Seed

Fill the board with many different nodes, without judging any of them.

Purpose

Get as much of the problem space onto the board as the group knows: problems, outcomes, actions, observations, half-formed thoughts. Focus on volume and variety first, and leave precision for later.

Follow the principle capture first, categorize later, especially during this phase. Nodes go up in whatever words participants use, and nobody should spend extra time deciding on types. In some cases the types are obvious, and it's okay to express them now.

When it starts and ends

Seed starts with your opening, once participants have joined the board.

It ends when new nodes slow down noticeably, most participants have contributed, and the board looks full. In a session with a fixed agenda, it may also end when its time is up.

Steps

Open the session. Explain the exercise, point to the pre-seeded nodes, and say what they are:

I put these on the board to get us started. Treat them as hypotheses. Add anything they make you think of, and feel free to disagree with them.
Ask the opening questions.

What problems are you seeing? What outcomes do you want to achieve? What's making things difficult?
Let participants add nodes freely. Any wording and any kind of node is welcome. If there's any hint of doubt, new nodes stay white: their type is decided later, during Connect.
Take everything. Duplicates, solutions, and vague nodes all stay on the board for now. Do not correct, reword, or move anything yet.
Keep nodes coming. When the board goes quiet, prompt from a different angle:

What does success look like from your perspective? What keeps breaking, or needs constant attention?
Watch who is contributing. Invite people who have not added a node yet. If one person is filling the board alone, see difficult situations.
Close Seed. When the signs above appear, move on:

Good. Let's take a moment to organize what we have before we start connecting things.

Timing

Group size	Suggested time	What to expect
3-7 participants	15-20 min	High energy, fast contributions
8-15 participants	20-30 min	More nodes, more duplicates
16-30 participants	30-40 min	Expect 50 to 80 nodes or more

A group new to the technique needs a little longer. For the whole session, see timing.

Tips

Warm up a group that is new to this. Ask everyone to bring 3 problems to the session, or open by asking what success looks like. Both are described in first-time exercises.
Keep participants' words. A node in the author's own words keeps their meaning, and their sense of ownership. Rewording comes later, if it is needed at all.
Welcome numbers and observations. "About 55% of fixed bugs are new regressions" is a perfectly good node.
Try a few minutes of silent writing. If a few voices dominate, ask everyone to add nodes silently for 5 minutes before anyone discusses them.
Use the seed nodes as prompts. When the room is stuck, point at a pre-seeded node and ask what it makes people think of.

Traps

Judging nodes as they arrive. Correcting a node, debating it, or arguing about its type during Seed slows the room down and tells participants that some contributions are wrong. Loose meanings are the point of this step.
Removing solutions. A solution on the board is not a mistake yet. Deleting it tells its author that honest input is unwelcome. Leave it, and deal with it during Group and Connect. See solution-dumping.
Filling the board yourself. Add a node only when you have a grounded reason, and say what it is. A facilitator who writes most of the nodes ends up with their own tree and a group that watched. See the facilitator's role.

Example

The renewals session follows one corner of the board through Seed, Group, and Connect: support and escalations.

The facilitator had pre-seeded 1 problem and 2 outcomes in this corner. Within the first minutes, the support leads added "Tier 1 support cannot see a customer's setup," and an engineer added the tool engineers use to look up a customer's setup. Then another engineer added "Everything ends up with engineering," which repeats a pre-seeded problem in different words, and a sales lead added "Buy a new helpdesk tool," a solution. The facilitator took both without comment.

Step 1 of 3. Before the session, the facilitator pre-seeds a known problem and 2 known outcomes, and marks a parking lot.

Step 2 of 3. Participants add nodes. New nodes stay white until their type is clear.

Step 3 of 3. More nodes arrive, including a duplicate and a solution. Both are welcome for now.

Diagram as text: The support corner of the renewals board during Seed

Steps:

Step 1: Before the session, the facilitator pre-seeds a known problem and 2 known outcomes, and marks a parking lot.
Step 2: Participants add nodes. New nodes stay white until their type is clear. Changes: added "Tier 1 support cannot see a customer's setup", "Engineering's internal admin tool".
Step 3: More nodes arrive, including a duplicate and a solution. Both are welcome for now. Changes: added "Everything ends up with engineering", "Large customers run custom code paths", "Buy a new helpdesk tool".

After the last step:

Nodes:

Root / Problem: "Most tickets are escalated to engineering"
Desired State / Outcome: "Tier 1 resolves 7 in 10 tickets on its own"
Desired State / Outcome: "Engineers spend 80% of their week on planned work"
Not yet typed: "Everything ends up with engineering"
Not yet typed: "Tier 1 support cannot see a customer's setup"
Not yet typed: "Engineering's internal admin tool"
Not yet typed: "Large customers run custom code paths"
Not yet typed: "Buy a new helpdesk tool"

No arrows yet.

By the end of Seed, the whole board held about 60 nodes. The next step, Group, organizes them.