Visualize the Vote template

Use this template to get everyone’s input, giving each person the opportunity to indicate preferences and opinions before final decisions are made.

By democratizing the decision-making process with dot voting, you ensure that no single voice or idea takes precedence; instead, everyone is encouraged to be judicious for the sake of finding the favored option.

This is a simple method to employ, and offers a good degree of flexibility. For instance, when using it to pick the best solution among many, you can give everyone a token to cast a single vote. Or, if you need to consider details or prioritize a subset of alternatives, give everyone multiple voting tokens. You can also provide different types of indicators to address different issues (highest priority, best opportunities).

Whatever the need, dot voting provides a quick catalyst for discussion, moving a project toward realization.

The visualize the vote template helps you:

• Quickly get broad alignment

• Engage all stakeholders and give everyone a voice in the decision-making process

• Determine top priorities democratically

• Spark discussion and build action items

How to use the visualize the vote template

To use Mural’s visualize the vote template, follow the steps outlined below.

Step 1: Describe the decision that you’re making

Use the first section of the template to describe what you need to decide with your team. This should be no longer than a phrase or one sentence — you can provide broader context either with pre-work (a good solution for asynchronous collaboration) or at the outset of your meeting.

Step 2: Outline the voting criteria

The next step is to include the criteria on which the votes should be based — this will ensure that your participants fully understand the impact of their votes and that your outcome reflects the sentiment of your team.

Step 3: Outline the concepts

Once you’ve made it clear what decision you’re asking the team to vote on and the factors that should weigh into their votes, it’s time to outline the concepts you’ll be voting on to determine the best solutions. Use sticky notes to ideate and craft draft solutions, making sure to give your team multiple options to choose from (each one with multiple elements and considerations — this may help with refinement down the line).

Step 4: Vote!

Have each participant use the star icons assigned to their name to vote on their overall favorite idea or concept, as well as record their votes for favorite details (this could be particular components of a solution, or a way to conduct tiered voting).

Tips for running a visualize the vote template exercise

To get the most out of your voting session, you should:

• Carefully prepare your team so that they are as informed as possible about the idea or concept that they’ll be voting on

• Easily share and manage permissions to your mural so that everyone can get involved and engaged

• Keep your voting record in a single, shared space so that you can reference your decision-making process down the road