Liberating Structures: 6 formats you can use today

The most used, and for good reason: it fits anywhere and takes twenty to thirty-five minutes. Everyone thinks alone first, shares in pairs, then in fours, then plenary. The silence at the start is what gives the format its value — without that minute, the group discusses whatever the first person happened to say.

The number of phases doesn't grow with the group, so the format keeps working at a hundred people; the version here is set up for a class or team of up to about thirty, because the shared clustering at the end does scale with the number of groups.

In threes, one person puts forward a real question. The other two first ask clarifying questions, then think out loud as if the person weren't there — they turn their chair around and only listen.

Turning around is the whole trick. As long as they're in the conversation they defend; the moment they only listen, they hear what's actually being said. One case takes about fifteen minutes, so after three cases — three quarters of an hour — everyone has had a turn.

In pairs, one person asks "why is that important to you?" nine times, each time about the previous answer. Around the third or fourth time the polite answer usually runs out and something more honest arrives. Then the roles swap, and at the end each pair says in one sentence which purpose surfaced: what comes back in several pairs is the shared purpose.

Useful at the start of an initiative, when a group seems to agree on what should happen but not on why. Ten to twenty minutes, and it needs no materials.

You ask the group the opposite question: how do we guarantee this fails? That produces a list everyone laughs at — until you ask which items on it we're already doing.

The inversion works because it removes the shame. Naming something that isn't going well is hard; writing it as a joke first and then pointing at it is much less so.

Four to eight people, one object passed around, four rounds. Whoever holds the object speaks; the rest listen. No decision at the end, but understanding.

Meant for topics too complex or too loaded to solve on the spot. It takes half an hour to three quarters. The first round and the closing round carry the structure: without the first, the quickest speakers take over; without the closing round, the conversation stops because time is up. When time is short, shorten the second round first and the free dialogue last.

Several tables, each with its own theme on the same question. After every round participants move to a different table while a host stays put and summarises what's been said — or the sheet on the table keeps it. At the end you harvest the themes.

Strictly speaking this isn't a Liberating Structure but a method in its own right by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, older than the collection. It's here because it does the same job and gets named in the same breath.