Starter boards

Ready-to-use boards for popular online diagramming tools and how to set up a board in any other tool.

A starter board is a digital board set up for a Tree of Influence session before any node goes on it. The legend, node colors, default arrow, and a parking lot are already in place, which saves most of the setup in Prepare. This page links to starter boards for popular tools and lists what to put on a board in any other tool.

Ready-to-use boards

The Lucidspark, Miro, and Mural boards open in their own tool: make a copy in your own account. The Excalidraw board is a file to download. Then follow the "Before your session" frame on the board.

• Lucidspark: Tree of Influence starter board in Lucidspark.
• Miro: Tree of Influence starter board in Miro.
• Mural: Tree of Influence starter board in Mural.
• Excalidraw: download the Tree of Influence starter board for Excalidraw. Open Excalidraw and drag the file onto the page. Excalidraw is free and needs no account, even for live collaboration.

On a free plan, a copied board counts toward the number of boards the tool lets you edit.

Contents

Every starter board has the same parts:

• A legend in its own frame outside the space for nodes. It lists the 4 node types and the flow, with a line for the context: what the tree is about, who built it, and when. Delete the node types your tree does not use.
• Sample sticky notes in each node color, plus a white one for nodes whose type is not decided yet. It's easier to duplicate them instead of picking colors by hand.
• A sample arrow, which means influences.
• A parking lot, represented by an empty frame for nodes that do not fit yet. It is explained in Group.
• A "Before your session" frame with the setup needed: make the plain arrow the default connector, fill in the legend's context line, and place your seed nodes. Delete it before participants join.

The boards show only the default arrow. The dashed and dotted arrow styles come later, and only if the group asks for them.

Every starter board is vertical, with problems at the bottom and outcomes at the top. Seeding fills a board with many problems and outcomes, and a vertical tree spreads them across a widescreen display. If your tree grows long chains instead, turn it on its side. See orientation.

Any other tool

Put the same parts on a blank board. If your tool cannot take the exact colors, pick the closest ones and make sure the legend shows them.

If you build a starter board for another tool, please share it with others. See contributing.