The SIE Advisory Board (AB) used the Mural app to plan for the future. This post describes Mural, and how the AB used it for a productive planning session.

Why planning now?

In addition to being time for the biannual Advisory Board meeting, I wanted to plan for the future in May 2023. Why? Because in late February, Science is Elemental received confirmation from the IRS that it had achieved 501c3 status.

Up to this point, the team focused on super low budget activities that relied solely on myself, the Board of Directors and the Advisory Board to get work done. With 501c3 status, SIE has a greater ability to fundraise, apply for grants and attract volunteers.

I viewed this as time to consider what SIE can accomplish in the next three to five years. With the feedback from the planning, I could then develop fundraising and volunteer goals and actions . I feel super proud of the work we have done so far. However, to have the impact on science education we want, SIE needs to do more.

What is Mural?

According to their website, Mural is an intuitive digital whiteboard built for teams to do their best work together. It allows people to offer their ideas in a way that, I think, encourages all to participate. To often, people hold back in meetings. The ideas spoken out loud by the brave/extroverted leave out those that remain unspoken. I think the processes Mural supports helps broaden the scope of thinking.

I first used it in my last job, during the pandemic. A team used it to get a far-flung group of people together to work through new ideas. It seemed so easy to add ideas to the discussion.

By the way, I am not compensated by the Mural people in any way. I just find their product useful.

Using Mural for the AB meeting

We used a tool from a preset template in Mural. The picture below shows that tool, adapted for the “intro to Mural” exercise at the beginning of the meeting. Essentially, the radar setup allows participants to add ideas related to several different categories. For the intro, I chose types of candy, to allow for a quick tutorial on using the stickies. Participants used stickies to place their favorite candies in each category in the radar. They placed the best candies (based on individual preference) closest to the center of the radar.

In the real work of the meeting, I switched the categories to represent the strategic pillars of Science is Elemental, a fundraising category, and a wildcard category.

I provided access to the Mural board prior to the meeting so that board members acquainted themselves with the system, and with the planned discussion

Based on my previous experience with Mural being used under similar circumstances, I knew it could work. Still, I worried that we would end up with too few ideas and take too long to come up with ideas. I wanted plenty of time to discuss the ideas before the meeting ended.

I set a time limit of 10 minutes for the idea generating portion of the meeting. To my great relief, that turned out to be about the right amount of time. The advisory board came up with lots of ideas, and were pretty much done generating them by the tenth minute.

Outcome

The group came up with many ideas, and with enough time to employ some design thinking processes to discuss them. We considered which ideas were most important to the mission of Science is Elemental and which were most feasible.

I have already taken action on some of the more feasible ideas. In the next few months, I will work out what funding and volunteer resources I will need for the ideas most important to the organization. With that done, I will be able to apply for grants and seek volunteers with a robust plan to show them.

More in later posts about SIE happenings and these new ideas!