Stinky Fish Canvas
The Stinky Fish Canvas helps teams identify and address unspoken issues that hinder progress. By surfacing anxieties, fears, uncertainties, and silent problems, the canvas promotes open dialogue and collaborative problem-solving.
Use this method when a team is experiencing underlying tensions, resistance to change, or a lack of alignment. It's particularly useful during transitions like a new strategy or leadership change.
Solves: Unspoken tensions and resentments festering within a team, hindering collaboration and productivity.
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Step 1: Introduce the Stinky Fish Canvas and its purpose. Emphasize the importance of candor and psychological safety. (5 min)
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Step 2: Distribute the canvas (physical or digital) to each participant and provide sticky notes/digital equivalents. (2 min)
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Step 3: Individually, participants fill out the canvas, identifying issues in each of the four categories: silent problems, unknowns, anxieties, and fears. (15 min)
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Step 4: Participants share their individual canvases with the group, one at a time. (20 min)
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Step 5: Facilitate a discussion to identify commonalities, tensions, and contradictions. (15 min)
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Step 6: Prioritize the key issues using dot voting (each participant gets three votes). (10 min)
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Step 7: Decide on next steps: brainstorm solutions or schedule a follow-up session. (5 min)
- Warm up the audience with icebreaker activities to build trust before diving into the exercise.
- Consider using the 1-2-4-All approach to gradually expand the conversation and encourage participation.
- Remind the team of the importance of speaking up and addressing issues proactively.
- Use different categories on the canvas to suit the specific context.
- Break the larger team into smaller groups (duos or triads) for initial sharing before bringing everyone together.