Some years ago, I stumbled across a simple design exercise that helps people understand and solve complex problems, and like many of these design exercises, it kind of seems trivial at first, but under deep inspection, it turns out that it reveals unexpected truths about the way that we collaborate and make sense of things.
Prije nekoliko godina naišao sam na jednostavnu projekcijsku vježbu koja ljudima pomaže da shvate i riješe kompleksne probleme i kao mnoge od vježbi dizajna, u početku se čini trivijalno, ali kad to pobliže promotrimo, ispada da otkriva neslućene istine o načinu na koji surađujemo i stvarima dajemo smisao.
The exercise has three parts and begins with something that we all know how to do, which is how to make toast. It begins with a clean sheet of paper, a felt marker, and without using any words, you begin to draw how to make toast. And most people draw something like this. They draw a loaf of bread, which is sliced, then put into a toaster. The toast is then deposited for some time. It pops up, and then voila! After two minutes, toast and happiness.
Ova vježba ima tri dijela i počinje s nečim što svi znamo raditi, a to je kako napraviti tost. Za početak vam treba list papira, kemijska i ne služeći se riječima, počinjete crtati kako napraviti tost. Većina ljudi nacrta nešto poput ovoga. Nacrtaju štrucu kruha, narezanu na kriške i stavljaju ih u toster. Nakon toga tost stoji neko vrijeme. Zatim iskoči iz tostera i eto ga! Dvije minute kasnije - tost i veselje.
Now, over the years, I've collected many hundreds of drawings of these toasts, and some of them are very good, because they really illustrate the toast-making process quite clearly. And then there are some that are, well, not so good. They really suck, actually, because you don't know what they're trying to say. Under close inspection, some reveal some aspects of toast-making while hiding others. So there's some that are all about the toast, and all about the transformation of toast. And there's others that are all about the toaster, and the engineers love to draw the mechanics of this. (Laughter) And then there are others that are about people. It's about visualizing the experience that people have. And then there are others that are about the supply chain of making toast that goes all the way back to the store. It goes through the supply chain networks of teleportation and all the way back to the field and wheat, and one all actually goes all the way back to the Big Bang. So it's crazy stuff. But I think it's obvious that even though these drawings are really wildly different, they share a common quality, and I'm wondering if you can see it. Do you see it? What's common about these?
Tijekom godina, prikupio sam na stotine crteža ovih tostova i neki su prilično dobri jer ustinu prikazuju ovaj proces prilično jasno. A ima i onih koji i nisu tako dobri. Zapravo, stvarno su užasni jer ne znate što vam pokušavaju reći. Kad ih detaljno promotrimo, neki otkrivaju neke aspekte tostiranja, a druge skrivaju. Pa ima crteža koji su usmjereni samo na tost i na transformaciju tosta. Drugi su usmjereni samo na toster i inženjeri obožavaju crtati mehaniku samog procesa. (Smijeh) A ima i crteža koji su usmjereni na ljude. Vizualizira se čovjekovo iskustvo. A ima i onih koji su usmjereni na opskrbni lanac u pravljenju tosta koji se proteže sve do trgovine. Ide od oprskrbnog lanca mreže teleportacije pa sve do polja i pšenice, a jedan je čak otišao sve do teorije Velikog praska. Ludilo! Ali mislim da je očito da iako su svi ovi crteži značajno drugačiji, imaju nešto zajedničko i pitam se možete li vi to vidjeti. Vidite li? Što im je svima zajedničko?
Most drawings have nodes and links. So nodes represent the tangible objects like the toaster and people, and links represent the connections between the nodes. And it's the combination of links and nodes that produces a full systems model, and it makes our private mental models visible about how we think something works. So that's the value of these things. What's interesting about these systems models is how they reveal our various points of view. So for example, Americans make toast with a toaster. That seems obvious. Whereas many Europeans make toast with a frying pan, of course, and many students make toast with a fire. I don't really understand this. A lot of MBA students do this.
Većina crteža ima elemente i poveznice. Elementi predstavljaju opipljive objekte poput tostera i ljudi, a poveznice predstavljaju veze među elementima. Kombinacije ovih poveznica i elemenata proizvode model potpunog sistema i on čini vidljivima naše privatne mentalne modele o tome kako nešto funkcionira. U tome je vrijednost ovoga. Ono što je zanimljivo kod ovih sistemskih modela je način na koji otkrivaju različita viđenja. Npr. Amerikanci tost rade pomoću tostera. To je očito. No mnogi Europljani koriste tavu, a, naravno, mnogi studenti koriste vatru. Ovo baš i ne razumijem. Mnogi studenti MBA-a to rade.
So you can measure the complexity by counting the number of nodes, and the average illustration has between four and eight nodes. Less than that, the drawing seems trivial, but it's quick to understand, and more than 13, the drawing produces a feeling of map shock. It's too complex. So the sweet spot is between 5 and 13. So if you want to communicate something visually, have between five and 13 nodes in your diagram. So though we may not be skilled at drawing, the point is that we intuitively know how to break down complex things into simple things and then bring them back together again.
Pa možemo izmjeriti kompleksnost brojeći elemente i prosječan crtež ima između četiri i osam elemenata. Ako ima manje od toga, crtež se čini trivijalan, ali razumljiv, a ukoliko ima više od 13, crtež se čini poput karte. Prekompleksan je. Najoptimalniji je broj između 5 i 13. Stoga ukoliko nešto želite vizualno prenijeti, potrebno je imati između 5 i 13 elemenata na dijagramu. Čak i ako nism0 vješti u crtanju, stvar je u tome da intuitivno znamo kako rastaviti kompleksne stvari na jednostavne elemente i onda ih opet spojiti.
So this brings us to our second part of the exercise, which is how to make toast, but now with sticky notes or with cards. So what happens then? Well, with cards, most people tend to draw clear, more detailed, and more logical nodes. You can see the step by step analysis that takes place, and as they build up their model, they move their nodes around, rearranging them like Lego blocks. Now, though this might seem trivial, it's actually really important. This rapid iteration of expressing and then reflecting and analyzing is really the only way in which we get clarity. It's the essence of the design process. And systems theorists do tell us that the ease with which we can change a representation correlates to our willingness to improve the model. So sticky note systems are not only more fluid, they generally produce way more nodes than static drawings. The drawings are much richer.
Ovo nas dovodi do drugog dijela naše vježbe, a to je kako napraviti tost, ali ovog puta pomoću samoljepljivih listića ili kartica. I što se onda događa? S kartama većina ljudi jasno crta, koristeći više detalja i elementi su logičniji. Vidljiva je korak-po-korak analiza koja se odvija i kako grade svoj model, pomiču svoje elemente i preslaguju ih poput Lego kocki. Iako se ovo može činiti trivijalno, zapravo je jako bitno. Ovo brzo ponavljanje ekspresije i refleksije i analiziranja jedini je način da si sve razjasnimo. To je bit procesa dizajniranja. Teoretičari sistema govore nam da lakoća kojom mijenjamo svoj prikaz korelira s našom voljnosti da popravimo model. Tako da sistem sa samoljepljivim papirićima ne samo da je fluidniji nego i općenito daje veći broj elemenata od statičnog crtanja. Crteži su mnogo bogatiji.
And this brings us to our third part of the exercise, which is to draw how to make toast, but this time in a group. So what happens then? Well, here's what happens. It starts out messy, and then it gets really messy, and then it gets messier, but as people refine the models, the best nodes become more prominent, and with each iteration, the model becomes clearer because people build on top of each other's ideas. What emerges is a unified systems model that integrates the diversity of everyone's individual points of view, so that's a really different outcome from what usually happens in meetings, isn't it? So these drawings can contain 20 or more nodes, but participants don't feel map shock because they participate in the building of their models themselves. Now, what's also really interesting, that the groups spontaneously mix and add additional layers of organization to it. To deal with contradictions, for example, they add branching patterns and parallel patterns. Oh, and by the way, if they do it in complete silence, they do it much better and much more quickly. Really interesting -- talking gets in the way.
A to nas dovodi do trećeg dijela naše vježbe, a to je nacrtati kako napraviti tost, ali ovog puta u grupi. I što se onda događa? Evo što. Prvo nastane zbrka, a onda nastane još veća zbrka i onda još veća, ali kako ljudi usavršavaju modele, najbolji elementi postaju sve upadljiviji i svakim ponavljanjem, model postaje sve jasniji jer ljudi međusobno nadograđuju svoje ideje. Na kraju dobijemo jedinstven sistemski model koji spaja različitosti tuđih individualnih viđenja, a to je znatno drugačiji ishod od onih koji se inače događaju na sastancima, nije li? Ovi crteži mogu sadržavati 20 elemenata ili više, ali sudionici nisu zbunjeni kao kod karte jer sami sudjeluju u građenju modela. Također je zanimljivo da grupe spontano miješaju i dodaju dodatne slojeve organizacije na to. Da bi se nosili s npr. kontradikcijama, dodaju grane i paralelne elemente. Usput, ukoliko to čine u potpunoj tišini, čine to puno uspješnije i brže. Uistinu je zanimljivo da razgovor smeta.
So here's some key lessons that can emerge from this. First, drawing helps us understand the situations as systems with nodes and their relationships. Movable cards produce better systems models, because we iterate much more fluidly. And then the group notes produce the most comprehensive models because we synthesize several points of view. So that's interesting. When people work together under the right circumstances, group models are much better than individual models.
Pa evo nekih ključnih lekcija koje iz ovoga možemo izvući. Kao prvo, crtanje nam pomaže da razumijemo situacije u obliku sistema elemenata i odnosa između njih. Pokretne karte daju bolje sistemske modele jer ponavljanja idu fluidnije. A grupne bilješke daju najopsežnije modele jer sintetiziraju više viđenja. To je zanimljivo. Kad ljudi zajedno rade pod pravim okolnostima, grupni su modeli puno bolji od onih individualnih.
So this approach works really great for drawing how to make toast, but what if you wanted to draw something more relevant or pressing, like your organizational vision, or customer experience, or long-term sustainability?
Ovaj pristup izvrsno radi za crteže vezane uz tostiranje kruha, ali što ako želimo nacrtati nešto važnije ili hitnije, poput organizacijske vizije ili iskustava kupaca ili dugotrajne održivosti?
There's a visual revolution that's taking place as more organizations are addressing their wicked problems by collaboratively drawing them out. And I'm convinced that those who see their world as movable nodes and links really have an edge.
Dolazi do vizualne revolucije budući da se sve više organizacija pokušava riješiti ozbiljne probleme njihovim suradničkim iscrtavanjem. Uvjeren sam da oni koji svijet vide u obliku pokretnih elemenata i poveznica uistinu imaju prednost.
And the practice is really pretty simple. You start with a question, you collect the nodes, you refine the nodes, you do it over again, you refine and refine and refine, and the patterns emerge, and the group gets clarity and you answer the question.
A praksa je uistinu jednostavna. Počnemo s pitanjem, prikupimo elemente, preradimo elemente i onda radimo sve ispočetka, prerađujemo i prerađujemo i prerađujemo i pojave se obrasci i grupi se sve razbistri i dobijete odgovor na pitanje.
So this simple act of visualizing and doing over and over again produces some really remarkable outcomes. What's really important to know is that it's the conversations that are the important aspects, not just the models themselves. And these visual frames of reference can grow to several hundreds or even thousands of nodes. So, one example is from an organization called Rodale. Big publishing company. They lost a bunch of money one year, and their executive team for three days visualized their entire practice. And what's interesting is that after visualizing the entire business, systems upon systems, they reclaimed 50 million dollars of revenue, and they also moved from a D rating to an A rating from their customers. Why? Because there's alignment from the executive team. So I'm now on a mission to help organizations solve their wicked problems by using collaborative visualization, and on a site that I've produced called drawtoast.com, I've collected a bunch of best practices. and so you can learn how to run a workshop here, you can learn more about the visual language and the structure of links and nodes that you can apply to general problem-solving, and download examples of various templates for unpacking the thorny problems that we all face in our organizations. So the seemingly trivial design exercise of drawing toast helps us get clear, engaged and aligned.
Ovaj jednostavan čin vizualiziranja i revizualiziranja daje uistinu sjajne ishode. Ono što je uistinu važno znati jest da su razgovori važan aspekt, a ne samo modeli. A ovi vizualni referentni okviri mogu rasti do nekoliko stotina ili čak tisuća elemenata. Jedan je primjer iz organizacije "Rodale". Velika izdavačka kuća. Izgubili su mnogo novca jedne godine i njihov je izvršni tim tri dana vizualizirao cijelu njihovu praksu. Zanimljivo je da su nakon što su vizualizirali cijeli posao, sistem za sistemom, vratili 50 milijuna dolara prihoda, a i pomakli su se od ocjene 2 do ocjene 5 po proocjeni kupaca. Zašto? Zbog prilagodbi koje je proveo izvršni tim. Tako da je sada moja misija pomoći organizacijama u rješavanju njihovih ozbiljnjih problema koristeći suradničke vizualizacije, a na stranici koju sam pokrenuo pod imenom drawtoast.com prikupio sam kolekciju najboljih vježbi, pa ondje možete naučiti kako voditi radionicu, možete više naučiti o vizualnom jeziku i strukturi poveznica i elemenata koje možete primijeniti na općenito rješavanje problema i skinuti primjere različitih predložaka za rješavanje problema s kojima se svi mi suočavamo u našim organizacijama. Ova naoko trivijalna projekcijska vježba crtanja tosta pomaže nam da si razbistrimo stvari, da se uključimo i uskladimo.
So next time you're confronted with an interesting challenge, remember what design has to teach us. Make your ideas visible, tangible, and consequential. It's simple, it's fun, it's powerful, and I believe it's an idea worth celebrating.
Sljedeći put kad se nađete pred zanimljivim izazovom, sjetite se čemu nas projektiranje može poučiti. Učinite ideje vidljivima, opipljivima i predočite si njihove posljedice. Jednostavno je, zabavno i moćno, a ja vjerujem da je to ideja vrijedna veličanja.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)