JAMmers' Characteristics

The characteristics of the JAMmers in this chart are based on Wouter's and Jeroen's findings as they prepared for the JAM school. Here I summarized them in two dimensions, which are "Hard and Soft" and "Outward and Inward".

Personally, I see different personalities in JAM. Somehow they do share some characteristics, like sympathetic, eager to help, energetic, open-minded and humor. But none of them have all of the characteristics in the chart. There are some difference in between them. And these also lead to the difference on how they perform their Visual Thinking method in the sessions.

Focus of the Project in JAM's Work Categories

After the five-year practicing, this year (2009) is a watershed for JAM visual thinking to rethink their future strategy in Visual Thinking. The categories of their previous projects indicate what they are capable to do and how much involvement of the Visual Thinking method are in each category. The involvement here means the degree that JAM visual thinking can be part in the problem-solving process with their clients.

Almost the JAMmers graduated from the Industrial Design faculty in Delf University of Technology. Designer-orientation minds motivate JAMmers to consider more about the solutions for their clients instead of being a fast and reflective drawer only producing pretty drawings. The idea triggers JAM to put their strategic focus on group sessions and long-term projects .

In the graduation project, I chose the Visual Thinking group sessions as the focus of the study because, on one hand, the group sessions can provide a holistic reflection with the effectiveness of Visual Thinking, and, on the other hand, the long-term projects need longer time to follow and more aspects to observe which can hardly scale in a 23-week research.

Strategy Week in JAM!

This year, 2009, is the fifth year of JAM visual thinking. As a company, they are still as young as the babies in the field of Visual Thinking. They are still curious about everything and trying every possibilities in the Visual Thinking world. They are also wondering what their next steps are. They have numerous questions in their heads and numerous tools in their hands now. So... Maybe the first step for JAM is to jam everything together...

In the final day of the strategy week, Dennis, Mike, and Wouter brought the clay on the table. Through the clay sculpturing, we shared others' thoughts and dreams. Finally, we were jamming together to be an "one" again.

Let's wait and see what would be born in the jamming ball!

Barricades in the Way of Thinking Flows and Ways to Deal with Them

We have discussed the reasons why more issues should be explored further in the previous post. Here is the first issue. We need to explore the types of barricades happening in the process which block the thinking flows. If they cannot fully solve the problems happening here, that would be definitely jeopardizing to the contributions of VT/GF.

I assume that, for different individual Visual Thinker/Graphic Facilitator, the techniques will alter depending on their personalities, their backgrounds, and the real situations which are the composition of the team, the environment, etc. We need to ask: What kind of preparation will Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators do before the sessions? How do they deal with the barricades in the process? Will they pump into more energy to break them through, or use special skills to jump over them, or simply make a new path to bypass?

Does the Flow Run only on the Surface or Deep in Minds?

We have discussed the reasons why more issues should be explored further in the previous post. We discussed the first issue: barricades in the way of thinking flow. It is also interesting to know that, even though VT/GF is to create a fluid thinking flow, the flow is just running on the surface, or it can run deeper to bring out profound insights, which is truly the goal of VT/GF.
On the one hand, without in-depth insights being aroused, the drawings will be disconnected with participants and become meaningless no matter how beautiful they are. These drawings in the process, in the case, are not working as catalysts. In terms of the results, the disconnected drawings will not showcase valid findings in sessions and cannot lead stakeholders to the vision they want to bring.

On the other hand, one of the unique features of VT/GF, “Speeding up by slowing down first”, is a proper example to represent the benefits of running deep. It will take some time to get in-depth insights in the thinking process until people get enough insights. However, if the flow is too fast, people will simply drift fluidly on the surface to the end. This efficient process will not guarantee a thorough solution because the process is not reflective to every one’s thoughts in mind. The final result in this case functions as a “decoration” rather than a “transformation” (see Visualization helps learning).

For Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators, their experiences on this issue will be elaborated in the angles of what kinds of factors affect most, how Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators evaluate the process, and how they evaluate the outcomes. For clients, their feedback will be asked and evaluated in case studies.

Issues Need to Be Explored in the Following Researches.

This theoretical framework of Visual Thinking/Graphic Facilitation represented a model under ideal situations in sessions. However, we still need to know more about how Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators react to the setbacks which block or stagnate the creative thinking in process, and what kind of factors will affect most when things go wrong. Many facilitation techniques already focus a lot on the implementation of icebreakers in multi-disciplinary teams, and the techniques to develop proper Infographics to report the results. There are also many how-to-do tool books in Visual Thinking/Graphic Facilitation, but there is still lack of researches on limitations of VT/GF and solutions to them in the progress.
There are other issues with a value to apply further researches. First, what are the barricades in the way of thinking flows and ways to deal with them? Secondly, is the thinking Flow running on the surface or deep in minds? A further explanation to these two issues will be given in the following sections.

How does Visual Tinking help people in sessions?

This table demonstrates a quick comparison of Visual Thinking Process, Visual Design Process, Techniques in Visual Thinking/Graphic (VT/GF) Facilitation Sessions, and Benefits in VT/GF Sessions in terms of time passing by in sessions. It suggests that Visual Design Process (JAM visual thinking, 2009) in VT/GF is developed on a simple and basic individual Visual Thinking Process (Roam, D. 2008). Visual Design Process is a group-level thinking process which inherits the intuitive nature of individual Visual Thinking Process. Participants as a group in the sessions can process the information in their minds as they have done numerous times in daily time.

Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators also follow similar pattern to make a good use of appropriate techniques in each stage of Visual Design Process. For example, they use “Observation skills” to collect relevant and/or subtle information in the discussion. They quickly select out all these elements and draw them in front of participants with the technique, “Fast catch: word and image”. “Observation skills” and “Fast catch: word and image” create a common ground for “Collecting elements” and “Finding coherence”. As time goes by, the technique, “Deep listening: story and metaphor” help participants to compose of the words and images into coherent stories and/or metaphors as the base of “Composition”. “Holistic reflection” finally paves a way for Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators to create a living document which is based on Team Mental Models or shared understanding in the sessions.

Visual thinking process is non-linear and non-rational, which is a proper ground for breeding creativity. Eventually, the thinking flow empowered by VT/GF techniques will bring fruity benefits to individual participants and teams in the sessions, and to stakeholders and employees after the sessions.

5 Pillars to Build Team Mental Models.

Jeffery et al. (2005) suggested the following 5 advices for building team mental models:

1. Clarification of team objectives and tasks, environment and variables.
Team members clarify objectives and tasks and identify collaborative modeling and effective communications as team goals. Open and thorough discussion builds understanding of each other and exercises the collaboration and communication process (Jeffery et al., 2005).

2. Establishing roles and responsibilities.
Clarifying team member roles and responsibilities should be accomplished after the team defines team objectives and the tasks necessary to accomplish the objectives and sets collaborative modeling and effective communications as team goals. This requires the development of team interaction models that represent a blueprint for how the team works as a team (Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993).

3. Information processing, communication, and collaborative modeling rules and procedures.
Team members should address techniques they will use for communicating, feedback, and sharing mental models in order to accomplish team objectives (Jeffery et al., 2005).

4. Knowledge of team members’ background and style.
Team members need to understand other team members’ knowledge, skills, abilities, preferences, strengths, weakness, and tendencies (Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993).

5. Collaborative modeling scheme.
This plan includes rules and procedures for articulating individual models and the process the team will use to develop a shared mental model (Jeffery et al., 2005).

These imperatives indicate important milestones in the facilitation sessions, which Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators can follow in the progress. Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators can make a certain checklist based on these five imperatives to make sure they put their efforts efficiently on rather important things. Then the participants can work together better because of the creation of the fundamental agreement on criteria of the task, personal roles, ways of common communication, each others’ backgrounds and styles, and a collaborative scheme to develop TMMs.

According to these imperatives, Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators in this process also need to introduce their roles and functions to the participants. They have to make sure that the participants understand proper rules of VT/GF in the process in order to avoid miss-led information and make the best out of VT/GF.

Two Hand Drawing Animations

Strawberry Swing by Coldplay

MUTO by Blublu.org

Enjoy them!

What is Visaul Thinking/Graphic Facilitation?

Visual Thinkers in group sessions can distinguish from people's complex thoughts to a clear and still meaningful graphics instantly. They are just like a prism that divide the white light into several colors.

In terms of an individual, Roam D. (2008) defined visual thinking as taking advantage of our innate ability to see—both with our eyes and with our mind’s eye—in order to discover ideas that are otherwise invisible, develop those ideas quickly and intuitively, and then share those ideas with other people in a way that they simply “get”.

In the practice, there are many definitions of VT/GF published online. Here I summarized the quotes of some opinion leaders in the field: XPLANE, founded in 1993, is the most well-known and pioneering visual thinking consultancy companies in the America. Chris Pearse, co-founder of the Clarity Partnership, wrote a paper, “Putting People in Your Picture”, with profound knowledge about VT/GF in practice. Brandy Agerbeck, an experienced graphic facilitator in the America, provided valuable insights as an active visual practitioner in her career. JAM visual thinking had actively involved with the ideas to inspire people what VT/GF is and how to use it for years in the Netherlands.

To sum up their interpretations of VT/GF, Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators are the visual and usually silent partners, compared to the traditional verbal facilitators (Agerbeck B., 2004). They take part in sessions and together translate people’s project into a clear and large scale image in real-time (JAM visual thinking, 2008). Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators provide people an efficient means to make sense of complex issues (Pearse, C., 2007) by taking advantage of our innate abilities. People can simply get information by receiving it visually. And VT/GF in this sense is not a solution for these issues but rather a catalyst (Pearse, C., 2007) to accelerate understandings (XPLANE, 2009) in front of a large group.

Drawings reflect on Visual Thinkers’/Graphic Facilitators’ minds when they collect the general and specific senses of everyone in a given session. VT/GF is a powerful tool of recognition for everyone (Agerbeck B., 2004). These drawings can pave the way to understand each other in a complex reality and lead people to a right decision and taking actions (XPLANE, 2009).

Start with a piece of blank paper and a pen

Image how children doodle on a piece of blank paper. Drawing lives since you sense that you are creating something. The fun spreads when the results are shown. It is also a time for sharing and responding. The essence of hand drawings lies in inviting people to see and share.

As an adult, we lose that ability to draw for different reasons. We are in pursuit of something more sophisticated to solve problems. We are so serious about producing solutions presented in neat computer graphics or a profound report. We ignore the truly sparkles of our wisdom which happened in the process. Visual Thinking/Graphic Facilitation (VT/GF) offers a way to help people reflect deep and respond openly in the process. If we want to duplicate the inspiring and evoking moments in the other sessions, we will have to find out how VT/GF triggers people being more creative and involved.

Nowadays, there are many terms in general using to describe what the graphic professional does when visually representing a group’s process. Some call “visual thinking”, “graphic facilitation”, “graphic recording”, and “graphic consultancy”. For the purpose of this study, the approach will be called Visual Thinking/Graphic Facilitation (VT/GF) in the fact that these two terms are mostly chosen by the facilitation companies internationally.

"Ongoing creation creates a living document" What makes Visual Thinking so special?(VI)

It is interesting to see other people drawing. That becomes simply a positive cycle in the process. People will be more and more curious about what will happen next. They will then be more eager to contribute when they feel more involved in the co-creation.

Visual thinker's/Graphic facilitators' work will be a big picture depicting not only the result of the team, but the process in the discussion. People can always get their "AHA!" moments back on the picture. The picture can be added on all the time when there is new idea. It can evolve with time and keep lasting effects after participants leave the workshop.

"Excellent Complex Problem Solver" What makes Visual Thinking so special?(V)

Contemporary business is complex, diverse and dynamic compared to decades ago. As the history of VT/GF described early on, VT/GF emerged when people need to solve problems involving expertise with diverse backgrounds. The creative process of solving novel problems is non-linear and even non-rational. Big paper offers scope in recording and communicating the flow of a meeting for a broader organization (Valenza, C. and Adkins, J., 2009).

In front of the participants, Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators spread out all of the “elements” reflected from the verbal and nonverbal information. People can simply make a good use of their innate visual abilities (section 2.2) to browse through the sea of information in graphics, and find out relevant points and coherence which make meanings to them. This is what we do every day to predict the surrounding factors, and Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators simply take advantages of the natural talent for people to thread through rather complex issues in a group level phenomenon.

The emphasis lies on creating design documents that can be understood by people from different backgrounds, and that provide a visual overview so that important factors are not lost in lines of words (Stapper P. et al., 2005). Compared to VT/GF, vocalized ideas are merely bits of vibrating air. Visual thinkers catch elusive information, record them on the paper and make them accessible as drawings. People then can always build on each other's work or opinions without losing any positive details. It can involve wider groups of stakeholders in the process of creating fresh decisions (Valenza, C. and Adkins, J., 2009).

The Gestalt laws of perceptual organization

In 1912, Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Ivo Kohler questioned sensations theory were not enough to explain the entire perceptive phenomenon (Goldstein, EB., 2001). One of the basic principles of Gestalt psychology they demonstrated is “The whole is different than the sum of its parts.” The laws of perceptual organization are a series of rules that specify how we organize small parts into wholes by vision.

"Crappy V.S Beautiful -- Different Roles of Drawings" What makes Visual Thinking so special?(IV)

There are different levels of drawings used in VT/GF. A given drawing has the ability to represent something really simple and something really complex. Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators take advantages of the flexibility of drawings. In the process, they draw images and texts with open interpretation for simulating creative thinking. For the result, they choose a metaphor which contents correct and rich information deriving from participants' shared understandings.

A rough drawing could be also very meaningful since it makes sense in the discussion. However, a beautiful drawing done after workshops could be meaningless if it loses the links to the context. It is important to differentiate the functions of the drawings in the process and after sessions.

On one hand, the drawings in the process do not have to be sophisticated compared to the final mutual result. They are more like a real-time reflection (Valenza, C. and Adkins, J., 2009) of the process of meeting, which is beneficial to build TMMs. On the other hand, the refined drawings after sessions need to be profound enough to breed post-meeting ideas instead of only a reflector. A proper transformation (Stapper P. et al., 2005) helps people contemplate thoroughly with a coherent picture. However, the refined work is time-consuming (Valenza, C. and Adkins, J., 2009) and risky to lose underlying association of the drawings crating in the process.

"Different Roles of Players in the Process and Result of a Session." What makes Visual Thinking so special?(III)

The picture above is about what participants and Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators in a workshop will focus on in terms of "process" and "result". This picture above differentiates different expectations and purposes of participants and Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators.

In top-right fan, participants always focus more on a promising result while, in bottom-left fan, Visual Thinkers’/Graphic Facilitators’ first priority is to build a sense-making process for participants.

In terms of the result in sessions, the top-left fan indicates that participants are beneficial to sense-making in the process. Finally, Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators help to reach the result by building mutual sense-making in bottom-right fan.

We can conclude that Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators need to alter their focus and skills in different phases in group sessions in order to assist participants’ expectations. They should be sensitive to participants’ demands and weakness in every phase, and keep on supporting them.

"3-30-300" and "AIDA" Principles in Composing a Successful Infographic

Infographics, to me, is an important tool to build a sturdy bridge among researchers, designers, and also the stakeholders who do not share the same backgrounds knowledge with you.

Here is an example that I did in a research project on Town Watchers, or Wijkagent in Dutch. They are one kind of policemen, and their missions are mainly focused on how to prevent crime in communities instead of punishing crime like normal policemen. We presented the results of our findings in the research as an infographic.

In this infographic, we applied the "3-30-300" principle which indicates that, in first 3 seconds, readers can get immediately what this poster is about, in the following 30 seconds, they can know better by browsing through some subtitles or graphics, and, in the lasting 300 seconds, they can continue exploring the background knowledge with the detailed explanation. This idea could be demonstrated as the picture below.

We also apply the "AIDA" principle, which refers to Attraction, Interest, Desire, and Action. Attraction is to catch the attention of the reader. Interest is to appeal them with the topic or content. Desire is to make them eager to learn. Action is to ensure that the desire to learn is translated into actual learning.

In the first 3 seconds, we used the main metaphor, an elephant, to represent Town Watcher's compassionate personality and down-to-earth endeavor. We made it as a eye-catching item to attract people's attention and arouse people's interests in it. After their desire to learn more was triggered, n the following 30 seconds, readers can browsing through the various attributes around the elephant, such as a compassionate heart, a huge brain, and a back carrying responsibility. Then, in the lasting 300 seconds, they can learn more about the Town Watchers' daily life by reading the supporting articles and graphics surrounding the poster. The supporting materials ensure that the poster can be frequently revisited and stay fresh, informative, and inspiring.

However, an eye-catching drawing is not a guarantee to be a successful infographic. A well-made infographic must be coherent in these three levels. It is crucial to make sure there are enough clues and linkages among these three levels. So the reader will not be puzzled by the overwhelming data but always can find a way to go on. Only under a thorough, organized design process, the poster then can really attract people in the first sight and keep them been informed and inspired for a long time.

Some Great Infographic Examples

What is Infographic?
"Information graphics or infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics are used where complex information needs to be explained quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education. They are also used extensively as tools by computer scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians to ease the process of developing and communicating conceptual information." _ (Source: Wikipedia)

Here I selected some great examples of Infographics:

(Picture above, Source: XPLANE-examples, Copyright xplane.com)

(Picture above, Source: Transparency: The Largest Bankruptcies in History)

(Picture above, Source: Inside Dylan's Brain)

(Picture above, Source: Infografía premiada en los 2Q/NAO 2007)

(Picture above, Source: What's In Your Mail?)

(Picture above, Source: Lance's Last Tour, the graphic and design was done by Michael Mode and Steve Cowden, the text is by Bonnie DeSimone and James Yu. )

More examples in 50 Great Examples of Inforgraphic, Cool Infographics, BRAVO!

"Speed Up by Slowing Down First." What makes Visual Thinking so special? (II)

The process of Visual Thinking is just like a sequence of thinking loops. People can keep cycling in a loop or move back or forth between loops. Visual thinkers use multiple techniques to help the thinking flow smooth in the session. People can think more fluid and, instead of being rushed into next loop, slow down their thinking. People can therefore stay in a thinking loop longer until they get enough insights.

Paradoxically, people become more efficient in a rather complex and unpredictable task because of slower thinking process. The slower thinking process allows them think deeper, cohere each other, and then build a more profound Team Mental Model. This TMM will result in better performance, better predictability of errors in an uncertain context, and cooperative decision making. People, therefore, can focus on what really matters and waste less time in trial and error. Totally, the slower thinking process actually makes the whole process in a rather efficient fashion.

"Imperfect Strokes Makes Hand Drawings Human and Touchable." What makes Visual Thinking so special?(I)

In the book, "the Back of the Napkin", Dan Roam (2008, p.25) pointed out that the spontaneity and roughness of hand-drawn pictures make them less intimidating and more inviting. Visual thinking is not about how polished our presentations are, but it is in how comfortable we are in thinking with our eyes. Therefore, audiences respond better to hand-drawn images (however crudely drawn) than to polished graphics. People then feel like working in a common ground and do not worry about offering up half-formed ideas for consideration.

3 Ways How Visualization Help Persuading in Ad

Different drawings or pictures can represent different implications to the readers. So, we can use these properties of drawings to convey "right" information to "right" readers. In his book, ‘Visual persuasion’, Paul Messaris (1997) explores how images help advertisers to bring their points across. He described the images with three properties:

1. “Iconicity”, referring to the quality of a visual representation of sharing qualities with the object it refers to, such as a scale model of an airplane.

2. “Indexicality”, referring to the quality of a visual representation of being caused by the object and serves as a physical trace pointing to the object’s existence, such as footprints on the beach which indicates the earlier activities.

3. “Indeterminacy”, meaning that visual representations can often be interpreted in various ways. For example, in cigarette commercials, the relationship between smoking and a healthy outdoor lifestyle is often implied, but not expressed straightforwardly. The images here leave space for imagination with very little detail.

40 Free Tutorials on Advanced Drawing Techniques

This is a post in the vector.tutsplus.com. This post contains "40 Free Tutorials on Advanced Drawing Techniques".

Have fun with them!

Visualizations help learning

Levin (1987) examined the learning functions of visualizations in text, examined the types of visualizations that can be used of facilitate the students’ learning. They described five categories of functions of pictures in prose, which are “decoration”, “Representation”, “Organization”, “Interpretation”, and “Transformation”.

Decoration is to make texts more attractive but irrelevant to the text. Representation is to illustrate the same story as the text. Organization is to structure coherence of aspects. Interpretation is to clarify abstract concepts. Transformation is to anchor information in the text by linking it to pictures that are easier to remember.

The picture above explains the learning effects of different types of illustrations in textbooks. This picture is a replication from an illustration in the book, "Context and Conceptualization" (Stappers et al., 2005. p. 103).

The latter categories are proved to be more beneficial to effective learning for students (See picture above). The transformation function was found to have a strong effect on learning, but it happens only when the association made by the illustrator is shared by the reader.

6 Ways of Seeing, by Dan Roam.

We see a number of things before we start to think. Actually, it all happens in a split second, and you don't even notice this.

We can see more than what we really “look at”. There are the “low-level” cognitive processes which take place when we receive numerous inputs and react to them without going through all over the complex brain. We filter out things and focus on something worth looking at because the “low-level” mental process enables us to act even before we think.

In "the Back of the Napkin", Dan Roam explained the pre-cognitive visual attributes as the six ways of seeing, in which he argued that people distinguished “who”, “what”, “how many/much”, “where” (positions of objects), and “when” (changing of positions) almost intuitively in a given scene, and defined “how” things influence each other and “why” in a later thought.

Understanding the potential of how our brains work in visual thinking paves a way to make a good use of them.

History of Visual Thinking, by Christine Valenza and Jan Adkins.

In their newly-released paper: Understanding Visual Thinking: The History and Future of Graphic Facilitation, Christine Valenza and Jan Adkins (2009) described the nowadays global economy model with a metaphor: the neuron, compared to a vertical ladder in the Middle Ages and a flat web in the industrial age. They further explained the idea that modern people deal with the complex world by near-instant communication plugging into all levels of a problem and with multiple variables . The nonlinear thinking process for human ingenuity and creativity is rather like a human’s neuron networks than a machine.

From linear and vertical ladder to a complex neuron system, people started to be aware of the voices outside a hierarchy and tried to involve expertise with no manufacturing and commercial background, such as psychology, social science and biology. The flip chart in 1950s was probably the most well-known tool for presenting ideas and recording process in a meeting. People developed the flip chart as a more elaborate VT/GF tool with knowledge of Gestalt awareness, corporate learning, group dynamics, mind maps etc. Therefore, the poster in the front of a group in a conference could record a propound view with assembled graphics, numbers, and arguments.

In 1970s, the concept of a facilitator actively leading meetings toward conflict- and problem-solving interactions emerged with the influence of David Sibbet’s large-paper approach or Michael Doyle’s flip charts recording running dialogue, augmented with large infographic images.

In 1980s, the emergence of computer networking and the internet triggered the interactive graphics to support group process. During the period, people realized that corporations were similar to human entity, subject to more complex motives, stressors, and failures. In 1990s, many business management consultants developed large-scale change methods to involve wider groups of stakeholders in the process of creating fresh decisions.

VT/GF in 21st century now takes advantages of the convenient social networking device and on-line program and still makes a good use of efficiency and accessibilities of the conventional tools, such as hand drawing skills, big poster, and markers. Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators also use fresh visual language, a knowledge of group dynamics, and contemporary business and meeting process awareness.

With a thorough introduction of important publications, facilitation theory, and key figurers, this paper leads us to go through a clear context of the history of Visual Thinking. This is really valuable to understand fundamental background knowledge in Visual Thinking.

In the paper, you can find a better and detail description of the History of Graphic Facilitation with Cristine's and Jan's extraordinary insights. Enjoy it!

How the Brain Creates Meanings? -- Tom Wujec on TED Talks

Tom Wujec gave a presentation about 3 ways the brain creates meaning by vision on TED talks.

I tried to combine the 6 ways of seeing, proposed by Dan Roam in the book: the Back of the Napkin, with Tom Wujec's 3 ways here in the following summery of the presentation.

There are thirty parts of brain in relation to making visual senses. First of three major parts in the brain is called the ventral stream, which detects “who” and “what” the objects are. That's the part of the brain that is activated when you give a word to something. The second is the dorsal stream, which detects “where” and “when” in the scene. You'll create a kind of mental map of your surroundings. The third one is the limbic system where people have an emotional response to what they see. It is to say that the connections and the pattern of objects trigger the limbic system to augment memory by creating visual persistence. The process to create visual persistence can be the ways to understand “how” and ”why” attributes in the scene.

Tom Wujec also present a real case to describe how visual thinking took place in a business meeting without using power point slides in two days. For people, it is just naturally, biographically evident that visual thinking happens spontaneously even before we start to think.
Making of good use of the visual support is simply that natural for people.

What is Visual Thinking Process?

This poster is my first step to decipher the Visual Thinking Process. They are originated from JAM as a concept to describe Visual Design Process.

The four steps in Visual Design Process are "Collecting elements", "Finding coherence", "Composition", and "Translation". People shift from one step to another following the flow of thinking. Visual thinkers use multiple techniques to smooth the flow of thinking in a given meeting. The flow breeds abundant benefits both in the process and final result. Please click on "read more" if you want to get more explanation.

1. What is Visual Thinking Process?

Through Visual Thinking, people can solve complex problem in the process. However, what happened in the process is something needs to be deciphered if we want to make a good use of Visual Thinking. I am going to explain the process of Visual Thinking, Visual Thinkers' techniques, and benefits of Visual Thinking in the following pictures.

2. Visual Thinking Process Creates a Flow:
In visual thinking process, there are four steps: "collecting elements", "finding coherence", "composition", and "translation". Collecting elements is when people try to explore and lay out all helpful data on the table. Finding coherence is when people start to find out linkage between data and cluster them. Composition is to figure them out in a bigger and logical scale. Translation is to transfer the result in composition with a meaningful metaphor which can motivate and inspire people in the end.

3. Underlying Flows in Visual Thinking Process:
The process is non-linear and non-rational. The underlying flows in the picture indicate that the process can shift from one loop to another. Instead of running in a linear an one-way route, it is more like cycling in each loop when people try to get more in-depth insights.

4. What do Visual Thinkers Do in the process?
Visual thinkers use multiple techniques to help the flow smooth. People can think more fluid and, instead of being pushed to next loop, slow down their thinking. People can therefore stay in a loop longer until they get enough insights.

5. Benefits of Visual Thinking:
In the process, visual thinkers' techniques help create common ground in a team, which bring benefits both in the process and the result.

The picture is an initial exploration of the power of hand drawing in facilitation workshop. I will try to make it more elaborate in the latter phase of the graduation project. Please feel free to give comments for me to improve them.

What Makes Visual Thinking So Special? -- Jan's Feedback on 2nd 10-min Presentation

After 2nd 10-min presentation in JAM, I got a number of feedback from colleagues in JAM. Here is one infographic of them. Jan, an experienced visual thinker in JAM, shared his reflection on what makes visual thinking so special from other kinds of facilitation. The picture above is a visual recording of our discussion after presentation. I will do a detailed explanation for this now.

1. Multiple supporting roles in terms of "process" and "result" in a workshop:
The picture above is about what participants and visual thinkers in a workshop will focus on in terms of "process" and "result". This picture differentiate different expectations and purposes of participants and visual thinkers. In top-right fan, participants always focus more on a promising result while, in bottom-left fan, visual thinker's first task is to build a sense-making process for participants. The top-left fan indicates that participants are beneficial to sense-making in the process. Then, visual thinkers help to reach the result by building mutual sense-making in bottom-right fan.

2. Ongoing creation keeps participants always focus:
It is fun to see other people drawing. That becomes simply a positive cycle in the process. People will become more and more curious about what will happen next. They will then be more eager to contribute when they feel more involved in the co-creation.

3. Visual thinking is especially good at dealing with novel and complex problem:
Based on the picture above, we also understand that visual thinking actually is only part of the problem solving when there are many different focuses in different phases. Visual thinking is especially good for people to solve novel and complex problem. Visual thinkers catch elusive information and make them accessible as drawings. People then can always build on each other's work or opinions without losing any positive details.

4. Visual thinker's work will be a living document in the end:
Visual thinker's work will be a big picture depicting not only the result of the team, but the process of the discussion. People can always get their "AHA!" moments back on the picture. The picture can be added on all the time when there is new idea. It can evolve with time and keep living after participants leave the workshop.
5. Drawings are flexible in the levels of translation:
There are different levels of drawings used in visual thinking. A given drawing has the ability to represent something really simple and something really complex. Visual thinkers make a good use of the flexibility of drawings. In the process, they draw images and texts with open interpretation for simulating creative thinking. For the result, they choose a metaphor which contents correct and rich information deriving from participants' shared understandings.

Thanks for Jan's inspiring feedback!

"What does sustainability look like?" -- Visualizing Sustainability

"Professional Visual Facilitators Mariah Howard and Julie Gieseke bring whiteboards, pens,cameras and one question to the Maker Faire: What does sustainability look like? Here is the harvest of images they discovered from the Makers"

This is quoted from an introduction of a youtube footage: "Visualizing Sustainability".

You can learn how people improvise with simply a pen and a whiteboard to draw their ideas. Sharing is such simple and fun!! Enjoy it!

What we need as a team while solving complex problem?

When the world is more flat, people faced a more competitive and changeable world. The problem we have is much more complex and unpredictable than before. Therefore, we need more people with different professional knowledge to work together and solve the complex problem. However, it is not an easy task because the collaboration of the multi-disciplinary team is already a hurdle difficult to overcome for the problem-solving process. That is why we need a team to build up shared understanding or Team Mental Model.

What is Mental Model
In order to understand and predict the reality, people structure a simplified model of the world in their mind. This model reflects the individual's perception of the reality, and they work as a "blueprint" for people to deal with uncertainty and unpredictability of the world (see picture above). They do not have to be perfectly matched. People can take the action without getting all necessary information because of possessing mental models.

What is Team Mental Model (TMM)?
As a group level phenomenon (Klimoski, et al. 1994), TMMs allow team members to anticipate one another’s actions and to coordinate their behaviors, especially when time and circumstances do not permit overt and lengthy communication and strategizing among team members (Lim, et al. 2006).There is an elaborated description of the types of the -TMMs, which is purposed by Cannon-Bowers et al. (1993): equipment models, task models, team interaction models and team attribute models.

Equipment models relate to how things (tangible or intangible) function as well as the procedures to make them function and information about the functioning. Task models involve information about the task to be performed, task procedures, likely scenarios, task strategies, and environmental constraints. The team interaction model is the blueprint for how the team works as a team. Finally, the team attribute model contains information about other team members’ knowledge, skills, abilities, preferences, and tendencies.

For example (see picture above), we might call in designers, engineers, financial analyst etc. to deal with a new business problem.

Therefore, they will need to work as a group and share a Team Mental Model for better performance.

First, they need to build mutual understanding about the task (task model) and define what kind of resource and tools they have (equipment model).(see picture above)

Secondly, they will need to share others' expectations and align them (team interaction model) and understand others' abilities, strengths, and weakness (team attribute model).(see picture above)

Finally, the team have built a Team Mental Model and come up with a proper solution because of the Team Mental Model.(see picture above)

What is worth to say here is that these steps to form a TMM are not necessary in this order. It will depend on the environment, team members' previous experience, conditions in the task etc.