Participants:

2-10

11-25

25+

Prep Time:

Time to run:

1-3 hours

Round robin template

An engaging activity where people build on each other’s ideas

Start from this template

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This round robin template, built by LUMA Institute, guides you through a collaborative session where every team member contributes multiple ideas, making it great for brainstorming and exploration. Use this template to generate and iterate on ideas across your whole team.

With the round robin approach, team members are not only encouraged to think of original solutions to problems, but also build upon the ideas of other participants, helping add context and refine your brainstorming.

The round robin template helps you:

Engage every participant and ensure that all voices are heard
Encourage collaboration and teamwork
Produce a lot of ideas through individual and team brainstorming
Identify weaknesses, provide feedback, and refine your ideas in the same session

How to use the round robin template

To get started using the round robin template, follow the below steps with your team. The session is designed to be broken down into segments of 10, 5, and 20 minutes.

Step 1: Define the problem

Before you begin, it’s important to succinctly describe the problem you’re trying to solve through brainstorming. This will ensure that your session is focused and productive. Enter the problem at the top of each section, in the ‘Challenge’ box.

Step 2: Begin individual brainstorming

Have each participant spend 10 minutes considering the problem and suggesting a potential solution using sticky notes, shapes, icons, images, GIFS, or even drawings.

Step 3: Identify potential weaknesses

Have each participant shift over one space to the right, and examine their teammates’ ideas for 5 minutes. What potential issues are there with the proposed solutions? Why might they fail? This segment of the session is meant to offer constructive feedback that will help each participant refine their original ideas.

Step 4: Develop a final concept

Using the feedback from the other participants, have each team member return to their original ideas and develop a final concept, addressing the potential threats to success and potentially integrating refinements from the round of critiques.

Tips for running a round robin session

Because of the complexity of the session, with multiple stages and coordination across the whole team as you move through the steps, it’s important to consider the following:

Assign a facilitator to help guide everyone through the session, and use features like the timer to keep things on track
Using private mode in a mural ensures that you’ll avoid groupthink
Once your team has developed their final concepts, run an anonymous voting session to help determine the best solutions and ways to move forward

How to create a Round robin template

Start from blank template

View example template

Mural makes it easy to brainstorm and collaboratively refine your ideas

With Mural’s intuitive tools, you can bring everyone together in a shared digital space to ideate, visualize, refine, and organize your brainstorming into actionable next steps.

Sticky notes & text

Add ideas, action items, and more as a sticky note or text box — then change the colors and cluster to identify patterns and new solutions.

Outline navigation & instructions

Structure your mural for easy navigation, then add activity instructions for collaborators.

Private mode

Avoid groupthink and get authentic feedback by allowing collaborators to add content privately.

Commenting

Add comments and tag collaborators for smooth asynchronous communication.

Anonymous voting

Gain consensus and reach alignment quickly, either in real time or asynchronously.

Timer

Keep collaboration moving forward with a timer to structure and time-box activities.