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55th out of 56 books
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Unfolding the Napkin: The Hands-On Method for Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures
by
Dan Roam
An original workbook companion to the acclaimed business bestseller The Back of the Napkin
Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin, a BusinessWeek bestseller, taught readers the power of brainstorming and communicating with pictures. It presented a new and exciting way to solve all kinds of problems-from the boardroom to the sales floor to the cubicle jungle.
The companion w...more
Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin, a BusinessWeek bestseller, taught readers the power of brainstorming and communicating with pictures. It presented a new and exciting way to solve all kinds of problems-from the boardroom to the sales floor to the cubicle jungle.
The companion w...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
December 29th 2009
by Portfolio Trade
(first published 2009)
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The author spends the first 100 pages expaining why pictures are a good idea. He could have made his point much quicker and spent more time explaining his frameworks for drawing pictures, of which there are very many. He makes an analogy with a swiss army knife: his has 18 tools on it, culminating in a 6x5x2 = 60-picture grid of the different drawings you can make, which he calls the "visual thinking codex". The types of pictures he is talking about are: who/what, how much, where, w...more
READ DEC 2010
Excellent approach to visual thinking and visual problem solving. This book is a follow-up to the original book and is set up as more of a workbook.
Best ideas are the four "unwritten rules" including: (a) whoever is best able to describe the problem is the person most likely to solve it, (b) we can't solve problems that overwhelm us. To understand what we're seeing, we need to break it into bite-size pieces, (c) problems don't get solved by the smar...more
Excellent approach to visual thinking and visual problem solving. This book is a follow-up to the original book and is set up as more of a workbook.
Best ideas are the four "unwritten rules" including: (a) whoever is best able to describe the problem is the person most likely to solve it, (b) we can't solve problems that overwhelm us. To understand what we're seeing, we need to break it into bite-size pieces, (c) problems don't get solved by the smar...more
I thought it was amazing!
I didn't read his first book about napkin creativity. However, this book was so totally up my alley. I soak in TONS of information and absolutely loved this method of getting down on paper. It's quick, it's not perfect, and it leaves a lot out... but that's what it's for!
And here's another huge thing... the more tools you learn to help you CONSCIOUSLY control which "frame of mind" your in... the better! This is a HUGE skill that all must...more
I didn't read his first book about napkin creativity. However, this book was so totally up my alley. I soak in TONS of information and absolutely loved this method of getting down on paper. It's quick, it's not perfect, and it leaves a lot out... but that's what it's for!
And here's another huge thing... the more tools you learn to help you CONSCIOUSLY control which "frame of mind" your in... the better! This is a HUGE skill that all must...more
Loved it. Dan Roam really spells out how to use simple picture-drawing to improve problem solving - and how to present your solutions to others. He ostensibly writes for a business audience but his techniques apply just as well to other sectors. I've already used his lessons to some success in the classroom and with my peers.
We are not talking about great literature here but set of ideas/techniques on how to present your ideas based on the theory that we are born with the ability to draw but not to write and read.
This book was a harder read for me than The Back of the Napkin. I appreciated the exercises, and did force myself to complete them. I think it's a nice companion to The Back of the Napkin.
Better than Back of the Napkin because of the detail and number of examples. Otherwise nothing new. Still, absolutely worth reading and trying to apply to your work.
Jochen Bünnagel
is currently reading it
So far, it mostly reiterates the stuff from "Back of the Napkin" from a more practical perspective. I hope it gets better.
Nice system. I will try and incorporate drawing into my briefs. Should come in very handy for teaching.
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A must read for communicators, teachers, pastors, and leaders. Invaluable tools.
Simple, yet brilliant. I use the principles from this book all the time.
Started 9/5/2011
It's a 4-day workshop on how to make the steps your own. This one's for everyone who's ever been asked "Can you show me what it looks like?" I find the book especially helpful for presenting stuff in a brown bag lunch session and any other discussions over coffee & without a laptop computer, a white board or one of those blasted tablets.
More detailed than the Back of the Napkin but a lot of the same material.
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