0:11Some 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.
0:31The 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.
1:00Now, 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?
2:10Most 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.
2:56So 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.
3:35So 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
