But you don’t have to be Picasso – or Brandy Agerbeck — to reap the rewards of getting your ideas out on the page. Creativity guru and professor Keith Sawyer, author of Zig Zag writes:

“You don’t have to be a brilliant artist to tap into the power of drawing. Anyone can doodle … The most abstract problems are the ones that benefit the most from visualization. Even if your problem is highly conceptual, translate it into an image and draw a picture of it.”

A technique that works well for process problems — anything that happens over time — is to sketch it as a journey, Sawyer writes.

“Get inspired by geography, by the topography of places you know well. Think in metaphors; draw mountains for blocks and challenges; draw rivers for movement and transition. Maybe even use volcanoes and caves for dangers and pitfalls. The key is to ask yourself: …What’s that experience like?”

Even the masters sometimes surrender their markers. In Agerbeck’s guide to graphic facilitation, she writes “As you strengthen your own skills … you’ll see how useful and powerful it is to empower others to expand their own capacities to listen, think, and draw.”