ThemeMaterials & tools
CardCard 6 of 60
Questions5 to explore
StepGather your materials

Writable Surfaces

Notebooks, Post-its, flipcharts & whiteboards

Writable surfaces are how the group makes thinking visible, and which surface you use shapes how permanent, shared, and movable that thinking is.

Notebooks, Post-its, flipchart paper, and whiteboards each have a different relationship to permanence and participation. A notebook is private and personal. A Post-it is small, movable, and designed to be rearranged. A flipchart sheet can be torn off and posted on the wall. A whiteboard can be erased and reused but not easily moved. The choice matters.

Think about what you need to happen with the content after it is written. If people need to cluster and sort, Post-its on a wall work. If you need a shared record of a decision, a flipchart sheet taped to the wall is visible to everyone. If you need fast, rough iteration, a whiteboard is faster than paper. Mixing surfaces across a day is fine as long as you have a plan for capturing what matters.

Easy to missCheck whether the room has a whiteboard or flipchart stand before you arrive, since venues frequently describe rooms as having both when they have neither.

How experienced facilitators handle it

The same building block, handled by people who have run a lot of workshops. Patterns and illustrations to react to, not rules to follow.

Match surface to purpose

Experienced facilitators choose the surface for what will happen to the content: Post-its for sorting, flipchart for shared visible record, whiteboard for fast sketching that does not need to last.

Photograph before erasing

They photograph whiteboard content before wiping it, treating that photograph as part of the documentation, not an afterthought.

Pre-cut Post-its by task

For activities with a set structure, they often pre-cut or pre-organize Post-its by color or size so each type has a clear role, reducing confusion during the activity.

Questions to plan around

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

What do you need to happen with the content after it is written: kept, photographed, posted, sorted, or erased?
Does the room actually have the writable surface you are planning around?
Are Post-its, flipchart pads, or paper available and do you have enough for the full day?
How will you document whiteboard content that cannot leave the room?
Is there wall space to post flipchart sheets or large paper outputs from group work?

Watch for

Venues that say they have a flipchart often mean one stand with half a pad, no spare paper, and markers that have been drying out since last year.
Post-its that do not stick to the wall mid-activity are a real problem: old stock, cold rooms, or painted surfaces all reduce adhesion, so test in the actual room.
Whiteboard content gets erased by accident or by the next group using the room, so a photograph at the end of every significant whiteboard output should be a reflex, not a decision.