Personal Map
It only works if people get to choose what goes on the map. If you mandate the eight branches, you'll get eight lies.
From Jurgen Appelo's Management 3.0. Each person draws a mind-map with their name in the centre and branches for the life areas they want to share. The team learns one fact about each colleague that wouldn't fit in a Slack bio — when the framing is honest about consent.
When to use
After a hire wave when half the team hasn't met the other half. New project kickoff with people from different orgs. First in-person off-site for a remote team. Skip it for a team in conflict — Personal Map is a connection tool, not a repair tool, and the disclosure asymmetry will make the conflict worse. Skip it on a team that's been together for years; they've done versions of this and they'll find it forced.
How it runs
Frame the rules
Name in the centre, branches for whatever you want to share. Three to five branches is fine; eight is performative. Tell the team explicitly that participation is opt-in and they choose what to put on the map.
Draw, ten minutes
On paper, in Miro, in a doc — doesn't matter. Suggested categories: Hobbies, Work history, How I prefer to be contacted, A place I keep going back to. Avoid Family/Values/Religion as defaults; let people add them only if they want to.
Pair share, then group
Two minutes in pairs first to lower the stakes, then each person presents one branch to the group. One branch only — not the whole map. The group remembers one thing per person; that's the goal.
Pin somewhere visible
Save the maps in a shared space the team can revisit. New joiners read them as orientation. The artefact does more work than the meeting.
Why it works
The format gives people control over what they share. That sounds obvious; it's also the thing every other version of this activity gets wrong by mandating eight branches. Self-selected disclosure is the entire mechanism — the team learns something real because nothing was forced.
Variations
- Three-branch version: pick Hobbies, How I work best, and one wildcard. Cuts the meeting in half and removes the loaded categories.
- Async-first: each person fills their map in a shared doc over a week, then a 20-minute live session for the group share.
- New-hire version: existing team members draw a map for themselves; the new hire reads them in their first week and adds their own.
Facilitator notes
Go first and pick a sparse map — three branches, not eight. If you go first with a deeply personal map, the team feels obliged to match it; that's exactly the asymmetry you're trying to avoid. Watch for the person who clearly doesn't want to share; let their map be a single branch and don't comment on it.
Pitfalls
- Mandating eight branches. People will fill them with lies or surface-level content; the format collapses.
- Running it on a team in conflict. Disclosure under tension reads as weaponisable, not bonding.
- Letting somebody monologue about every branch. One branch each — keep the round tight.
- Putting the maps in a deck nobody opens again. The pinned, revisitable artefact is most of the value.
Remote tips
Async-first wins. Give the team a week to fill in their maps in a shared Miro or doc, then a single 20-minute call for one-branch shares. Live drawing on a video call is awkward and produces worse maps; the time pressure pushes people to shallow content.
Example outputs
- Branches on a real map: 'Lived in three cities — Berlin, Lisbon, Bristol', 'Run a small board game club on Wednesdays', 'I take notes obsessively in meetings; please don't read it as disengagement', 'Best contacted async — I batch Slack twice a day'.
- A sparse map: 'Cyclist', 'Rust by trade, learning Go', 'Dad of two'. Three branches, three real facts. Better than eight pretend ones.
FAQ
- Personal Map or Two Truths and a Lie?
- Two Truths is a five-minute icebreaker for first contact. Personal Map is a 45-minute team-building exercise that produces an artefact. Different tools, different scales — don't substitute one for the other.
- What if someone doesn't want to participate?
- Let them. If you've framed it as opt-in and somebody opts out, that's the format working. Pressuring them into a half-hearted map is worse than a missing one.
- Which branches should I suggest?
- Hobbies, work history, communication preferences, a place that's important to you — those are safe defaults. Drop Family, Values, and Religion from the suggested list; let people add them if they want to.