Follow the path of Le Penseur... think hard and reflect deep

When I kept adjusting my graduation project description, the image of "Le Penseur" just popped up in my mind. Think hard and reflect deep. Although I am still struggling on the planning and assignment description, it indeed made some progress but not finished yet.

Hopefully, by the end of the day, I can get a clear picture and find a lead to go through the puzzle.

Literature List - Draft!!

There will be four fields to study in the literature research.

- Visual thinking/ Graphic facilitation
- Shared understanding
- Review of facilitation results
- Contextmapping

Visual thinking/Graphic facilitation:
The literature in this field will refer to previous studies on aspects about the graphic facilitation. The aspects will range from "creative facilitation in group problem-solving" to "story-telling drawing techniques".

1. Jeffery, A.B., Maes, J.D., & Bratton-Jeffery M.F. (2005). Improving team decision-making performance with collaborative modeling. Team Performance Management, 11, 1/2, 40-50, DOI :10.1108/13527590510584311

2. Beers, P.J. (2005). Negotiating common ground: Tools for multidisciplinary teams. Maastricht: Open Universiteit Nederland.

3. Cohn, N. (2007). What is visual language? Retrieved August 21, 2008, from http://www.emaki.net/vislang.html.

4. Tyler, C., Valek, L., & Rowland R. (2005). Graphic Facilitation and Large-Scale Interventions: Supporting Dialogue Between Cultures at a Global, Multicultural, Interfaith Event. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 41, 139-152. DOI: 10.1177/0021886304272850

5. Santanen, E.L., Briggs R.O., & Gert-Jan de V.. (2004). Causal Relationships in Creative Problem Solving: Comparing Facilitation Interventions for Ideation. Journal of Management Information Systems, 20(4), 167–197.

6. Forrester, J.W. (1994). Learning through system dynamics as preparation for the 21st century. Paper presented at Systems Thinking and Dynamic Modeling Conference for K-12 Education (Concord, MA, 27-29 June). Retrieved April 17, 2009, from http://sysdyn.clexchange.org/sdep/papers/D-4434-3.pdf.

7. Horn, R.E., (2001). Visual language and converging technologies in the next 10-15 years (and beyond). Paper presented at National Science Foundation Conference on Converging Technologies (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno) for Improving Human Performance, December 3 – 4. Retrieved April 9, 2009, from http://www.precaution.org/files/document/Societal_Implications_of_Nanoscience_and_Nanot.pdf#page=138.

8. Birnholtz, J.P., Finholt T.A., Horn D.B., Sung, J.B. (2005). Grounding Needs: Achieving Common Ground Via Lightweight Chat In Large, Distributed, Ad-Hoc Groups. CHI 2005, April 2–7, Portland, Oregon, USA., 21-30.

9. Pearse, C. (2007). Technique - Tools graphic facilitation - Putting your people in the picture. Journal of Engineering Management, 17(5), 12-15, ISSN: 0960-7919

10. Renk, J.M., Branch, R.C., & Chang, E. (1993). Visual information strategies in mental model development. In: D. Braden & J. Clark-Baca (Eds.), Visual literacy in the digital age: Selected readings of the 25th annual conference of the International Visual Literacy Association (25th, Rochester, New York, October 13-17). Retrieved April 9, 2009, from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/16/14/16.pdf

11. Barner, R. (2008). The dark tower: Using visual metaphors to facilitate emotional expression during organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 21(1), 120-137. DOI: 10.1108/09534810810847075

12. Mccloud, S. (2006). Making Comics. Special Market Department, HarperCollins Publisher, New York.

13. Sharp, D.L.M., Bransford, J.D., Goldman, S.R., Risko, V.J., Kinzer, C.K., & Vye, N.J. (1995). Dynamic visual support for story comprehension and mental model building by young at-risk children. Educational Technology Research and Development, 43(4), 25-42. DOI: 10.1007/BF02300489

14. Tassoul, M. (2006). Creative Facilitation: a Delft approach. VCCD, Delft, the Netherlands.

15. VizThink (2008) Visual Language. Retrieved March 18, 2009, from http://wiki.vizthink.com/VisualLanguage.


Shared understanding:
The literature in this field will refer to previous studies about how shared understanding is being build up during a group meeting or a period of time while meditating in multidisciplinary team. The aspects of the field are "relationships between team mental models and performance", and "how a diverse group get shared understanding".

16. Cannon-Bowers, J.A. & Salas, E. (2001). Reflections on shared cognition. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22, 195-202. DOI: 10.1002/job.82

17. Carley, K.M. (1997). Extracting team mental models through textual analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18, 533-558. DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1379(199711)18:1+<533::aid-job906>3.0.CO;2-3

18. Chrispeels, J.H., Burke, P.H., Johnson, P., & Daly, A.J. (2008). Aligning mental models of district and school leadership teams for reform coherence. Education and Urban Society, 40(6), 730-750. DOI: 10.1177/0013124508319582

19. Eppler, M.J., & Burkhard R.A. (2007). Visual representations in knowledge management: framework and cases, JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, 11(4), 112-122, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270 DOI 10.1108/13673270710762756

20. Klimoski, R. & Mohammed, S. (1994). Team mental model: construct or metaphor?, Journal of Management, 20(2), 403-437. DOI: 10.1016/0149-2063(94)90021-3

21. Mulder, I. (2004). Understanding designers, designing for understanding. Enschede: Telematica Instituut and University of Twente. Retrieved March 2, 2009, from http://purl.org/utwente/41481.

22. Mulder, I., Henk, de P., Carla, V., Ruud, J., Marcel, B. (2006). An Information Overload study: Using design methods for understanding, OZCHI 2006, November 20-24, 2006, Sydney, Australia. 245-252.

23. Lardner, R. (1996). Effective shift handover, Health & Safety Executive. Retrieved March 19, 2009, from http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/otopdf/1996/oto96003.pdf.

24. Lim, B.-C. & Klein, K.J. (2006). Team mental models and team performance: a field study of the effects of team mental models similarity and accuracy. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27(4), 403-418. DOI: 10.1002/job.387

25. Lee, M.Y. (2007). Understanding changes in team-related and task-related mental models and their effects on team and individual performance. Department of Education Psychology and Learning Systems, The Florida State University. Retrieved March 19, 2009, from http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses_1/available/etd-11122007-193205/unrestricted/Lee_MY_2.pdf.

26. Schwamb, K.B. (1990). Mental models: a survey. Retrieved March 19, 2009, from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.55.1155.

27. Westbrook, L. (2006). Mental models: a theoretical overview and preliminary study, Journal of Information Science, 32(6), 563-570. DOI: 10.1177/0165551506068134


Review of Facilitation Results:
This literature in this field will focus on assessment on outcomes of group facilitation. The aspects will be on methodologies and results of empirical studies.

28. Batini, C., Bertini, E., Comerio, M., Maurino, A., & Santucci, G. (2007). Visual languages and quality evaluation in multichannel adaptive information systems. Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, 18, 515-522. DOI: 10.1016/j.jvlc.2007.08.001

29. Eby, L.T., Meade, A.W., Parisi, A.G., & Douthitt, S.S. (1999). The development of an individual-level teamwork expectations measure and the application of a within-group agreement statistic to assess shared expectations for teamwork. Organizational Research Methods, 2(4), 366-394. DOI: 10.1177/109442819924003

30. Isenberg, P, Zuk, T., Collins, C., & Carpendale S. (2008). Grounded Evaluation of Information Visualizations. BELIV ’08, April 5, 2008, Florence, Italy. ISBN: 978-1-60558-016-6

31. Mohammed, S. & Dumville, B.C. (2001). Team mental models in a team knowledge framework: Expanding theory and measurement across disciplinary boundaries. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22, 89-106. DOI: 10.1002/job.86

32. Mulder, I., Swaak, J., & Kessels, J. (2002). Assessing group learning and shared understanding in technology-mediated interaction. Educational Technology & Society, 5(1), 35-47. ISSN 1436-4522.

33. Pinto, M.B., Pinto, J.K. (1990). Project team communication and cross-functional cooperation in new program development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 7, 200-212. DOI: 10.1016/0737-6782(90)90004-X

34. Rubin, R.B. (1984). Validity and reliability of the communication competency assessment instrument. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association (34th, San Francisco, CA, May 24-28). Retrieved March 19, 2009, from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/2e/8f/c3.pdf.


Contextmapping:
The literature here will be a preliminary study for the research methods in the following "Contextmapping phase".

35. Sleeswijk F.V. (2009). Bringing the everyday life of people into design, ID-StudioLab, The Delft University of Technology. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://studiolab.io.tudelft.nl/static/gems/sleeswijkvisser/sleeswijkthesis.pdf

A chaotic start in the 3rd week...

The workload in the Analysis phase is far more than I expected. And my mentor in PfG (preparation for graduation) also had some doubts about " Is this a research project or design project?", which had already confused me for a whole week...
Anyway, I hope I can get a better grip on the Analysis phase! But I will need to talk to my supervisors first and examine my graduation subject description more in-depth.

Preliminary Exploration: Planning for Analysis phase

In the Analysis planning, I focus on three major aspects, literature research, previous projects study, and global trends, and they are also primary objectives in this phase. There are secondary objectives, such as reporting progress on blog regularly.

Primary objectives:
1. Literature research: There will be four fields to study in the literature research.
- Visual thinking/ Graphic facilitation
The literature in this field will refer to previous studies on aspects about the graphic facilitation. The aspects will range from "creative facilitation in group problem-solving" to "story-telling drawing techniques".

- Shared understanding
The literature in this field will refer to previous studies about how shared understanding is being build up during a group meeting or a period of time while meditating in multidisciplinary team. The aspects of the field are "relationships between team mental models and performance", and "how a diverse group get shared understanding".

- Review of facilitation results
This literature in this field will focus on assessment on outcomes of group facilitation. The aspects will be on methodologies and results of empirical studies.

- Contextmapping
The literature here will be a preliminary study for the research methods in the following "Contextmapping phase".

2. Previous projects study: Preliminary research in JAM's works and people.
- What are JAM
- Who are JAM
- Previous project categorization
- JAM's tool, environment, and stimuli

3. Global trends study: Look into some companies, conference, personal blogs, websites, and news about trends in visual thinking/ graphic facilitation.

Secondary objectives:
Reporting progress on the blog regularly.

Workshop: Visual Communication in TU Delft

Intro
Last Friday, May 15th, I participated in an interesting workshop in TUDelft drawing course. The facilitators are Jan and Joost who are both from JAM. The purpose of the workshop is to explore how visualization can help people to communicate better. The task of the workshop is to use graphics to compose his/her own study plan for a future master degree. (more photos are on flickr)

Warm-up
The warm-up started with rough and quick drawings. Participants are asked for drawing random objects, and animals, such as clock, car, cat, etc. and some abstract word, such as belief and trust. It ran so fast that everyone collected dozens of post-it within several minutes.


Jan and Joost explain three basic elements in a visual planning, which are time, action, and space. Then they started to categorize all the drawings in these three group on the blackboard.It turned out a beautiful huge collage and a sea of post-it!


I think it is a very dynamic and interesting warm-up. Participants started with freehand drawings and brainstormed a little bit with the subjects. Then, finally they came together to build up a wall of post-it. Through these processes, I believed they not only warmed up their hand and mind but also shared the happiness of building an impressive work, which can therefore inspire them to go on exploring.

Assignment 1: Visual Planning to going to cinema
It is a 5-minute assignment, kind of short test to compose a visual planning.


I took notes during the discussion about how to improve the visual planning. First, choosing a good metaphor is important because it would catch people's eye and build a center theme of the story you want to express in the drawing. Secondly, you might start from a draft drawing of elements involved in the planning, and compose them later. Besides, a good structure is also relevant for composition and communication. After you apply a number of elements, you will need a good structure to guide audience but not to leave a chaotic drawing to them and yourself. Furthermore, text can play an important role in a visual planning, so do not avoid using text but make a good use of it. Using color to highlight the picture is also good for communication. Last but not least, the arrows can be quiet relevant to guide the audience.

Assignment 2: Master study planning
Everyone got an assignment to do a visual planning for future master studying planning.

Assignment 2: Discussion
Here are some examples which might shed some light on what good visual planning will be.

Above, this is a good example to use colorful and eye-catching metaphor in a visual planning. It does not only list some must-dos in the future but possibilities and potential hinder. This planning can therefore arose audience's interests on it.

Above, sometimes, too many elements and details will hinder audience's interpretation and imagination about what you want to communicate. It might be good to have some "layers" or "hierarchy" here for the elements. So audience can learn the planning logically instead of feeling lost in it.
Above, it is a good example for giving "layers" or "hierarchy" in a drawing. First, the octopus helped to set a center theme of the drawing. Its tentacles represented the second layer of the drawing.

Above, this drawing can be appealing but lack of the guidance for a following story. It did not create a clear coherence between the elements and in the story.

Above, it showed a strong metaphor with a big question mark and cleverly implied the start and the end of planning.
Above, personally, I like this planning very much because it showed a clear vision in the near and far future. It led the audience, step-by-step, to his dream, saving the earth. That is something I felt very important to see in a visual planning. Instead of listing some boring routines, the meaning of the visual planning should lie on a drawing which can motivate and inspire yourself to go on.

To sum up
A good visual planning, in my opinion, should content a strong metaphor and a clear story. A good visual planning should be storytelling, which implies a clear structure and hierarchy in its elements. Make coherence with the storyline and make interesting details. Therefore the audience can follow the story without feeling bored.


Last but not least, while drawing, always leave some space for playing, for the ideas coming from nowhere!!

A Journey to the summit: GP planning

For planning of Graduation Project, there will be five phases which are Analysis, Contextmapping, Conceptualization, Evaluation, Reporting & Presentation. I used a metaphor, climbing mountain, in the planning drawing to represent the process. To start from the bottom-left corner, there will be several checkpoints and milestones on the way to the peaks of the mountain. From May 11th to Oct 16th, the project will last for 23 weeks.


The major mission of the blog is actually born for reporting the progress of the Graduation Project. All the findings, insights, and even setbacks will be published here publicly.

In Analysis phase, I will focus on three aspects which are literature research, JAM's previous project categoriztion, and Global trends in Visual thinking/Graphic facilitation. I will try to look for diverse angels about the topic, such as visual thinking/graphic facilitation, shared understanding, contextmapping thecnique, facilitation theory. In the checkpoint of this phase, I will hand out an analysis report. From May 11 to June 5, It will take 4 weeks to finish.

In the Contextingmapping phase, there will be two major aspects which are internal research and external research. They could be conducted parallel. In the internal research, I will first analyze outcome of the previous projects. For further insights about people in JAM, I will first do individual interviews about their own experience, limitations and dreams, and then hold a group session later on. In external research, I will do some case study and ask client's opinions and partner's experience. In the end of the phase, I will hand out a contextmapping report. From June 8 to July 31, it will take 8 weeks to finish.

In Conceptualization phase, I will conceptualize proper tollkits for visual thinkers based on Analysis. I will hand out a conceptualization report. From Aug 3 to Aug 28, it will take 4 weeks to finish.

In Evaluation phase, I will do a concept evaluation in the real parctice, and choose and refine concepts. From Aug 31 to Sep 25, it will take 4 weeks.

In the final phase of the GP, a thesis, and a poster will be finalized contenting the evaluation of project and process. There will be a final oral presentation. This phase will take 3 weeks from Sep 28 to Oct 16.

What is the "Magic" in the black box?

JAM have clients with diverse backgrounds, like financial, engineering, human resource, manufacturing, industrial design, governmental officers, etc. In a given assignment, JAM help their clients build up shared understandings in a one-day or multi-day workshop. Purposes of these workshops would be to use graphics to bridge gaps between diverse participants, and help to forge shared understandings for new ideas, solutions or visions, depending on types of assignments. JAM especially focus on interpreting all the information of the diverse groups and translating them into convincing graphics which reach mutual expectations. In JAM, they already accumulated abundant experience in their practice and want to contribute their knowledge in visual/graphic facilitation to a promising future.

However, due to busy schedule and demanding daily work in JAM, people in JAM could not share their knowledge at work. So, what happened in the process of workshops is like a black box, which is never deciphered with a thorough research. Based on a thorough research, we can unveil the magic of the graphic power and develop toolkits and guidelines for visual thinker without jeopardizing the magic leading to unlimited creativity and free communication. These toolkits and guidelines can help to improve the process in future workshops, and also serve to form a framework to document the workshop in a systematic way.

So the assignment of the graduation project is:

to decipher the “Magic” of graphic power in facilitation workshops and develop toolkits for Visual thinkers. The first half of the project will be contextmapping on the graphic facilitation experience in JAM. The second half of the project will be conceptualization and evaluation, which will lead to recommendations to the future development of graphic facilitation.