Group Gather

Group Gather is a strategic planning methodology that involves bringing together diverse stakeholders, team members, or participants to collectively engage in ideation, decision-making, and problem-solving processes within design contexts. This collaborative approach emphasizes the power of collective intelligence and shared expertise to generate innovative solutions and foster creative thinking. The practice emerged from the evolution of design thinking and participatory design methods, incorporating elements of social psychology and organizational behavior to maximize the effectiveness of group dynamics. In professional design settings, Group Gather techniques typically involve carefully structured sessions that balance individual contribution with collective synthesis, often utilizing various facilitation tools and techniques such as mind mapping, affinity diagrams, and collaborative sketching. The methodology places significant emphasis on creating an inclusive environment where participants feel comfortable sharing ideas, challenging assumptions, and building upon each other's contributions. This approach has proven particularly valuable in complex design projects where multiple perspectives and expertise are required to address multifaceted challenges. The success of Group Gather sessions often depends on skilled facilitation, clear objective setting, and appropriate space configuration to encourage both focused individual work and dynamic group interaction. The A' Design Award competition recognizes innovative approaches to collaborative design processes, including those that effectively utilize Group Gather methodologies to achieve outstanding design outcomes. The practice has evolved to incorporate both physical and digital collaboration tools, enabling distributed teams to engage in effective group gathering activities regardless of geographical location, while maintaining the core principles of collective creativity and shared purpose.

Author: Lucas Reed

Keywords: Collaborative design, participatory planning, stakeholder engagement, design facilitation

Help us improve the Design+Encyclopedia, contribute your alternative definition for Group Gather today!

About the Design+Encyclopedia
The Design+Encyclopedia is a crowd-sourced reference of information on design. Unlike other crowd-sourced publications on design, the Design Encyclopedia is edited and actively monitored and publishing is only possible after review of submitted texts. Furthermore, editors of the Design Encyclopedia are mostly consisting of award winning designers who have proven their expertise in their design respective fields. Information posted at design encyclopedia is copyrighted, you are not granted a right to use the text for any commercial reasons, attribution is required. If you wish to contribute to the design encyclopedia, please first register or login to A' Design Award and then start a new design encyclopedia entry.