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Awesome article re: organization and notetaking
Paul Keith:
Been recently organizing my old notes and here are some more things that add/detract to what the article authors are talking about:
1. Logo-Visual Thinking
There are five standard stages in the process.
Focus - identifying a question or theme that provides a basis for a common act of attention
Gather - generating, articulating and displaying separate MMs as a relevant set as in a gathering
Organise - arranging and aggregating MMs to form (separate) higher order MMs
Integrate - systematic or aesthetic unification of these MMs into a whole system
Realise - creative or 'willed' outcome
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2. Argument Map
3. Rico Clusters: An Alternative to Mindmapping
Instructions:
Write a word in the middle of a sheet of paper.
Circle it.
Write down the first word or phrase that comes to mind and circle it.
Draw a line connecting the second circle to the first.
Repeat. As you write and circle new words and phrases, draw lines back to the last word, the central word, or other words that seem connected. Don’t worry about how they’re connected — the goal is to let your right-brain do its thing, which is to see patterns; later, the left-brain will take over and put the nature of those relationships into words.
When you’ve filled the page, or just feel like you’ve done enough (a sign of what Rico calls a “felt-shift”), go back through what you’ve written down. Cross out words and phrases that seem irrelevant, and begin to impose some order by numbering individual bubbles or clusters. Here is where your right-brain is working in tandem with your left-brain, producing what is essentially an outline. At this point, you can either transfer your numbered clusters to a proper outline or simply begin writing in the order you’ve numbered the clusters.
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It's similar to concept mapping except the instructions are more specific rather than vague "oh that's so obvious" descriptions and involves "remix clustering"
4. Double bind/False Dilemma
Grinder and Bandler (both of whom had personal contact with Bateson) asserted that a message could be constructed with multiple messages, whereby the recipient of the message is given the impression of choice - even though both options have the same outcome at a higher level of intention. This has application in both sales and therapy. A salesperson might ask "Would you like to pay cash or by credit card?" Both outcomes presuppose that the person will make the purchase, whereas the third option, that of not buying, is intentionally excluded from the list of choices. Strictly speaking, "cash or credit card?" is not a double-bind because there is no contradiction involved.
If the salesman was selling a book about the evils of commerce, then it could perhaps be a 'true' double bind, but only if the buyer already believed that commerce was evil, and felt compelled or obliged to buy the book.
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5. Unified Structured Inventive Thinking
Problem definition
A well-defined problem is formulated in an iterative process, described in terms of objects, attributes, and a single unwanted effect. Objects are reduced to a minimum number required to contain the problem (not to "explain" the problem situation). Multiple root causes are discovered using the plausible root causes heuristic. Abstraction of the problem statement is achieved using verbal and graphic metaphors. Exercise of the "plausible root causes heuristic" carries the problem solver well into problem analysis.
Problem analysis
Following plausible root causes analysis one of two lines of thinking is followed: 1) a “closed-world” analysis of the problem to understand intended functional connectivity of objects when no problem existed or 2) a "particles method" that begins from an ideal solution and works back to the problem situation.
Solution techniques
Three strategies for problem solving are based on the metaphorical interaction of objects, attributes, and effects: "utilization", "nullification", and "elimination" of the unwanted effect (see Heuristics for Solving Technical Problems — Theory, Derivation, Application).
object – attribute
\
effect – attribute – object
/
object – attribute
Graphic metaphor for the interaction of objects and attributes.
Five solution heuristics are used to support these strategies.
1) "Dimensionality" focuses on the "attributes" available and new ones discovered during problem analysis.
2) "Pluralization" focuses on "objects" being multiplied in number or divided into parts, used in different ways, and carried to extremes.
3) "Distribution" focuses on "functions" being distributed differently among objects in the problem situation.
4) "Transduction" uses "attribute-function-attribute links" to reach new solution concepts. This is modeled metaphorically after transducers, which convert information from one form to another.
5) "Uniqueness" characterizes effects of a problem according to their activity in "space" and "time". Each technique is logically tied to one or more of the underlying features in the well-defined problem: objects, attributes, and effects.
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6. Wicked Problem
"Wicked problem" is a phrase used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.
Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber introduced the concept of wicked problems in a 1973 treatise, contrasting "wicked" problems with relatively "tame," soluble problems in mathematics, chess, or puzzle solving
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Classic examples of wicked problems include economic, environmental, and political issues. A problem whose solution requires large groups of individuals to change their mindsets and behaviors is likely to be a wicked problem.
Specific examples of wicked problems include global climate change, healthcare in the United States and elsewhere, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, homeland security, and nuclear energy and waste. In the United States, wicked problems at the national, state and local levels include drugs, crime, mental health, education, poverty, urban decay and issues related to the foregoing list.
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Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber
Rittel and Webber's (1973) formulation of wicked problems[2] specifies ten characteristics, perhaps best considered in the context of social policy planning. According to Ritchey (2007), the ten characteristics are:
* There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
* Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
* Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better or worse.
* There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
* Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no
opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
* Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.
* Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
* Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
* The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.
* The planner has no right to be wrong (planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).
Jeff Conklin
According to Conklin, the four defining characteristics of wicked problems are:
* The problem is not understood until after formulation of a solution.
* Stakeholders have radically different world views and different frames for understanding the problem.
* Constraints and resources to solve the problem change over time.
* The problem is never solved.
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Wicked problems in software development
In the last decade, other computer scientists have pointed out that software development shares many properties with other design practices (particularly that people-, process-, and technology-problems have to be considered equally), and have incorporated Rittel's concepts into their software design methodologies. The design and integration of complex software-defined services that use the Web (Web services) can be construed as an evolution from previous models of software design, and therefore becomes a wicked problem also.
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7. IBIS - I think I've added this link before in this thread so I'm just adding this image to correlate it to wicked problems
jack99999:
you might or might not like PersonalBrain from http://www.thebrain.com/
there is a free edition. it's a bit like an interactive mindmap, but you can add multiple tags to any item and can search for tags or text.
i've played a little with it, but haven't used it for anything real.
jack
Paul Keith:
Nah, it's not for me. My apologies if I sounded like I was proposing or even asking for a mindmapping tool.
I was just sharing some old notes regarding articles on organization and notetaking that I coincidentally found while this thread was active a few days ago. In fact, I rediscovered a few more but I don't want to seem like I'm hijacking the thread.
jack99999:
no, it's not a mindmapping tool. it just looks a bit like that. it zooms in and out depending on what you focus on.
it's definitely worth playing with for the fun of it, even if you don't use it.
jack
Paul Keith:
jack99999, yeah I've tried it before. I'm curious what you consider it as? Usually it's lumped with mindmapping tools.
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