De Bono's Six Hats

One problem solving technique commonly used is brainstorming - a technique with which I'm sure you are all familiar. However, we all see things from our perspective. One variation to try to force you out of your "common sense" is the De Bono hats. There are many references on the web and published so you can look them up for yourself.

One thing I'm contemplating is whether you can do this within your own field. Sometimes we try to solve all problems with whatever tool we're best at. Try using a tool other than your favorite for the problem.

For example, maybe Excel isn't the best tool for presenting your data. Perhaps a Word document would be better or even - dare I say - Powerpoint.

Don't use duct tape and vise grips to fix everything. Get to learn different tools and give them a try.

FreeMind

Sometimes when I'm brainstorming ideas about a problem or perhaps involved in a root cause analysis, there isn't a clear way to record the ideas in a word processing program. Perhaps the ideas are unrelated or you are jumping around. How do you visualize the brainstorming?

One useful tool is mind-mapping software. There are several commercial tools out there but if you just want to see whether you could use it or get a better idea, try FreeMind. It allows you to quickly record your ideas and link them together. There is a lot of flexibility in formatting that allows you to visualize your thoughts and how they are (or aren't) related. I even tried to use it as a mini-database to keep track of projects I was working on. You can attach documents and make links so it works as a high level indexing system if you take the time to set it up properly. The nice thing is that with just a glance, you can visualize what you're working on.

Organizing the Process and Tools

I've started working on the web site and can already see that see that I need a good way of organizing my work. The web site paradigm is useful in that I can use it to form an outline and then flesh out the details by adding pages and sub-pages as desired. One of the first things I'm writing about is developing a plan and then developing a procedure to follow through on that plan. The web site and this blog are essentially forcing me to follow a plan by their structure but I don't have a good way of organizing my various thoughts and things I run across in my research. That brings me to suitable tools. I've spent a little time surfing and have found the following tools to help.

Google Notebooks. This Google application sits in my browser and I can clip information I find on the internet and paste it into the notebook. That way I don't have to use bookmarks (which can get cluttered and disorganized quickly) and the Google notebook is searchable so if I lose track of where I might have found something, I should be able to re-locate it quickly in my notebook.

The other tool I've found is SuperNoteCard. I'm also doing some reading offline and things I read aren't easily transferable to the internet. This application seems like it will be useful for recording stuff I come across and then organizing it later on. I haven't paid for it yet, because I want to play a little more with it. Not that there is a steep learning curve, it's pretty intuitive - just like a stack of paper notecards - but I'm not sure if I can't accomplish the same thing with the Google notebook.