join anonymously from their phones by scanning the QR code or typing the six-character code.
Split into pairs and deal the pictures
One click pairs the room and deals the pictures. You can change anything: the roles, who is with whom and which picture they describe.
Start the step
Describers see the picture, drawers an empty sheet. No questions. You watch the drawings live and keep an eye on the clock.
Compare and swap the roles
Show the originals next to the drawings, talk the differences through and then run the second round with the roles reversed.
Use cases
What it’s good for
- Communication training: showing live what the absence of questions and feedback costs.
- Team onboarding: practising a shared language and shared reference points.
- Leadership training: how to give instructions somebody can actually follow.
- Requirements analysis and handing specifications from the business to a technical team.
- Workshops for trainers and teachers: precision of instructions before an exercise.
- A warm-up before a block on feedback, listening or remote work.
Training by Octigo
Want this run as a full training?
You are free to run our games and simulations on your own. But if you would like us to deliver a complete training, with a professional debrief and the concepts behind the “Blind drawing” simulation explained in depth, get in touch. Octigo is a professional training company with 20 years of experience and many awards for its simulations.
- 20 years of experience in corporate training
- Award-winning training simulations
- A professional debrief and takeaways after the session
- A programme tailored to your goals and your team
Prefer to write to us directly? szkolenia@octigo.pl
Try “Blind drawing” in Verbalu
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