ITANA March 6th, 2020

Agenda

Roll Call

Topic: Book Club Report Out

Itana Business

Working group Check-ins

Face2Face 2020 – leading change as an architect

Spring Call Program


Lonnie Book Club report out – Back of the Napkin – Dan Roam

Recommended reading by numerous other books.  Discussed across 2 sessions. Main part of book is about visual thinking, low-level cognitive processes and tie back to reptilian part of the brain.  3 types of people visualized by colors of pens (Black, yellow and red). Take away from club: Architects should be comfortable acting as all 3 types of pen roles as is appropriate for the situation.  

Drawing, power of hand drawn sketches (they can be more inviting early on in discussions).  “I can’t draw” hurdle. 5 simple shapes can be built into usable images. Some may be more comfortable using visio, some concepts are transferable.  

Visual thinking 4 steps (this is an iterative process):

SQVID – draw towards the top of the diagram  (Siimple vs. Elaborate, Quality vs. Quantity, Vision vs. Execution, Individual vs. Comparison, Change vs. As-is).  

6 Ways of seeing (Who, what,  how much, where, when, how, why)

Matrix of sqvid and 6 ways, suggest style of how to present info, create picture.  

Think of them as swiss army knife as something to have at hand.  

Limitations – group setting, remote people in the group.  No obvious way to work through a problem in a group. Even face to face, suppose people are familiar with the method, or have hurdle of people focusing on learning/following the method.


ITANA Business

Business Architecture – Next few will be open, Dana out for a while, more structure in April

New2EA – next session next Wednesday

Women in EA – no update available

More planning on preconference for Face2Face.


Getting caught up in the precision of using a software tool rather than capturing ideas.  When to do the precision part, probably comes after the process as described in the book.  

SQVID very applicable to Architecture.  

Comments/Questions:  

Very good coverage of the book

James Phelps - Simplicity – A long time to learn, UML, Visio, caught up in technicality of the tool rather than the idea/stream of thought.  Precise and beautiful can be done later. Post it notes on a white board can be a good place to start. (Nice because postits can be moved around)

Lonnie – Not a fan of drafting, came at it from the opposite perspective as Jim. This was a good refresher on showing examples of getting out of rigid approach of representing something. Framework is straight forward.  Ideas may not be second nature. Opposing ends of spectrum can help get you started.  

JJ – are cartoon drawings going to be taken seriously discussion.  Rough drawings are great initially, spur discussion, when it goes to a certain level may need to move to a more refined drawing.  

Rupert – Rough and simple are key to get others to participate.  To artistic and discourage others from participating.  

Louis – architecture  exercise, basic shapes, markers, postits, torn paper.  Very good collaboration experience, each skill set to be able to move things around.  

Chris – Pen Slide – recognize that not everyone wants to get up and draw on the whiteboard.  You can often engage them.   

Has anyone engaged group and asked if they would self identify, would people correctly self-identify.  

Remote participation – Washington remote work happening now,  how to get collaboration working when you have to work remotely.  Rupert – challenge of screen real estate, shifting between documents can be challenging.  Multiple facilitators can help, so that one can directing another facilitating.  

Jamboards google (virtual) – (mary) prepopulate some stickies if appropriate.  

Louis, inexpensive external cameras pointed at whiteboards, or paper and share back and forth.  The external camera can allow you move across multiple, take screen grabs. Not real time, but fairly easy to do, fairly inexpensive.  Ease of use is important. 

Difficulty of using existing tools, will tool providers evolve?

Power of having many documents up at one time in a space.  Remote work will be a challenge.  

Some alignment with design thinking.  Certainly, compatible with design thinking.  

Moon walking with Einstein – about visual memory and how power it is.  Ability to communicate visually is important and powerful. https://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-Remembering-Everything-ebook/dp/B004H4XI5O

Stanford schools design schools mix tape – It is a good adjunct to this book.  https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/chart-a-new-course-put-design-thinking-to-work