We are all exposed to COVID-19 and its multiple types of implications. So, let’s use the wisdom of crowds to map out all the things that we—people (individuals and families), hospitals (and other healthcare organizations), other orgs (companies, non profits),…
Managing the complexity of problems through mapping them out is a recurrent theme on this site. I recently wrote a post for Oxford University Press’s blog that summarizes the four rules that good question maps follow: Answer a single type…
The 737 is Boeing’s best-selling plane, with over 10,000 of them sold. Its latest version, the 737 Max, was introduced in 2011 to respond to Airbus’ new generation of more efficient planes. However, after two fatal crashes, regulators have grounded the…
When I was a teenager, I was lucky enough to learn how to fly gliders. One evening, a friend of my parents—retired Air Force General Philippe Archambeaud—asked me how many hours I had flown. “Thirty,” I said. “Well,” he replied,…
Download this quick reference guide to the four key rules for developing quality situation-complication-question (SCQ) sequence.
Let’s face it, at 45, I’m no spring chicken. More like a summer chicken. And without a single standalone marathon in six years, I was concerned that the 2019 Lausanne Marathon could get me to realize that my last go…
As audiences, we shouldn’t be careful about people who qualify their assurance. On the contrary, we should be careful about people who speak with certainty.
The first time I taught problem solving at Rice, I gave my students a full semester of concepts and tools: questions maps (which I called issue trees, back then), SCQs, decision matrices, etc. They politely listened during the boring lectures,…
Not all types of evidence are equally trustworthy. The higher the level, the more confidence you can have.
You take your seat in attendance, the meeting starts, and our friendly presenter, Bob, projects a “background” slide. It’s filled with information related to the issue at hand. Some of the information is clearly relevant, other appears barely peripheral, and…