Shared Year

Aims of the tool

Shared Year aims to help groups build a shared understanding of their current reality, explore opportunities and challenges, strengthen participation and collective ownership, and identify meaningful actions (Quests) for the future through collaborative mapping, reflection, and dialogue.

Description of the tool

Shared Year is a collaborative mapping and reflection game designed to help groups make sense of their present reality, explore possible futures, and identify meaningful collective actions. It combines elements of visual mapping, participatory planning, systems thinking, and game-based learning into an engaging and structured process that transforms individual perspectives into a shared understanding.

Unlike traditional strategic planning tools, Shared Year does not begin with goals, solutions, or decisions. Instead, it starts with curiosity. Players collectively create a visual map of their community, team, organisation, project, or initiative, exploring what currently exists, what is emerging, what creates energy, and what generates tension. Through a series of prompts organised around the metaphor of a year moving through four seasons, participants gradually reveal patterns, relationships, opportunities, challenges, and priorities that might otherwise remain invisible.

The game is inspired by the idea that groups often rush too quickly toward solutions without fully understanding their situation. Shared Year slows down this process and creates a space where multiple perspectives can coexist. Participants are encouraged to add to the collective picture rather than debate or defend positions. If different viewpoints emerge, they are represented side by side on the map, creating a richer and more nuanced understanding of reality.

Throughout the game, players move through four symbolic seasons:

Spring focuses on emergence, beginnings, possibilities, and new ideas. Players explore what is starting to grow, where energy exists, and what opportunities might be worth exploring.

Summer focuses on activity, effort, visibility, and pressure. Participants examine where resources and attention are being invested, what creates strain, and what requires conscious prioritisation.

Autumn focuses on learning, transformation, and closure. Players reflect on what has been achieved, what should evolve, what lessons have emerged, and what may need to be released.

Winter focuses on protection, sustainability, resilience, and care. Participants identify what is essential, what must be preserved, and what helps the group remain healthy and effective over time.

As the map develops, participants identify potential Quests—meaningful directions for collective action. Quests are not detailed project plans. Instead, they represent opportunities, challenges, or initiatives that the group feels are worth pursuing. They serve as bridges between reflection and action, helping participants move from understanding to engagement.

The game also includes optional Tension Cards, which help surface difficult conversations, uncertainties, hidden concerns, and unspoken realities. Rather than avoiding discomfort, Shared Year treats tensions as valuable sources of information that can strengthen a group's awareness and resilience when acknowledged openly.

At the end of the process, players engage in a structured reflection, identifying key insights, priorities, and potential next steps. The resulting map serves as a visual representation of the group's collective intelligence, while the Quests provide a foundation for future action.

Shared Year can be used with youth groups, community organisations, project teams, NGOs, educational institutions, volunteer networks, and professional teams. It is particularly valuable in situations where groups need to build shared ownership, navigate complexity, explore change, strengthen participation, or create a common understanding of the future.

The game supports the development of a wide range of competencies, including collaborative leadership, systems thinking, strategic awareness, communication, reflection, participation, and collective decision-making. By combining the power of visual thinking, dialogue, and play, Shared Year creates an environment where people can explore complex realities together and discover meaningful paths forward.

At its heart, Shared Year is not about predicting the future or producing perfect plans. It is about helping people understand where they are, what matters, and how they might shape the future together.