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.