TOOL’S CATEGORY:

collective articulation   communication   entanglement   generating intimacy   game   operating from care   resilience   value system

DESCRIPTION:

This tool is used to get to know the emotional, mental and/or physical state of the participants in a work group session, an activity, meeting or assembly, before (check-in) and after (check-out), without anyone having to feel pressured to share intimate or personal information. Carrying out both check-in and check-out helps to detect to what extent individual moods, and the collective mood of the group, have changed over the course of the gathering/session.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Participants are invited to describe and share their emotional/mental/physical state through a weather forecast, using it as a metaphor for their own indoor weather. At the beginning of the gathering (check-in), participants choose the climate or weather conditions best describing their mental and/or physical state. At the end of the gathering (check-out), they are again invited to share their climate status. 

YOU WILL NEED:

Allow 10 minutes both at the beginning and at the end of the gathering/session/meeting in which you want to use this tool. Depending on the number of participants, the implementation of the tool may take more or less time.

TIPS / CAVEATS:

It is important that the dynamic be swift. Participants need to define their mental and/or physical state rather briefly. In our experience, doing the check-in at the beginning of the session is usually easier than including in the programme the check-out, since sometimes the meetings take longer than expected, causing the participants to wish or need to leave before the end of the meeting. For this reason, it is important to be aware of the end time of the session and anticipate 10 minutes before the agreed time to be able to carry out the check-out. 

FUNCTION IN TE( N ) CUIDADO:

Within the TE( N ) CUIDADO framework, we have implemented this tool to find out the mood of the participants in different meetings, workshops or gatherings, with more or less participants. This way, at the check-in we can detect whether, for instance, someone is feeling ‘stormy’, which tells the rest of the group that perhaps it is not a good time to start intense dialogues with that person.