Ever wondered how a simple sketch on a napkin could solve complex business problems? How do leading companies like Southwest Airlines and Bain & Company use visual thinking to drive innovation? How can the game of poker teach us essential visual thinking skills? Dive into the world of visual thinking and discover how it can revolutionize your approach to problem-solving!

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

Imagine facing a daunting business problem. Is it global, political, technical, or emotional? Is it about money, process, or people? Business is fundamentally about problem-solving, and what if there's a way to do this more quickly, intuitively, and even enjoyably? Enter visual thinking—solving problems with pictures.

In Dan Roam's career managing businesses across various cities, he has encountered countless problems. Once, he had to cover for a colleague's speech in Sheffield, England, without any preparation. On the train, amidst an English breakfast, he had a revelation. With a pen and napkin, he sketched a simple framework explaining the fundamentals of creating useful websites. This impromptu visual presentation won over our audience and secured a major project. It showed him the power of visual thinking.

Visual thinking isn't about artistic talent. If you can draw basic shapes, this method is for you. It involves breaking down problems into simpler, visual parts, which anyone can understand and work with.

This book is structured into three parts: discovering, developing, and selling ideas using simple visuals. It starts by helping you recognize different types of problems and how visuals can clarify them. For example, business challenges often boil down to questions of who, what, how much, when, where, how, and why. Visual thinking helps untangle these complexities.

Consider Daphne, a VP at a publishing company struggling with brand recognition. Faced with overwhelming data, she categorized it into six problem types and visualized it all in one comprehensive picture. This visual summary clarified the company's situation and guided strategic decisions, leading to a successful stock market listing.

Visual thinking isn’t about polished graphics; it's about clarity. Hand-drawn images are quick to create, easy to modify, and invite collaboration. Everyone, regardless of their self-perceived drawing skills, can benefit from this approach.

Ultimately, visual thinking leverages our innate abilities to see and imagine, transforming how we solve problems. Through simple sketches and structured processes, we can enhance our problem-solving toolkit, making complex issues more approachable and solutions more visible. So, grab a pen, start drawing, and discover a new way to tackle business challenges.

Can The Back of the Napkin Revolutionize Your Business Problem-Solving Skills?

Imagine learning visual thinking through a game of Texas hold 'em poker. In Dan Roam's workshops, he starts with this card game because it’s simple to grasp and teaches essential visual thinking skills: recognizing patterns, making decisions with incomplete information, and constructing the best possible hand. These skills mirror the process of visual thinking: looking, seeing, imagining, and showing.

In poker, players follow a set process and rules, much like visual thinking. One must make decisions based on limited information, using a small set of elements—just as visual thinking relies on a few visual cues to solve problems. The game’s steps of looking at your cards, seeing potential patterns, imagining the best hand, and showing your cards to win align perfectly with visual thinking's steps.

This process is innate; we use it daily, from crossing streets to preparing business reports. For instance, crossing a street involves looking for cars, seeing their distance, imagining if we can cross safely, and showing our decision by crossing or waiting.

Visual thinking requires active looking—collecting visual inputs and making sense of them. For example, when entering a bowling alley, our eyes automatically scan and create a 3D mental model of the space. Similarly, when viewing a business chart, our eyes recognize the coordinate system and labels, helping us quickly grasp the information.

To enhance visual thinking, follow four rules: 
1. Collect all visual data, 
2. Lay it out for side-by-side comparison, 
3. Define a coordinate system, and 
4. Practice visual triage to focus on what’s important. 
This approach helps manage information overload.

Visual thinking also involves laying out all data, akin to organizing a garage sale, to see the big picture. This was crucial in a project where a company’s sales process overhaul was better understood when all details were laid out visually.

Finally, visual triage, our brain’s automatic process of prioritizing visual information, helps us focus on what’s crucial. Recognizing visual precognitive attributes like proximity, color, size, orientation, direction, shape, and shading can make our visual thinking more efficient.

In essence, visual thinking is a natural, structured process akin to playing poker, involving looking, seeing, imagining, and showing. By honing these skills, we can better navigate and solve complex problems visually.

Mastering Visual Thinking: Lessons from Texas Hold 'Em Poker

Looking is about gathering visual information, while seeing involves selecting what’s important. Imagine driving when your car breaks down. You pull over and examine the engine, initially just looking at everything. Suddenly, you notice a loose wire that seems out of place. That’s the difference: looking is collecting; seeing is identifying patterns.

Seeing helps us recognize problems by putting visual pieces together. We see in six distinct ways, each corresponding to the 6 W’s: who/what, how many, where, when, how, and why. 

Lila, a training manager at a large online store, joined a luxury chocolate brand tasked with expanding nationwide without sacrificing quality. Faced with overwhelming training materials and a team too familiar with them, Lila used the six ways of seeing to organize and understand the training process.

1. Who/What: Identifying trainees and trainers, topics, and lessons.
2. How Many/How Much: Quantifying lessons, time, and attendees.
3. Where: Locating training sessions geographically and conceptually.
4. When: Sequencing the training timeline.
5. How: Understanding relationships between lessons and their application.
6. Why: Justifying the training effort to maintain quality.

By categorizing and mapping these elements, Lila and her team transformed complex information into a clear, visual summary, allowing Lila to see and plan the training process effectively.

Discovery: Can You Master the Art of Seeing Like Lila to Transform Complex Challenges?

Imagine seeing with your eyes closed. We've used our eyes to gather and analyze visual information, but now it's time to let our imagination take over. This is all about imagining things that aren't physically in front of us—using our mind’s eye to create and manipulate abstract images. It’s not about entering a trance or visualizing positive energy; it’s simply another way to see.

Imagination is a powerful tool in business problem-solving, and there are many techniques to enhance creative thinking, like visual memory games, mind mapping, and meditation. However, we will focus on one particular framework called the SQVID, which stands for Simple vs. Elaborate, Quality vs. Quantity, Vision vs. Execution, Individual attributes vs. Comparison, and Delta (change) vs. Status quo.

To introduce the SQVID, let's imagine a tropical island scenario. Picture yourself on a beach meeting a local who gives you a purple fruit. As you taste it, you start thinking about how to explain an apple to the islander using only drawings on a napkin. Depending on what you want to convey about the apple, your sketches might vary from a simple apple to an elaborate orchard, from its nutritious value to an apple pie recipe.

This exercise activates all corners of your mind’s eye, generating multiple views of a single idea. It also makes you consider how to present your idea from your audience’s perspective. This is the essence of the SQVID—a framework that helps shape and clarify your visual message.

The SQVID can be used in two ways: to explore different visual representations of an idea or to tailor your visuals to your audience’s expectations. This process engages both the analytic and creative sides of your brain, making it an excellent tool for diverse business teams to see eye to eye.

For instance, Jeff Hawkins, the inventor of the Palm Pilot, uses different levels of simplicity or elaboration in his brain presentations depending on his audience's expertise. Mary “Missy” Cummings, an MIT professor and former naval aviator, has developed a visual display for astronauts that merges qualitative and quantitative information, enhancing both seat-of-the-pants and by-the-numbers flying techniques.

Orit Gadiesh, chairman of Bain & Company, used the visual metaphor of a compass pointing to true north to inspire her company during tough times, highlighting the importance of maintaining core principles amidst changing market conditions. 

Similarly, Southwest Airlines' founders used a simple triangle sketch to illustrate their unique business model, which, when compared to the complex route maps of their competitors, showcased their innovative approach.

Lastly, a bank's internal team used visualization to tackle communication overload. By sketching the current communication chaos and imagining a filtered, efficient system, they could envision a better future and work towards it.

In short, the SQVID is a versatile tool that helps us see our ideas clearly, consider our audience, and balance creativity with practicality. It’s a full-brain workout that can transform how we approach problem-solving in business.

Unleashing Business Imagination: The Power of the SQVID Framework

It’s time to learn to draw. Whether you’re confident with a pen or not, everyone can create meaningful visuals. Drawing might be harder than expected for the artistically gifted, and easier than expected for the “non-visual” folks. The key is that we already know what to do—identify our problem, select the right framework, and focus our ideas using SQVID.

In business schools, case studies make theories real. We’ll do the same with visual thinking. Using a fictional software company, SAX Inc., we’ll apply our visual tools to tackle customer research, marketing, product development, financial analysis, project planning, and strategic decision-making.

SAX Inc. has struggled with flat sales despite a feature-rich product. Competitors, including open-source freeware, are gaining ground. Our challenge is to understand our customers better and find solutions before losing market share.

WHO Are Our Customers?
We need a clear picture of our customers. Starting simple, we can try a qualitative portrait. This will help us identify and differentiate our customers.

General Rules for Creating Portraits:
1. Keep it simple.
2. Illuminate lists.
3. Visually describe.

Using SQVID, we can create a simple, qualitative portrait of our customers. Let's visualize our team: the boss, account reps, team leads, and developers. Then, add our clients: execs, sales teams, accountants, and tech folks. Each has different needs from our software—security, brand reputation, reliability, and flexibility.

Label everything clearly and give your picture a title. This ensures anyone looking at it understands the context. By visualizing, we transform complex data into digestible insights, making it easier to solve business problems.

In essence, the power of visual thinking lies in its simplicity and the unexpected insights it provides. So grab your pens and start drawing!

Developing Ideas: Can Visual Thinking Revolutionize SAX Inc.'s Struggling Sales?

HOW Many Are Buying? Pictures that Solve a How Much Problem:
To revive our sales, we need to understand our customers not just by who they are but by how many there are and how much they're willing to spend. Charts are key here—they turn numbers into pictures, making it easier to grasp quantities at a glance.

Charts - General Rules:
1. Let the data show: Keep it simple and relevant. If the data is insightful, it will engage your audience.
2. Choose the simplest model: Bars for absolute quantities, lines for trends, pies for relative quantities, and bubbles for multi-variable comparisons.
3. Consistency is crucial: Stick with one chart type to avoid confusing your audience.

Showing our customer data as a bar chart makes it clear who buys the most. But don't stop at raw numbers—consider how much customers spend. For example, although accountants are the largest group, technicians and executives spend more per capita. This insight directs us to focus our marketing on those high-value groups.

Pie charts are debated among designers; some find them effective, others argue they distort proportions. If kids at a birthday party can pick the biggest slice, so can we. Alternatively, use a stacked percentage chart for clarity.

WHERE Is Our Business? Pictures that Solve a Where Problem:
Discovering that technicians and executives are key buyers challenged our assumptions. We need a map, not just of geography, but of our client's business structure.

Maps - General Rules:
1. Anything can be mapped: Think of components as nations with borders and roads.
2. Coordinate systems: North can be good, bad, expensive, cheap—anything relevant.
3. Beyond hierarchy: Map real influence, not just official roles. 

At SAX Inc., we can create a map starting with the prominent accounting department and adding divisions like sales and support. Roads between these "nations" reveals no direct links between sales and accounting, highlighting independent operations. Next, we can map the hierarchical structure, from CEO Marge down to the technicians. Surprisingly, technicians were far removed from execs, yet the numbers showed their significant buying power.

Enter Jason, the key connection. Although low in the hierarchy, Jason's tech skills made him invaluable, influencing decisions across the company. Mapping his influence with larger circles showed his impact vividly. 

Using Venn diagrams, we notice an overlap in software needs: executives value security, accountants reliability, and technicians flexibility. Mapping our software components revealed areas needing improvement for security, reliability, and flexibility.

These insights guide us to focus on critical system components, planning necessary changes to meet customer demands. Next, we'll explore timelines to manage these improvements efficiently.

Boosting Sales with Visual Insights: SAX Inc.'s Data-Driven Strategy

WHEN Can We Fix Things?
We're at a critical juncture where we need to make our software more appealing to our biggest buyers. But how long will it take to implement these changes? This is a classic "when" problem best addressed with a timeline.

Timelines - Essential Guidelines:
1. Time is linear: Always moving from past to future, left to right.
2. Life cycles: Repeating timelines, like marketing cycles, can be shown as circles or returning arrows.
3. Simple vs. complex: Straight-line timelines are easier to read and remember than circular ones.

At SAX Inc., every project starts with "discovery" to identify the problem. We then move to "conceptual design" to outline our solution, followed by "development" where we write the code. Next is rigorous "testing," and finally, "deployment" where the software is sold and handed over to user support.

We need to accurately reflect the duration of each phase. Development, for example, often takes twice as long as other phases. By plotting in project teams and their activities, we can create a comprehensive timeline. Milestones mark the transition between phases, and deliverables are the tangible outcomes we track. Adding work streams completes this detailed timeline, showing a nine-month commitment and a $9 million cost.

Using a time series chart, we compare current development costs to past projects. Since 1996, our costs have risen from $500,000 to $6 million, with a significant increase in 2006. Now, we project $9 million for the next upgrade. We must align these costs with company revenue, which has fluctuated but now sits at $40 million. Past trends show a 30% cost increase led to a 300% revenue boost, but recent costs didn't spike revenue. This discrepancy needs addressing.

HOW Can We Improve Our Business? Facing the "How" Problem:
To convince executives to spend $9 million, we need a compelling argument. A flowchart can illustrate cause and effect, showing how improvements will lead to increased sales.

Executives will first ask if the problem is defined and if solutions are proposed. If not, we're out the door. If so, they'll evaluate technical and financial feasibility, followed by a "gut check" on the solution's effectiveness. If it feels right, we get the green light.

Our sales are flat. Possible reasons include clients' growth rates or lack of need for our software, but neither applies. The issue is customer dissatisfaction or targeting the wrong clients, both solvable by understanding customer needs better. Improving our software's flexibility, a key desire, could boost sales.

We must clearly define the problem and propose a $9 million solution to improve flexibility, making a strong case for its necessity.

Can SAX Inc.'s $9 Million Software Upgrade Turn Flat Sales into a Revenue Surge?

WHY Should We Even Bother? The Case for a New Software Platform:
We face a big decision: spend $9 million to rebuild our software platform from the ground up, or save money by making smaller improvements. To make the best choice, we need to understand our entire industry, including competitors, customer trends, and how technological changes impact revenue.

Our industry has two types of competitors: the old guard (including us, SAX Inc.) who use proprietary platforms, and new arrivals using open-source platforms. The old guard has higher revenues but fewer features and flexibility. In contrast, newcomers offer fewer features but greater flexibility and rely on support contracts for revenue.

Last year, we led with $25 million in revenue, but projections for next year show significant shifts. Two of our competitors might merge, creating a giant with $40 million in revenue. A recent entrant is also expected to surpass us, projecting $31 million, while another could reach $18 million.

We need a comprehensive industry map to see these dynamics clearly. By plotting variables such as company name, platform type, features, and revenues, we can visualize the competitive landscape. This map shows that the new arrivals will not only match our security and reliability but also surpass us in flexibility and features.

The conclusion is clear: to stay competitive, we must adapt to open platforms despite the $9 million cost. This investment is necessary to maintain our leadership and meet customer demands for flexibility, security, and reliability. The final step is to present this compelling visual argument to our executives to secure the needed investment.

SAX Inc. Faces $9 Million Gamble to Stay Ahead of Tech Rivals

Imagine walking into a kindergarten class and asking the kids who can sing, dance, or draw. Every hand shoots up. Now, ask the same questions in a tenth-grade class. Barely any hands go up. What happened? They lose confidence in their creativity as they grow older, yet these skills are crucial for problem-solving in business.

Dan Roam, the author, once joined a team of expert consultants preparing a technology sales pitch worth $100 million. They condensed the material into six handouts and twelve slides, using visuals instead of bullet points. The showpiece was an intricate plot illustrating the client’s industry, which was meant to spark insightful conversations.

On pitch day, their lead, Lauren, started strong but froze when she saw the complex visual. She couldn’t explain it, and they lost the project. In the debrief, they realized the problem: they never discussed how to talk about the picture.

Visuals need explanation. They can’t stand alone. This experience emphasized the need for a framework to present visual ideas effectively. It’s like a show-and-tell session from kindergarten.

Let’s apply this to a business scenario. We have a $9 million solution for flat sales at SAX Inc. We’ve mapped the industry on a whiteboard. As we present, we can guide the executives through the visual: identifying coordinates, key variables, and revenue projections. We can highlight patterns and discuss potential strategies.

To sell an idea with a picture, follow these steps:
1. Look: Explain the picture’s elements.
2. See: Point out significant patterns.
3. Imagine: Discuss possible manipulations and solutions.
4. Show: Present your conclusions and recommendations.

In essence, visual thinking remains a powerful tool, but it must be paired with the ability to articulate the visuals. Just like a Swiss Army knife, visual thinking has different tools for every problem, making it a versatile and essential skill in business. Use it well, and you can solve problems and sell ideas effectively.

Selling Ideas: Is Kindergarten Show-and-Tell the Secret to Winning Multimillion-Dollar Business Pitches?

Solving business problems can be made simpler and more enjoyable through visual thinking, which involves using simple drawings to break down complex issues. This approach is accessible to everyone, regardless of artistic skill, and can clarify problems related to people, processes, and data.

Visual thinking structures the process into discovering, developing, and selling ideas. It helps categorize business challenges into the 6 W's (who, what, how much, where, when, why) and represents them visually to untangle complexities. For instance, using visual summaries can provide clearer insights and guide strategic decisions.

The process of visual thinking is akin to playing a game of poker, where recognizing patterns, making decisions with incomplete information, and constructing the best possible hand are crucial skills. Similarly, visual thinking involves looking, seeing, imagining, and showing, leveraging our natural ability to perceive and interpret visual information.

To enhance visual thinking, it's important to actively collect visual data, compare it side-by-side, define a coordinate system, and practice visual triage to focus on what's important. This structured approach helps manage information overload.

Additionally, using frameworks like SQVID (Simple vs. Elaborate, Quality vs. Quantity, Vision vs. Execution, Individual attributes vs. Comparison, Delta vs. Status quo) can help in shaping and clarifying visual messages, balancing creativity with practicality.

Visual thinking also involves creating visual representations of data, such as charts and maps, to understand customer behavior, sales trends, and business structures. Timelines can help manage project phases efficiently, while flowcharts illustrate cause and effect relationships.

Ultimately, visual thinking enhances problem-solving by making complex issues more approachable and solutions more visible. It requires pairing visuals with clear explanations, akin to a show-and-tell session, to effectively communicate and sell ideas. This versatile and essential skill can transform how business challenges are tackled, making it a powerful tool in any professional's toolkit.

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The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

Dan Roam

Ever wondered how a simple sketch on a napkin could solve complex business problems?

How do leading companies like Southwest Airlines and Bain & Company use visual thinking to drive innovation?

How can the game of poker teach us essential visual thinking skills?

Dive into the world of visual thinking and discover how it can revolutionize your approach to problem-solving!

Key Ideas

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