MethodKit by Ola Möller (et al.)
Meet Ola Möller, founder of MethodKit – a big library of card decks for workshops, built over the past 13 years in Stockholm, Sweden. He and his team have created 53 different kits, one of which has been translated into 43 languages. Each deck breaks a topic into bite-sized cards so teams can lay everything on the table, grasp the big picture, and talk about what matters.
MethodKit Goes Digital
Big news from Stockholm: After 13 years of building physical card decks for collaboration, MethodKit is going digital. The beloved kits are now being adapted for tools like Miro, Mural, Howspace, and Mentimeter, making it easier than ever for remote teams to get hands-on with complex topics.
“I’ve been really curious about how we bridge the physical and digital,” says founder Ola Möller. “How can we capture analog workshop energy, and still get the clarity and overview that digital offers? We’ve come a long way on that.”
What’s MethodKit all about?
Why does it exist, and what problems does it try to solve?
Back when I ran workshops and large collaborations, people needed to get on the same page but that was time-consuming. We needed a language everyone could literally put on the table, to get aligned quicker. MethodKit became that language: decks that surface the key parts of any topic, let participants sort and move them, and keep the loudest voice from running the meeting.
I sketched the first prototype in 2012 and refined it with feedback from friends and workshop groups. Since then, more than 200 educators, facilitators, translators, and subject-matter experts have helped shape the 60-plus decks we offer today (10 of them are not publicly available, like the one for disarming rebel groups or working with Ukrainian veterans).
Last year we worked with large institutions to develop workshops with kits that make it easier for them to do workshops and education effectively. Like the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, DW Akademie (German TV’s education division) and UN-Habitat.
UN-Habitat uses our methodology (MethodKit for Places) to redesign places together with girls, globally.
Vision 2041 – a workshop where participants explored their past, present, and future to reimagine the city through three lenses: Life in the City, Places and Streets, and the City at Night.
How can the kits be used?
Digital Card Decks: People use them in remote meetings, online workshops, interactive sessions in on-site presentations, virtual classrooms, and hybrid settings. Because the cards are digital, teams can click, drag, and cluster, making sense of ideas together, even from different time zones. The decks give structure, but leave space for flexibility and flow.
Printed Card Decks: People use them in meetings, workshops, design sprints, policy labs, and classrooms. Because the cards are physical,teams can point, shuffle, and vote, literally moving the conversation forward. The decks show the terrain but never dictate the route.
Friends working on a neighbourhood festival
Example of some of MethodKit’s users
What’s your opinion on the idea of toolboxes in general? At this point everyone seems to have their own! When are they useful and not useful
There are many different collections and to be honest it’s a bit of a wild west out there. I think accessible language is key in this (not creation of new buzzwords), the threshold is in many cases too high still.
We use this glossary to explain the differences between things that many people put together into a lump called ‘tools’.
Tools — Practical things you can use. Like hammers, worksheets or cards for brainstorming. (We are not of the opinion that tools are exercises, mindsets or techniques)
Method — An exercise (in a workshop). It often aims at doing something.
Methodology — Often curated collections of mindsets, methods, processes, techniques and tools. Like ‘design thinking’.
Mindset — To use a certain set of thinking. Like ‘supportive’, ‘critical’ or ‘problem-oriented’.
Process — A sequence of events. Something that happens like 1–2–3. Like making cinnamon buns, unfolding a conflict or running a workshop. From start to end.
Techniques — You can chop an onion in 1,000 different ways.
