Tom Wujec: Got a wicked problem? First, tell me how you make toast

981,654 views ・ 2015-02-05

TED


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Some years ago,
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I stumbled across a simple design exercise
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that helps people understand and solve complex problems,
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and like many of these design exercises, it kind of seems trivial at first,
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but under deep inspection,
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it turns out that it reveals unexpected truths
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about the way that we collaborate and make sense of things.
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The exercise has three parts
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and begins with something that we all know how to do,
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which is how to make toast.
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It begins with a clean sheet of paper, a felt marker,
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and without using any words, you begin to draw how to make toast.
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And most people draw something like this.
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They draw a loaf of bread, which is sliced, then put into a toaster.
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The toast is then deposited for some time.
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It pops up, and then voila! After two minutes, toast and happiness.
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Now, over the years, I've collected many hundreds of drawings of these toasts,
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and some of them are very good,
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because they really illustrate the toast-making process quite clearly.
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And then there are some that are, well, not so good.
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They really suck, actually, because you don't know what they're trying to say.
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Under close inspection,
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some reveal some aspects of toast-making while hiding others.
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So there's some that are all about the toast,
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and all about the transformation of toast.
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And there's others that are all about the toaster,
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and the engineers love to draw the mechanics of this.
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(Laughter)
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And then there are others that are about people.
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It's about visualizing the experience that people have.
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And then there are others that are about the supply chain of making toast
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that goes all the way back to the store.
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It goes through the supply chain networks of teleportation
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and all the way back to the field and wheat,
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and one all actually goes all the way back to the Big Bang.
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So it's crazy stuff.
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But I think it's obvious
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that even though these drawings are really wildly different,
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they share a common quality, and I'm wondering if you can see it.
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Do you see it? What's common about these?
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Most drawings have nodes and links.
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So nodes represent the tangible objects like the toaster and people,
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and links represent the connections between the nodes.
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And it's the combination of links and nodes
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that produces a full systems model,
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and it makes our private mental models visible
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about how we think something works.
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So that's the value of these things.
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What's interesting about these systems models
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is how they reveal our various points of view.
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So for example, Americans make toast with a toaster.
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That seems obvious.
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Whereas many Europeans make toast with a frying pan, of course,
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and many students make toast with a fire.
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I don't really understand this. A lot of MBA students do this.
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So you can measure the complexity by counting the number of nodes,
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and the average illustration has between four and eight nodes.
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Less than that, the drawing seems trivial,
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but it's quick to understand,
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and more than 13, the drawing produces a feeling of map shock.
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It's too complex.
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So the sweet spot is between 5 and 13.
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So if you want to communicate something visually,
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have between five and 13 nodes in your diagram.
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So though we may not be skilled at drawing,
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the point is that we intuitively know how to break down complex things
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into simple things and then bring them back together again.
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So this brings us to our second part of the exercise,
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which is how to make toast,
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but now with sticky notes or with cards.
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So what happens then?
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Well, with cards, most people tend to draw clear, more detailed,
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and more logical nodes.
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You can see the step by step analysis that takes place,
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and as they build up their model, they move their nodes around,
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rearranging them like Lego blocks.
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Now, though this might seem trivial, it's actually really important.
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This rapid iteration of expressing and then reflecting and analyzing
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is really the only way in which we get clarity.
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It's the essence of the design process.
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And systems theorists do tell us
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that the ease with which we can change a representation
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correlates to our willingness to improve the model.
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So sticky note systems are not only more fluid,
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they generally produce way more nodes than static drawings.
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The drawings are much richer.
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And this brings us to our third part of the exercise,
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which is to draw how to make toast, but this time in a group.
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So what happens then?
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Well, here's what happens.
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It starts out messy, and then it gets really messy,
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and then it gets messier,
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but as people refine the models,
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the best nodes become more prominent,
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and with each iteration, the model becomes clearer
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because people build on top of each other's ideas.
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What emerges is a unified systems model
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that integrates the diversity of everyone's individual points of view,
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so that's a really different outcome
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from what usually happens in meetings, isn't it?
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So these drawings can contain 20 or more nodes,
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but participants don't feel map shock
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because they participate in the building of their models themselves.
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Now, what's also really interesting, that the groups spontaneously mix
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and add additional layers of organization to it.
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To deal with contradictions, for example,
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they add branching patterns and parallel patterns.
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Oh, and by the way, if they do it in complete silence,
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they do it much better and much more quickly.
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Really interesting -- talking gets in the way.
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So here's some key lessons that can emerge from this.
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First, drawing helps us understand the situations
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as systems with nodes and their relationships.
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Movable cards produce better systems models,
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because we iterate much more fluidly.
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And then the group notes produce the most comprehensive models
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because we synthesize several points of view.
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So that's interesting.
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When people work together under the right circumstances,
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group models are much better than individual models.
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So this approach works really great for drawing how to make toast,
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but what if you wanted to draw something more relevant or pressing,
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like your organizational vision, or customer experience,
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or long-term sustainability?
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There's a visual revolution that's taking place
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as more organizations are addressing their wicked problems
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by collaboratively drawing them out.
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And I'm convinced that those who see their world as movable nodes and links
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really have an edge.
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And the practice is really pretty simple.
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You start with a question, you collect the nodes,
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you refine the nodes, you do it over again,
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you refine and refine and refine, and the patterns emerge,
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and the group gets clarity and you answer the question.
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So this simple act of visualizing and doing over and over again
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produces some really remarkable outcomes.
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What's really important to know
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is that it's the conversations that are the important aspects,
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not just the models themselves.
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And these visual frames of reference
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can grow to several hundreds or even thousands of nodes.
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So, one example is from an organization called Rodale.
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Big publishing company.
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They lost a bunch of money one year,
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and their executive team for three days visualized their entire practice.
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And what's interesting is that after visualizing the entire business,
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systems upon systems,
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they reclaimed 50 million dollars of revenue,
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and they also moved from a D rating to an A rating from their customers.
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Why? Because there's alignment from the executive team.
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So I'm now on a mission to help organizations
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solve their wicked problems by using collaborative visualization,
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and on a site that I've produced called drawtoast.com,
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I've collected a bunch of best practices.
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and so you can learn how to run a workshop here,
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you can learn more about the visual language
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and the structure of links and nodes that you can apply to general problem-solving,
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and download examples of various templates
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for unpacking the thorny problems that we all face in our organizations.
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So the seemingly trivial design exercise of drawing toast
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helps us get clear, engaged and aligned.
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So next time you're confronted with an interesting challenge,
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remember what design has to teach us.
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Make your ideas visible, tangible, and consequential.
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It's simple, it's fun, it's powerful,
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and I believe it's an idea worth celebrating.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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