This is another presentation from Jeff McNeill (who brought you the Drucker and Goldratt Concept map).

This one is an introduction to Information Graphics, a topic I that has fascinated me ever since coming across Edward Tufte and recently stimulated by Dan Roam’s superb Back of the Napkin series of books on Visual Thinking.

I am currently crunching through Steve Litt’s brilliant series of books on Troubleshooting. I am hugely into general problem solving frameworks and his Universal Troubleshooting Process (UTP) is one of my favourites.

Today, whilst clearing my backlog on Instapaper I came across this Wired.com piece on legendary design firm IDEO. They use a simply process called “Design Thinking” that they claim is at the heart of their stunning successes:

Practically speaking, the approach isn’t complicated. In stages, it goes like this: firstly, immersion, whereby the designers research the problem by plunging themselves into it – talking to the people they’re trying to help, working with them, interviewing experts. Secondly, synthesis – whereby they gather together their findings and look for patterns. Third, ideation – brainstorming solutions to the real problems identified by stage two. Then comes prototyping, making mock-ups of solutions to try out against the problem. After that comes the product. Only at the end, at the prototyping stage, are judgements made; until then, all ideas are given equal weight.

This methodology is radical in that it differs from traditional approaches to business strategy in two key ways. Whereas in many companies the concept for a new product may have already been based on, say, an idea from the marketing department with a designer later brought in to make it look pretty, design thinking places the designer at the heart of the innovation process. Secondly, the methodology gives a firm framework within which a wider team can work. It takes the cliché of the lone creative mind being struck with genius, and replaces it with a process that a whole team can follow. Creativity, therefore, isn’t a thing that magically appears, but a process you work through.

From: Reinventing British manners the Post-It way – Wired.co.uk

I can see similarities to Ken Watanabe’s simplified problem solving methodology as presented in his best-selling children’s “Problem Solving 101“

1. Understand the current situation current (Immersion)
2. Identify root cause (Sythesis)
3. Develop an effective action plan (Ideation)
4. Execute until solved, making modifications as necessary (Prototyping)

From: http://www.problemsolvingtoolbox.com/

You can also see similarities between IDEO’s framework and Dan Roam’s framework for proble  solving through visual thinking as outlined in “The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures“. In the book Roam explores a four stage process for solving any problem with visual thinking:

1. Look (Immerse/ Understand)
2. See (sythesis / Identify patters / root cause)
3. Imagine (Ideation / Plan)
4. Show (Prototype / Execute)

How do these map to the Universal Troubleshooting Process (UTP)?

The UTP shares the core troubleshooting steps with the other three (3, 4,6,7 and 8), but it has some seemingly anachronous and superfluous steps (1,2,5,9 and 10). I say “seemingly” because experience has taught me that the Universal Troubleshooting Process steps are all necessary and in the right order.

It is aimed more at professional, routine troubleshooters and as such addresses the important psychological factors and habits that contribute to long-term effectiveness.

I cannot do this process justice in a few lines, but here is summary:

1. Prepare - This is about having the right attitude and mindset for troubleshooting as well as the required tools, skills and information. For professional troubleshooters (like Technical Support agents) attitude is one of the most important elements in their professional quality and success.
2. Make damage control plan – This is iatrogenic prevention i.e. do not make things worse. If forces you to think of consequences before trying pot luck fixes.
3. Get a complete and accurate symptom description - Here the UTP shares a step with the first principle of the other three (i.e. Look / Immerse/ Understand). In the UTP thi9s is usually achieved by creating a simple block diagram off the problem system so as to understand elements and relationships.
4. Reproduce the symptom - This is part of fully understanding and verifying the current situation. You verify the symptoms and measure them.
5. Do the appropriate corrective maintenance - This step is again targeted at professional troubleshooters. So many problems are caused by bad maintenance and fixed by routine maintenance, that often it is worth running the standard best practice maintenance procedures over the system and seeing of that fixes the issue.
6. Narrow it down to the root cause - This is the core step. Often it is a process in itself as you look from problem patterns, isolate elements of the system and systematically disqualify them as candidates for root cause. Eventually you generate a most likely root cause hypothesis and proceed to step 7.
7. Repair or replace the defective component - Here you generate a plan to test the hypothesis by fixing, replacing or implementing a work-around for the root cause.
8. Test - You now apply your fix and test to ensure the problem is indeed solved. 
9. Take pride in your solution – This is another psychologically important steps to help prevent burn-out and boost morale.
10. Prevent future occurrence of this problem – This is simple operational best practice. You learn from your problems, document your solutions and new knowledge, you modify systems and procedures to ensure the problem does not reoccur, or you can respond quickly and effectively.

This universal troubleshooting procedure has been a vital tool for my team and I in beating some extremely tough problems, sometimes involving desperate customers begging us to fix badly broken massively complex undocumented systems and us successfully finding and fixing the root cause problems in 24 hours where the system designers could not succeed for months.

I also heartily recommend the Dan Roam and Ken Watanabe books referred to above. They are both brilliant and accessible.

Originally posted to LimbicNutrition.

This little book is getting rave reviews, most notably from “Back of the Napkin” author Dan Roam who writes:

“A truly wonderful book has just hit the stands: Ken Watanabe’s Problem Solving 101. If you like The Back of the Napkin’s approach to looking at the world, you owe it to yourself to get this book.”

Problem Solving 101 – Official site

“Problem Solving 101″ by Ken Watanabe – Amazon.com

Dilbert.com

“One of the most important group decisions made by a bee colony is where to locate the hive. Bees use a kind of “idea market” to guide their discovery: The colony sends out a small number of scouts to survey the environment. Returning scouts that have found promising sites signal their discoveries with a vigorous dance, thus recruiting more scouts to the better sites. The cycle of exploration and signalling continues until so many scouts are signaling in favor of the best site that a tipping point is reached.

The bees’ decision making highlights both information discovery and information integration, two processes that are crucial to every organization but that have different requirements. A centralized structure works well for discovery, because the individual’s role is to find information and report it back. In contrast, a richly connected network works best for integration and decision making, because it allows the individual to hear everyone else’s opinion about the expected return from each of the alternatives. The bees’ process suggests that organizations that alternate as needed between the centralized structure and the richly connected network can shape information fl ow to optimize both discovery and integration.”

From: The HBR List 2009 – How Social Networks Network Best

This week LifeHacker linked to a wonderful free PDF published by the Extreme Presentation Method that helps one choose what chart to use depending on the information you want to present.

The Chart Chooser [PDF 89Kb] [Mirror]

The chart chooser is step 7 in the 10-step Extreme Presentation method for designing presentations that drive action.

For more on this methodology see their blog on the Extreme Presentation site, and in Advanced Presentations by Design

AnyChart

Another chart related service I cam eacross this week was recommended by 3Tera: AnyChart.

From their website:

“AnyChart is a flexible Flash based solution that allows you to create interactive and great looking flash charts. It is a cross-browser and cross-platform charting solution intended for everybody who deals with creation of dashboard, reporting, analytics, statistical, financial or any other data visualization solutions.

Right Visualization helps you to turn your data into Right Decisions! If you need advanced, award winning charts and graphs, then AnyChart is the perfect solution for you.”

FlowingData

During a discussion about the grandmaster of Information and data visualization – Edward Tufte – a colleague recommended I check out FlowingData :

“FlowingData explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better – mainly through data visualization. Money spent, reps at the gym, time you waste, and personal information you enter online are all forms of data. How can we understand these data flows? Data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all. “

If you like data visualization, then FlowingData’s feed is definately worth subscribing to.

See also:

CaseOrganic’s Data Visualizations Flickr Collection

[Update: Make sure you check out Dr Simon Raybould's concept of the "Golden Duck" , an entirely unnecessary graphic that draws attention to itself but contains no information. I finally have a name for my graphic pain! Thanks Simon.]

http://www.curved-vision.co.uk/presentation-skills-blog/2008/06/30/dont-duck/

Taylor Davidson has put together a lovely list of “25 Secrets Learned through Failure“. It is definitely worth a read. Here is the intro…

I started to write about the keys of success for entrepreneurs and startups, but as I wrote I realized that while I’ve seen companies fail, projects flounder and ideas die, I’ve had little first-hand experience with success. My ideas on the keys to success remain just that: ideas.

But I’ve learned a lot through failure. Close observation and unfortunate first-hand personal experiences have taught me many lessons about why companies fail.

Let’s be clear: this is intended to be an assessment of the 25 most important lessons I have learned through failure, not a comprehensive analysis of all the reasons entrepreneurs and startups fail (and trust me, this is the shortened version: I’ve learned more than 25).

The first sixteen primarily address strategic and operational issues while the last nine deal more with management and organizational issues. Since I believe the three most important factors for any company are people, product and market, I’m not sure that I’ve come up with the “appropriate” ratio of ways to fail, but perhaps you’ll have ideas that will bring the ratio more in line. I’m looking forward to hearing about the secrets you’ve learned through failure.

Here are a few of my faves…

1. Dither, dither, dither; plan, plan, plan.
Instead: Fail fast. Fire, aim, repeat.6. Focus on the long-term.
Instead: Focus on the short-term.

7. Build prototypes, mockups and samples.
Instead: Start building in a format and medium as close to the finished product as possible, and iterate, iterate, iterate.

9. Give customers everything they want.
Instead: Listen to customers, then throw (almost) all of it away.

10. “New, New, New!”
Instead: F*** new. What’s different? What’s better?

15. “We can build a successful business by capturing just X% of the market.”
Instead: Sell to one customer. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

22. Meet to discuss.
Instead: Meet to decide.

Read on here.

The faculty at Executive Rockstar have a great video introduction to Issue Decomposition, one of the most useful tools in the consultant’s toolkit.

Issue Decomposition is essentially a modified and structured Socratic interrogation (iterative interrogative loop)  that has its modern origins in Cold War strategic thinking and its resultant field of Game Theory.

It was developed to help with high stakes multilateral negotiations, like Nuclear Arms Reduction, by clarifying the core issues and elements of any problem or situation.

It has evolved into one of the best but least known about decision support systems.

It is both very simple and powerful tool that can liberate those bedevilled by a lack of clarity or confusion.

Check out Phil’s introduction over at the Executive Rockstar Secrets Blog:

Executive Rockstar Issue Decomposition Crystal Clear Thinking | Secrets Of Executive Rockstars

John Boyd was a USAF colonel, legendary military strategist and thinker.

He is perhaps best known for his OODA Loop (for Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action), a concept worth knowing about. Here is Wikipedia on the OODA Loop:

Boyd’s key concept was that of the decision cycle or OODA Loop, the process by which an entity (either an individual or an organization) reacts to an event. According to this idea, the key to victory is to be able to create situations wherein one can make appropriate decisions more quickly than one’s opponent.

Boyd hypothesized that all intelligent organisms and organizations undergo a continuous cycle of interaction with their environment. Boyd breaks this cycle down to four interrelated and overlapping processes through which one cycles continuously:

• Observation: the collection of data by means of the senses
• Orientation: the analysis and synthesis of data to form one’s current mental perspective
• Decision: the determination of a course of action based on one’s current mental perspective
• Action: the physical playing-out of decisions

This decision cycle is thus also known as the OODA loop. Boyd emphasized that this decision cycle is the central mechanism enabling adaptation (apart from natural selection) and is therefore critical to survival.

Boyd theorized that large organizations such as corporations, governments, or militaries possessed a hierarchy of OODA loops at tactical, grand-tactical (operational art), and strategic levels. In addition, he stated that most effective organizations have a highly decentralized chain of command that utilizes objective-driven orders, or directive control, rather than method-driven orders in order to harness the mental capacity and creative abilities of individual commanders at each level. In 2003, this power to the edge concept took the form of a DOD publication “Power to the Edge: Command…Control…in the Information Age” by Dr. David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes. Boyd argued that such a structure creates a flexible “organic whole” that is quicker to adapt to rapidly changing situations. He noted, however, that any such highly decentralized organization would necessitate a high degree of mutual trust and a common outlook that came from prior shared experiences. Headquarters needs to know that the troops are perfectly capable of forming a good plan for taking a specific objective, and the troops need to know that Headquarters does not direct them to achieve certain objectives without good reason.

In 2007, strategy writer Robert Greene discussed the loop in a post called OODA and You. He insisted that it was “deeply relevant to any kind of competitive environment: business, politics, sports, even the struggle of organisms to survive”, and claimed to have been initially “struck by its brilliance”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_Loop

http://www.powerseductionandwar.com/archives/ooda_and_you.phtml

http://boyd2008.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2171602%3AVideo%3A23

Joe and Parse 2 has a brilliant post entitled “11 Things I Learned While Trying to Figure Out the Financial Crisis“.

I particularly like his last two:

1. Cognitive errors. Megan McCardle of The Atlantic has compiled a useful list of cognitive errors that seem to have played a role in the crisis – both in creating the conditions that led to it and in compounding it…
2. The Black Swan. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is my kind of economist. The basis of his philosophy is that, “The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in.” He advocates “tinkering” as our best mean to change the world – and his theory of the markets take into account many of the previous points. While he was running his own hedge fund in the 1990s, he turned his own knowledge of his lack of knowledge – and others’ lack of knowledge – into enormous profits. It came at the expense of losing a little money 364 days of the year – but making enormous profits in that one remaining day. He would bet on market volatility – which he understood financial firms repeatedly underestimated. Taleb’s key insight is that we know very little of the world itself – and will be more often fundamentally wrong than right…

At the “Tinkering” link above, he explains Taleb’s idea by quoting from Brain Appleyard in The Times:

Taleb believes in tinkering – it was to be the title of his next book. Trial and error will save us from ourselves because they capture benign black swans. Look at the three big inventions of our time: lasers, computers and the internet. They were all produced by tinkering and none of them ended up doing what their inventors intended them to do. All were black swans. The big hope for the world is that, as we tinker, we have a capacity for choosing the best outcomes.

“We have the ability to identify our mistakes eventually better than average; that’s what saves us.” We choose the iPod over the Walkman. Medicine improved exponentially when the tinkering barber surgeons took over from the high theorists. They just went with what worked, irrespective of why it worked. Our sense of the good tinker is not infallible, but it might be just enough to turn away from the apocalypse that now threatens Extremistan.

If some of the words in the excerpt seem a bit odd, it is because Taleb is creating an entire new glossary for his ideas.