Mental Model Dōjō shares the many mental models that we actually use for our client coaching and training sessions.
Kaizen (改善) and Kaku-shin (革新)
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My stance is that, change and transformation is a result. We don’t change for the sake of changing. Rather, I place importance in improvement. So, with me, you’ll be seeing frequent reference to Kaizen (改善), which is continuous improvement. See, … Read More
The many flavors of Experimental and Iterative approaches
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The importance is to experiment and iterate. What approach you take is of secondary importance. Chose whatever approach that best fits the situation, and eventually you’ll get there. Time after time, trial and error has been proven most effective.
From Know-Do to Know-[Stop/Think/Design]-Do
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We are highly functioning professionals. When we see a pattern, we know what to do. So, Know-Do. The challenge of Know-Do, is predictable results. What if we want out-of-the-norm break-throughs? So, Stop. Think. Design. Sharing my favorite visual from the … Read More
The non-linear, non-sequential nature of Design Thinking
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Design Thinking is process driven. It is a process to help us activate our creativity. Meanwhile, our brains don’t necessarily work in linear fashion, particularly when we’re being creative. So, by nature, Design Thinking can be non-linear, and non-sequential. Go … Read More
Prototyping a Walking Skeleton
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Either it’s the artist in us or the perfectionist taking control, but many of us have a tendency to start creating quality body parts ahead of putting together a skeleton. Remember, it would be a tragedy if we spend an … Read More
The Art of Kanban + User Story Mapping
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Kanban is deep… Combine that with Jeff Patton’s User Story Mapping (USM), it becomes a powerful visualization tool in Scrum.
Liberating Structures
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Liberating Structures is a collection of powerful team exercises curated by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless (www.liberatingstructures.com). The following slides are abbreviated instructions and some modified contents to their original work. For original instructions, please visit their website. Here’s the … Read More
Two Templates for Design Thinking POV (Point of View) Statements
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Two versions of Design Thinking POV (Point of View) Statement templates. Download PDF version with editable text boxes here: DT POV Templates
Systems Thinking
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We tend to confront complex, dynamic realities with a language designed for simple, static problems: normal verbal language extracts simple, linear cause-effort chains. And because we see the world in simple obvious terms, we come to also believe in simple, … Read More
Go for Outcome, Less Output
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Shared Understanding
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I’m glad we all agree. (Really?)
Dialogue vs Directional Talk and the Tell Sell Yell Escalation
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Our need to be right is pervasive. Suspend your assumptions, create a conversational space and have a dialogue, less a directional talk.
Spirit of Agile
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Lattice Work of Mental Models
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Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s 95 years old “right hand man,” on “lattice work of mental models”: “You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience ‑ both vicarious and direct ‑ on this latticework … Read More