This 200-page manual for facilitators, updated from the 1993 version by the original authors, reinforces concepts and techniques of Visualisation in Participatory Programmes (VIPP), an approach to facilitation of group events such as training and planning, which the authors claim can be used in almost any subject area. It includes both methodology and practice sections, as well as resources. It describes a set of tools including a 12-step guide to the design of VIPP methods of facilitation. The resource includes tools, games, and exercises that can be applied to make group processes more participatory and democratic.

From the VIPP website: "Based on a philosophy of trusting in the capacities and creativity of human beings, VIPP combines techniques of visualisation with methods for interactive decision making and learning. VIPP methods democratise interaction between people... At the core of VIPP is a large number of visualisation techniques, including multi-coloured cards of different shapes and sizes on which the participants express their main ideas in large enough letters or diagrams to be seen by the whole group. Private note taking is not necessary since all the proceedings are visualised, photographed, and copied for the group as a collective memory."

The manual documents the roots and philosophy of VIPP and its applications of the past 15 years of practice in the following situations:

• Planning and revising development projects and programmes using VIPP methodology, beginning with analysis at the community level and involving all actors in the planning process.
• Communication materials development and story-line planning techniques for training of creative talent and in planning stories, storyboards, and scripts in professional work.
• Putting research into action - formal research and rapid appraisal applied to the planning processes through VIPP methods.
• Community-level development work, including Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) for planning and implementing development activities at the grassroots level.
• Training workshops in which the traditional teacher-pupil relationship is turned into an interactive process.
• Training of facilitators and trainers where the method for training, participation and dialogue, is also the content.
• Curricula development.
• Running conferences and information markets using VIPP methods to facilitate better dialogue and understanding between participants throughout the proceedings.
• Business meetings focusing on gathering important issues, holding visualised discussions, and taking action.

Click here to access the VIPP website and VIPP resources.

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