Register for Upcoming Workshop
Date: 27th November 2026, Friday
Duration: 3 hours
Time: 7:00PM to 10:00PM IST (Timezone converter)
Where: Online, via Zoom Meeting
(Invitation will be sent within 24 hours of registration)
Visual Thinking and Sketchnote Workshops: Think Clearly in the Age of AI
Visual Thinking is the practice of using simple drawings, words, shapes, and structure to understand ideas, see problems, explore potential solutions, and explain them toothers. Tanmay Vora’s workshops teach leaders, teams, and learners to sketchnote and think visually with no drawing skills required. Drawing is the earliest tool known to human beings for thinking and communicating. The workshop has been delivered since 2019 to over 4000 participants and teams at organizations like Philips Design, Citi, EY GDS, Accenture, MICA and IIT Gandhinagar amongst others.
What is Visual Thinking and What are Sketchnotes?
Visual Thinking is a cognitive process that uses basic shapes, symbols, diagrams, images and spatial structures, rather than words alone, to understand, organize, and comunicate ideas.
Sketchnotes are a form of visual note-taking that combines handwriting, basic shapes, icons, and structure to capture the meaning of what you learn, read, or consume rather than record everything verbatim. Sketchnotes are a great tool to think visually, and often the starting point.
To think visually or create sketchnotes, you don’t need to be an artist. If you can write, you can draw, and if you can draw, you can learn how to sketchnote.
Why visual thinking matters more in the age of AI?
AI makes answers cheap and robs us of the cognitive struggle necessary for us to learn and think critically. What is precious is our ability to understand the outputs, judge whether it is right, and decide how to process the information. That process of immersive sensemaking is what makes us human. It is our advantage in the world of AI.
Here are some challenges of our times:
- When information is abundant, understanding can be a bottleneck. The rare skill today is no longer finding/generating information but shaping it into a clear mental model.
- Better prompts require better thinking. A quick sketch of a problem forces us to clarify what we are actually asking from AI. Vague thinking mostly means vague outputs.
- Without structure, connections between ideas can remain hidden. Drawing using simple shapes can reveal assumptions, patterns, overlaps and contradictions.
- Constant distractions rob our attention. Putting pen to the paper brings us into the moment, allowing us to slow down to engage with ideas.
- Customers get lot of information when they are looking for stories. A crisp visual story can do wonders that a 42-slide presentation cannot.
- AI generated sketchnotes are ubiquitous – but they are outputs without any cognitive involvement, and hence a commodity.
Science tells us that drawing aids memory and comprehension. Shared pictures create shared understanding. Drawing by hand keeps you the author while AI works as your thought partner.
Visual thinking does not compete with AI. It is the human half of working well with AI tools.
What will you learn?
During the workshop, you will:
- Use visual thinking to understand complex topics faster and with less overwhelm
- Build a personal visual vocabulary of shapes, icons, and metaphors
- Structure information with hierarchy and flow so it’s easy to follow
- Capture talks, meetings, and readings as sketchnotes that you will actually revisit
- Tell visual stories in different ways to explain strategy, change, and ideas
- New: Engage in visual sensemaking to frame problems before prompting AI, and to review and critique AI outputs.
Who is it for?
The workshop is designed for anyone who needs to come up with ideas, collaborate with others and communicate clearly with others. More specifically,
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Entrepreneurs (to come up with and communicate strategies, vision and values)
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Business Leaders and Managers (for execution planning and communicating the goals, processes and plans)
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Teams (for planning, ideation, collaboration and retrospection)
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Content Creators and Authors (for effectively expressing content and emotions behind their messages)
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Coaches and Mentors (to visualize possibilities)
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Teachers and Trainers (to gain better visual tools for imparting knowledge)
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Students and Learners (who want better ways of learning)
Who has attended?
Through open monthly workshops, we have equipped thousands of people across the globe to reclaim their visual thinking super powers.
The workshop has seen individual participation from companies like TCS, TechMahindra, SAP SE, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Johnson & Johnson, NHS UK, Citi, Cisco Systems, JPMorgan, FedEx, T-Systems and many more.
We have conducted half-day, full day and continuous coaching workshops at global organizations like Philips Design, Oldendorff Shipping, SHRM India amongst others.
Workshop Flavours and Formats
- Visual Thinking and Sketchnotes: Introductory Workshop
- Visual Thinking for Effective Consulting
- Visual Thinking and Sketchnotes for Learning and Development
- Visual Storytelling for Leaders
- Visual Thinking for Better Education (Aimed at Schools and Colleges)
- New: Visual Thinking for the AI Era: Sensemaking, Better Prompts, and Sound Judgment
We conduct this workshop is different formats, depending on an organization’s context:
Format | Duration | Best Suited For |
|---|---|---|
Online open workshop | 2 hours | Individuals wanting a first experience |
Online corporate | 2 or 4 hours | Distributed teams |
Onsite corporate | 4 or 8 hours | Leadership offsites, design and L&D teams |
Hybrid masterclass + coaching | 4-hour masterclass + fortnightly coaching for 3 months | Building a lasting capability across a team |
What does a workshop look like?
- Clarifying the WHY: Understand importance of visual thinking in business
- Warm-up: Reconnect with drawing as thinking (basic shapes, no pressure)
- Visual vocabulary: Icons, people, and metaphors for abstract ideas
- Visual Metaphors: Understanding structures for telling better visual stories
- Lettering and structure: Hierarchy, containers, and connectors
- Live practice: Sketchnote a short talk or real work problem
- AI-era practice: Sketch a problem, use it to prompt an AI tool, then map and critique the output
- Take-home practice plan: A simple routine to keep the habit going
Testimonials
“The workshop was well paced with insight to how to start and then follow the path to acquire the skill. Will thoroughly recommend the workshop to anybody who would like to explore this valuable art of communication”
“Excellent course delivered impeccably. Relevant content, clear flow from concept to hands-on training.”
“Thoroughly enjoyed and inspired by Tanmay’s visual thinking workshop. Taken through the process in a staged way over two hours showing that you don’t need to know how to draw in order to have a go at sketchnoting.”
“The workshop takes you through the basics of visual thinking in a step by step manner from basic shapes to visual metaphors, to use of words and lettering and finally structuring and organizing your ideas – making the learning so much fun. Highly recommended workshop for any one interested to capture ideas visually.
