Efficient problem solving

#### Why use sketches

In an era of presentation, ppt, talk, flyers, and workshops, the knowledge is not always efficiently transmit from the pitcher to the audience. Using sketching may have several benefits to make the meeting more interactive and more impactful.

Part of the benefices are:

* Establishing a joint focus among converses
* Promoting interactivity, involvement, collaboration, and better listening
* Engaging people and keep them focused
* Helping to abstract or generalize from a concrete phenomenon and situation
* Helping articulate implicit notions
* Signaling WIP and therefore invite to modification
* Inviting the drawer to change perspective and view things differently
* Instant documentation for subsequent analysis and comparison

#### Basic frameworks

Let's define the basic qualities, flows, and pitfall of sketches.

Sketches, if done properly, are:

* Captivating; people will give you their attention
* Automatic: simple sketches are automatically understood
* Revisable: They invite modification, encouraging teamwork
* Memorable: They are easier to memorize than text or ppt
* Energizing: By drawing, you activate people's creative and analytical skills
* Natural: Everybody already knows how to draw simple sketches

And avoid the COMA

* Complicated: by either using specific symbols or relying on peculiar conventions
* Overloaded: Too many elements confuse and demotivate
* Manipulative: by hiding or highlighting key elements
* Ambiguous: Symbols have many significations, make sure they are clear.

On top of the coma, there are 3 mains pitfalls you should avoid using sketches, focusing on aesthetic instead of clarity, focusing on details and accuracy rather than speed and clarity, focusing on the sketch rather than the discussion.

#### Basic aesthetic consideration

Even if aesthetic is not key, it can help improve the clarity of the sketch and make it less complicated. To improve a sketch focus on the size, the position, the color (Red, Green, Blue, and Black - we use either black or blue, if we use both, then blue and black must each have a specific different meaning), the orientation, of the text and the shape of the symbols (edgy tend to catch more intention).

You can use 6 entities in your sketches, simple shapes, composite shapes relation between shapes, text, containers and frames, and symbols.

### Different sketches for different uses

Sketches are often used to illustrate Process, Compare, or systems, but they must also be adapted to the action you want to do.

Not all sketches are created equal. Some are easier to use and some are more popular

Argument sketch
Risk fuse
Synergy map
Strategy canvas
Toulmin Diagram
Causal Map
 Medium
Path to success
Story sketch
Social Network
Sweet spot
Scenariogram
Sketch sequence
Negotiation sketch
Flow sketch
Bridge
Concept map
Fishbone
Timeline
 High
10-10-10 circle
Agenda tracker
Sales balance
Mountain trail
Goal chart
Sketchmark
Strategy airplane
Empathy map
Funnel
Mind map
SWOT
Idea rating Venn

## Moving past the Sketches

Diagrams, metaphors and sketches must be adapted to fit the situation. You can change the shape, add, remove, alter elements but it must keep is easy to understand characteristic. The list provided is far from being exhaustive.

### Developing your own template

6 Steps:

1. Context: think about recurring issues that may use a template (recurrent conflict, meeting, etc.)
2. Content: what are the most important categories or items to structure this context. You can use proven structures (SPIN, AIDA, 5W) or made up one.
3. Format: How can we represent these key categories (Venn, process, matrices, metaphors, boxes and arrows, etc.
4. Interaction: How can we develop the sketch step-by-step. Tend to start with the overview down to the specifics, but this is situational.
5. Iteration: How do I add new elements. The mechanic is different for mind map and matrices
6. Evaluation: Test in real life, start with small and informal settings.

## Bringing creativity in organizations

Creativity is the most important leadership qualities for the next 5 years according to Bill Gates. But how do you bring creativity?

### Flip-flop method

An interesting technique is the Flip-Flop method. Instead of answering the real problem, you try to find the list of ideas that will make it worse and you flip them to fix them 1 by 1

## Additional readings

### Productivity loss in brainstorming groups

Brainstorming is based on the premise that more and wilder ideas are better, improve already suggested ideas and do not be critical. It is supposed to improve divergent thinking in groups. However, studies prove that nominal groups tend to produce twice as more ideas than real groups, no methodology was able to truly compare the quality of the ideas suggested.

The mechanics behind this phenomenon are *free-riding,* production blocking, and *evaluation apprehension*.

#### Freeriding

The bigger the group, the lower the perceived importance of individual contribution. Resulting in a tendency to just enjoy the ride. This is even more pronounced when only the best idea is selected.

#### Production blocking

The rule is usually that only one person speaks at a time while the other should be listening. Theses 2 constraints may result in (1) block people from verbalizing their idea as they occur, (2) forget or suppress ideas as you can forget them or judge them less relevant/original. Finally, listening to others may prove to be distractive and interfere with our own thinking.

Evaluation apprehension

If you are part of a group of experts or supposed experts, you may refrain yourself from verbalizing an idea, fearing to sound stupid.

#### Brainstorming as a managerial tools

Brainstorming tends to be faster at generating ideas, reducing the global time spent. But, in terms of time used per person, brainstorming is less efficient as it uses more resources.