Catalog
method#Product#Delivery#Architecture#Governance

Rich Pictures

A visual, hand-drawn method for representing complex systems, stakeholders and relationships to support problem understanding and stakeholder alignment.

Rich pictures are informal, hand-drawn representations that capture complex systems, stakeholders, and relationships visually and narratively.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Organizational
  • Organizational
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Workshops in product discovery phasesConversion into Jira/issue tracker for follow-upDocumentation in Confluence or other wikis

Principles & goals

Visual and inclusive: images foster shared interpretation.Iterative: multiple versions instead of a final diagram.Participation: include diverse perspectives.
Discovery
Team, Domain

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Incorrect simplification of complex matters.
  • Dominance of single participants may skew the picture.
  • Results are not documented or followed up.
  • Start with broad shapes, then add details.
  • Activate different perspectives by separate drawings.
  • Document iterative insights digitally for follow-up.

I/O & resources

  • Basic system information, stakeholder list, objectives
  • Facilitation materials (flipcharts, markers) or digital whiteboards
  • Representatives of relevant stakeholder groups
  • Visual rich pictures as discussion basis
  • List of open questions, assumptions and identified conflicts
  • Derivation of hypotheses and next steps

Description

Rich pictures are informal, hand-drawn representations that capture complex systems, stakeholders, and relationships visually and narratively. They support problem exploration, perspective alignment, and stakeholder engagement during early discovery. The method encourages shared understanding, hypothesis generation, and the surfacing of conflicts, boundaries, and hidden assumptions. They are easy to apply.

✔

  • Rapid building of shared understanding of complex situations.
  • Early surfacing of conflicts, assumptions and gaps.
  • Low barrier to entry; encourages creative collaboration.

✖

  • Subjectivity: interpretations can vary and must be discussed.
  • Not formal: limited suitability for formal specifications.
  • Scaling: large, detailed systems are hard to represent on a single page.

  • Number of issues identified

    Counts core problems or open questions surfaced by rich pictures.

  • Participant satisfaction

    Participant feedback on session clarity and usefulness.

  • Implementation rate of derived actions

    Share of actions derived from rich pictures that are implemented.

Product discovery at a FinTech

Team used rich pictures to visualize user journeys and affected systems and to clarify requirement boundaries.

Company-wide process analysis

Multiple departments created rich pictures to identify interface issues and redundant tasks.

Reorganization of a support team

Rich pictures helped make informal communication paths visible and align formal processes accordingly.

1

Define objective and participants; prepare materials.

2

Introduce method and rules; co-create the first drawing.

3

Discuss, iterate and document key insights.

4

Derive concrete next steps and assign responsibilities.

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Non-digitized results hinder later use.
  • Unclear decisions cause extra effort later.
  • Inconsistent documentation across workshops.
Lack of facilitation capacityIncomplete stakeholder coverageMissing follow-up on results
  • Using it as final documentation of technical interfaces.
  • Omission of affected stakeholders leaving assumptions hidden.
  • Using it without facilitation in conflict-prone situations.
  • Premature formalization loses creative insights.
  • No clear objective; results remain diffuse.
  • Missing follow-up renders results ineffective.
Facilitation and visualization skillsBasic understanding of systemic relationsAbility to facilitate heterogeneous groups
Need for shared system understandingNeed to clarify interfaces and dependenciesEarly identification of responsibilities and boundaries
  • • Time constraints for workshops
  • • Confidentiality limits for sensitive topics
  • • Physical or digital tools must be provided