Alignment Chart Template
The alignment chart originated in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game to allow players to categorize their characters according to their ethical and moral perspectives.
About the Alignment Chart Template
To understand what an alignment chart does, it’s helpful to understand the concept of alignment. An alignment categorizes a person, thing, or idea along two dimensions: “lawful” versus “chaotic” and “good” versus “evil.” Combine these dimensions in a total of nine different alignments. For example, someone can embody “lawful good” or “chaotic evil.” An alignment chart situates these traits along a 3x3 or 5x5 grid.
Where is the Alignment Chart from
Alignment charts originated in the game Dungeons & Dragons. D&D creator Gary Gygax drew on fantasy stories by authors Michael Moorcock and Poul Anderson to create a fun, memorable system for categorizing players’ characters before playing a game. Characters could be lawful, meaning they respect and follow societal rules; chaotic, meaning they are rebellious and individualistic, or neutral, meaning they aren’t quite lawful or chaotic. Gygax later introduced the cross-cutting traits of “good” and “evil” to add nuance to these descriptors.
Over the past few years, alignment charts have moved beyond the realm of D&D and into classrooms, online quizzes, listicles, and conference rooms. They’re a popular feature on social media accounts for brands and individuals alike.
If you’re a social media manager, you can use an alignment chart as a fun exercise on your Instagram or other accounts, sorting your products, features, favorite movies, or more based on the alignment system.
You can also use an alignment chart template as a lighthearted way to kick off a brainstorm, or as an icebreaker before a meeting. Simply give everyone a topic, or invite your team to pick a topic and let your imagination run wild.
Create your own Alignment Chart
Making your own Alignment Chart is easy. Miro’s virtual collaboration platform is the perfect canvas to create and share them. Get started by selecting the Alignment Chart Template, then take the following steps to make one of your own.
Pick a topic. If there’s a book you like, you could align the characters or align several books in the same genre. If you have a line of products, you could align those too. The possibilities are endless! The only constraint is that you have to choose nine things to categorize. If you’re using the alignment chart to kick off a brainstorming session or as an icebreaker, get the whole team involved. Invite anyone to pick a topic.
Choose photos or images to represent each thing you’re categorizing. You can use emojis (as seen in our template), stickers, or actual images of the item you’re sorting into the chart. Get creative with it. If you plan on sharing the alignment chart on social media, don’t be afraid to dress it up with colorful fonts and graphics. You want your chart to stand out to inspire your followers to share widely.
Use the template to sort each thing. Add your images to the template to signify where something falls in the alignment chart. There are nine total possibilities: lawful good, chaotic good, neutral good, true neutral, lawful neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, chaotic evil, and neutral evil.
Share your chart with your team. Once you’re finished sorting, you can share your alignment chart with your team! This is especially useful if you need to gather feedback from your teammates before posting it on social media.
How do I read an Alignment chart?
An Alignment chart is a useful tool for developing a character’s identity. An alignment chart categorizes a person, thing, or idea along two dimensions: “lawful” versus “chaotic” and “good” versus “evil.” It’s possible to combine these dimensions in a total of nine different alignments in the Alignment Chart’s 3x3 grid. For example, someone can embody “chaotic evil” or “lawful good.”
What are the 9 moral alignments?
The Alignment chart has 9 moral alignments in its 3x3 grid, which allow you to categorize characters according to their ethical and moral perspectives. These 9 moral alignments include Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil. Using Miro’s Alignment Chart Template, you can categorize characters and share them with your team.
Get started with this template right now.
PI Planning Template
Works best for:
Agile Methodology, Strategic Planning, Software Development
PI planning stands for “program increment planning.” Part of a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), PI Planning helps teams strategize toward a shared vision. In a typical PI planning session, teams get together to review a program backlog, align cross-functionally, and decide on the next steps. Many teams carry out a PI planning event every 8 to 12 weeks, but you can customize your planning schedule to fit your needs. Use PI planning to break down features, identify risks, find dependencies, and decide which stories you’re going to develop.
Icebreaker Template
Works best for:
Icebreakers
There’s no better way to kickoff a meeting or workshop than by building comfort and familiarity between your guests — to put them at ease and get them ready to participate and collaborate. That’s just the kind of human connection that icebreakers create, which make them great for remote gatherings or introducing new team members. There are many icebreakers to choose from, including: Describe yourself in one word. Share a photo of yourself as a baby. And if you were an animal, what would you be?
Mad Sad Glad Retrospective
Works best for:
Brainstorming, Ideation
It's tempting to measure a sprint’s success solely by whether goals and timelines were met. But there’s another important success metric: emotions. And Mad Sad Glad is a popular, effective technique for teams to explore and share their emotions after a sprint. That allows you to highlight the positive, underline the concerns, and decide how to move forward as a team. This template makes it easy to conduct a Mad Sad Glad that helps you build trust, improve team morale, and increase engagement.
Brainwriting Template
Works best for:
Education, Ideation, Brainstorming
Brainstorming is such a big part of ideation. But not everyone does their best work out loud and on the spot, yelling out thoughts and building on others’ ideas. Brainwriting is a brilliant solution for them—creative thinkers who happen to be more introverted. This approach and template invites participants to reflect quietly and write out their ideas, and then pass them to someone else who will read the idea and add to it. So you’ll get creative ideas from everyone—not just the loudest few.
Event Planning Template
Works best for:
Planning, Workshops
Whether you’re planning a product launch, fully remote conference, or milestone event, the Event Planning Template will act as a visual checklist and map for all the details you need to consider before the big day. The Event Planning Template is an adaptable way to make sure the creative and strategic vision of your event doesn’t get lost in the details. By mapping out different sections - from the marketing plan, to the agenda, to snacks and swag for guests — you and your team can focus on the details most important to your functions, and collaborate as needed when overlaps occur.
Johari Window Model
Works best for:
Leadership, Meetings, Retrospectives
Understanding — it’s the key to trusting others better and yourself better as well. Built on that idea, a Johari Window is a framework designed to enhance team understanding by getting participants to fill in four quadrants, each of which reveals something they might not know about themselves or about others. Use this template to conduct a Johari Window exercise when you’re experiencing organizational growth, to deepen cross-functional or intra-team connections, help employees communicate better, and cultivate empathy.