My 2nd 10-min presentation in JAM.

Hello all, this is the result of my second 10-min presentation in JAM. The presentation is about 3 aspects: "How to build a Team Mental Model for problem-solving session?", "What is Visual Thinking and Graphic facilitation in terms of benefits and techniques?", and "What are the steps in Visual Thinking Process?"

In a gradually globalizing world, people will need to deal with problems which are more complex and have more people involved. The more complex the issue, the more experts they need. The more experts involve, the more difficulty to integrate them in a given task. The process of problem-solving, itself, simply becomes another tricky, complex problem. For a novel problem, we need to be creative. Therefore, for a novel problem of problem-solving process, we also need creative facilitation to help to cut the time of development of team mental model.

With a coordinated team mental model, a number of studies have already approved that it will result in better team performance. We will need an appropriate facilitation skill to improve the efficiency of the development of team mental model (TMM). And the facilitation can help to produce better team performance. (The theoretical formulation of TMM was depicted in the left-top coner.)

In the workshop, visual thinkers/graphic facilitators use their techniques to create a visual which can not only support people to discuss in the workshop, but also keep inspiring people after the workshop. The techniques would be "observational research", "fast catch", "deep listening", "holistic reflection", and "have your voice". (The techniques of Visual thinkers/graphic facilitators are listed on the left.)

Benefits of VT/GF can then be reveled as "free your mind", "build shared understanding", "keep focus", "engaging", "motivation", "evolving picture", and "people feel be heard". The benefits not only lie in the result of the workshop but in the process. (The benefits of VT/GF are listed in the center of the poster.)

There are two examples to describe the steps of visual thinking. First one is suggested by Dan Roam in the book: "the Back of the Napkin". He pointed out that visual thinking is looking, seeing, imaging, and showing. Second one is JAM visual thinks step. It was described also in four steps: "collecting elements", "finding coherence", "composition", and "translation". I compared these two definition and found that there are some interesting coherence between these two although the first one is more like a basic, personal principle and the second one is based on real practice in JAM. (The visual thinking process is explained in the bottom of the poster.)

I will keep updating the more detailed content of the presentation in other posts! Thanks for all of you who participate and share your thoughts about the presentation!!