The Content

The message is hardly something new, but what really makes his book so valuable, in my eyes, is the toolkit he presents to get everyone started. Even those that claim not to be “visual thinkers” or to no be “artistic” enough to draw. Over the course of the book he introduces this framework with good explanation and many illustrated examples.

Problem Categorization

The first step in approaching any problem is to think about which type of problem it is. Dan uses the a simple, common-sense categorization of mostly “W”s and some “H”s: What / Who, How Much, Where, When, How and Why. For each of these problem category there is a appropriate type of visualization: Quantities (the “how much”s) are represented by charts, “where”s are depicted by maps (geographically or conceptually), “How”s are visualized through flow-charts and so on.

The SQUID

The problem categories give a idea about what data to acquire and process and a basic idea of how to visualize them. What is still missing, Dan argues, is a way to image the right aspects of the problem. For this purpose he develops the “SQVI∆” (read “squid”) framework. It takes you through the following process: For each problem at hand, ask yourself: Do I want to focus on:

• S – Simple vs. Elaborate: Do I need to understand the basics or is the full picture with all details important
• Q – Quality vs. Quantity: Is it sufficient to separate different “types” of things or do I need numbers and metrics?
• V – Vision vs. Execution: Must I convince people of the vision, the goal we want to be at, or do they need to understand how to get there?
• I – Individual vs. Comparison: Will the portrayal of our case be helpful or do I need to compare it with other cases?
• ∆ – As is or Change (“Delta”): Should I talk about the status quo or the change between now and then?

Based on your circumstances and the group of people you are interacting with, the answers are different, even for the same problem.

The Matrix

As you can see, the questions about what type your problem is and how to think about it are two more or less independent dimensions: you will have to think about both every time, the one does not follow out of the other. In the book, Dan combines these two and gets a matrix of 30 fields (6 types of problems times 5 Squid questions) , for each of which he suggest visualizations. So if you realize that you have to talk about a “when” problem you will end up with some sort of time line – this determines the “row” of the matrix. Then you look at the SQUID-questions and find out that you want to think about execution comparing the status quo of your company vs. anther company. The matrix suggest you, how to go about visualizing this: You can use two Gantt-charts next to each other, one for your company and one for the other, or maybe you can overlay the two charts, showing the differences.

You can find reference sheets of the matrix, the SQUID and the Problem Categories on the tools page of the book’s website.

Applying the Appproach

Now, this example might appear to you like a complicated solution (running your finger through some table) to find a obvious solution (Gantt-Chart). Any maybe to a point this is true. I compare the use of “The Back of the Napkin” to the blessing of the “Getting Things Done” productivity approach by David Allen. David admits that all he presents is “advanced common sense” – collecting all your stuff, deciding what to do about it, separating between projects and contexts, reviewing your actions regularly, and so on. Nevertheless, his compact, structured description of the process, together with a well written introduction to getting the habit established makes it so much more likely to actually follow it.

The same is true for “The Back of the Napkin”: You will know most of the individual types visualizations, you know that problems can be separated into problems like “where”, “when”, etc. And yet:
The book gives you a structured and comprehensive framework to overlook the different alternatives and guides you through them. It makes a compelling case that anybody can draw the kind of pictures that are necessary for this kind of visual thinking. So even if you knew it all before, it is helpful to convince your team or your client that you should give visualization a try and that everybody can get involved in the process.

On a more practical, personal note, I find it unavoidable to revert to drawings anyway:

• If you are like me, you can work much better, even when creating completely picture free end results (e.g. long texts), when mixing textual and visual information during preparation.
• When you work together with others on a project you will end up drawing pictures anyway, because communicating ideas by saying “just read the memo” will not replcace the times standing in front of a whiteboard with other creating and explaining ideas
• When preparing a PowerPoint / Keynote presentation you will want to focus largely on visuals and will want to think about what to show and sketch out key slides before using the computer.

So, my recommendation is, that if you are a visual thinker, you work in teams or you present your ideas to other people, have a look at “The Back of the Napkin”.

Further Infos

For my German readers: Amazon Germany has the original version available. Apparently, a translated verison is also planned for May 2009.

There is a website accompanoying the book, aptly named www.thebackofthenapkin.com

Dan has a blog, in which he talks about his ideas and about how other make use of visual thinking. Look out for those entries in which he tackles a problem visually. HIs style of step-by-step visualization and textual thought development are really awesome examples of you to develop and present ideas.

There a two videos that I found.
One is Dan himself presenting parts of his ideas at a authors@google talk:

The other one is a short video presenting a summary of the book: