1-2-4-All: get every voice in, even on a call
2026-10-27 · The Scrums team
1-2-4-All takes about a quarter of an hour and gets ideas from everyone in the room, not just the confident few. Breakout rooms make it work just as well on a call.
1-2-4-All is one of the simplest and most useful ways to run a group conversation. It comes from Liberating Structures, a collection of meeting formats developed by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, and it works like this:
- 1, alone: everyone thinks about the question by themselves and writes down their ideas. About a minute.
- 2, in pairs: people share their ideas in pairs and build on them. About two minutes.
- 4, in fours: pairs join up into groups of four, compare notes, and pick out what stands out. About four minutes.
- All: each group shares one important idea with everyone. About five minutes.
In around a quarter of an hour, every person has contributed, ideas have been tested in small groups before reaching the room, and the loudest voice hasn't set the agenda.
Why it works
Most meetings ask people to speak in front of everyone straight away. That favours the quick and the confident, and it means the first idea spoken shapes the rest. 1-2-4-All gives everyone time to think first, then a small, low-stakes audience, and only then the whole group.
Running it remotely
On a single video call, the pairs and fours are the hard part. Scrums calls have breakout rooms built in:
- The host opens up to twenty rooms, named if you like, and shuffles everyone in, puts people in rooms, or lets them pick.
- Rooms can run for a set time. Each room hears only itself, and has its own chat that isn't kept after the call.
- The host can move people between rooms and visit any of them. Closing the rooms brings everyone back to the main call.
For 1-2-4-All, start with everyone writing alone (the Reflect step of a retro is made for it), then open rooms of two, then close them and open half as many for the fours, then bring everyone back for the "All".
The same pattern works for brainstorming, for feedback on a proposal, and for getting a stuck discussion moving. Sign up and try it in your next call.
More on calls and breakout rooms in Scrums.