relationships.
the way your eye scans and reads a piece
of paper. Spatial cueing conveys informa-
tion to you in a way that linear words or an outline can’t; the addi-
tion of color and symbols adds to the richness of the representa-
tion. As you go to add a new piece of information, a new thought, or
13. Thanks to Bert Bates for reminding me about this.
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an insight to the mind map, you are faced with the question, where
does this belong? You have to evaluate the relationships between
ideas, not just the ideas themselves, and that can be a very reveal-
ing activity.
As you start to fill in the diagram, there’s always room for more
information. You can write smaller (without resorting to a font
selection box), and you can squeeze things to the edge of the page
and connect them with lines. You can draw large swoopy arrows
across the page to connect remote notes that you now realize
should be connected.
And then, once you’ve learned from this mind map, draw it again on
a fresh piece of paper—perhaps fixing some of the placement issues
and reflecting what you’ve learned since you started. Redrawing
and retrieving the information from memory helps strengthen the
connections and may expose additional insights in the process.
Try using different kinds of paper. Art papers may have more tooth
than office stationary, and they offer a different tactile experience.
Markers, colored pencils, and pens all offer a different feel as well.
Color in particular seems to have a certain inspirational effect.
Mind Map Enhancements
Nonspecific, non-goal-oriented “playing” with information is a great
way to gain insights and see hidden relationships. This sort of men-
tal noodling is just what the R-mode needs to be effective. But it’s
important to not try too hard; that’s the “non-goal-oriented” part.
You want to sort of let go a bit and let the answer come to you
rather than consciously trying to force it. Just play with it.
You’ll
soon
notice
that
the
graphic
enhancements are not random. They Use non-goal-oriented
begin to add meaning. Instead of mere “play.”
decoration, they help coax additional
thinking and meaning from you. You’re basically asking your-
self “What information can I add to this relationship or object?,”
but you’re asking your drawing side—your R-mode—to do the
enhancement.
Although many fine companies make mind-mapping software,14
I think that a software tool is more useful for collaboration or
14. I use NovaMind, for Mac/Windows, at http://www.novamind.com.
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Figure 6.5: Software tool mind map—clean and hyperlinked, but
useful?
documentation—not for brainstorming, studying, or exploratory
thinking. For those activities, you want to draw the mind map by
hand.
Why is hand-drawing important? Take a
Writing is as important as look at Figure 6.5. This is a beautiful, col-
reading.
orful mind map I made on the Mac. It’s an
early form of this very book. Each node is
hyperlinked to a website, PDF research paper, fragment of a note,
or other important asset. But as cool as that is (and very handy for
going back and finding research material), it’s not the same.
Hand-writing is key, whether it’s plain notes or a mind map. For
instance, I find that taking notes during lectures really helps me
retain the material—even if I never read the notes again.
The most value, I find, is to take the raw notes while listening
(which helps you stay focused as you extract salient points from the
lecture) and then transcribe these raw notes into “official notes.”
Even if I never read these notes again, the act of transcribing the
raw notes is the most valuable portion of this exercise. You can do
the same thing with mind maps—start with a rough messy one,
and redraw it as needed. The redrawing helps form more associa-
tions in your brain.
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TIP 30
Take notes with bothand.
Try It
Here’s an exercise to try:
1. Take a four-to-five-item bullet list that is of importance to you.
2. Draw a mind map for the items on the list (on paper with pen
or pencil).
3. Wait a day.
4. Now spend fifteen to twenty minutes embellishing the draw-
ing. Tart it up. Add thick lines; use color; and add little doo-
dles, pictures, angelic cherubs from a Gothic manuscript in
the corners, whatever.
5. Review the mind map a week later. Any surprises?
Using Mind Maps with SQ3R
Mind maps are most effective when you’re not exactly sure what
you’ll find.
Taking notes from reading a book is a prime example. The next
time you’re reading a book (trying SQ3R, perhaps), take notes as
you go in the form of a mind map. You’ll have a general idea of the
major topics, but as particular details emerge and as you begin to
see which items are related to each other and how, the map will fill
in, and a picture of your understanding will emerge.
Then, when you’re in the review phase of SQ3R, redraw and revise
your mind map according to your understanding. You’ll be able
to refer to the mind map to refresh your memory in a way that’s
much more efficient and revealing than other notes or rescanning
the book itself.
Exploratory Mind Maps
Similarly, if you’re working on a problem and aren’t sure where
you’re going, mind mapping can help. Whether you are designing a
new class or a system, debugging an existing one, trying to evaluate
several commercial products or open source offerings, buying a
new car, or writing a novel or a rock opera, try using a mind map.
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Use words as titles; you don’t want any lengthy prose or even full
sentences. Draw icons to represent key ideas. Make important lines
large and thick; more tentative associations can be spindly. Dump
everything you know for now, even if you are not sure where it
fits in.
Do the first iteration really, really quickly—almost like an impres-
sionist sketch. This will help get the L-mode out of the way and
allow the R-mode unfettered access to the paper.
Start the mind map, and leave it handy—especially if you don’t
have a lot of information to add to it just yet (as we’ll see a little
later, just having a place to put related ideas is a great help). Fill
in the facts and ideas as you get them. It doesn’t have to be in one
sitting. Redraw it if needed, but don’t be in rush to do so. Let it be
messy for a while. You’re exploring a topic, after all.
If you’re working in an area where you
Use a mind map to help
aren’t even sure what the topic is, mind
clarify.
maps can be very useful to help gather
your far-flung thoughts together. Jared
Richardson tell us, “I use mind maps to reorganize and focus
myself when writing or coding. It forces me to step back and clean
up my ideas and always shows me how to move forward.”
I’ve had the same experience; if I’m stuck in a swirling mass of ideas
with no clear way forward, using a mind map is a great technique
to help generate clarity and show the way.
Collaborative Mind Maps
You can extend this technique to involve a small group or the whole
team. Instead of drawing a picture on paper, get everyone up at a
whiteboard armed with sticky notes, as shown in Figure 6.6, on
the next page.15
Everyone gets a handful of sticky notes and a marker. You brain-
storm, write down ideas on the sticky notes, and place the notes up
on the whiteboard. After a while, you can begin to coalesce common
themes and cluster related notes near each other.
15. See Affinity Grouping in Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Manage-
ment [RD05] for more information on this and other fun things to do with sticky notes.
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VISUALIZE INSIGHT WITH MIND MAPS
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Figure 6.6: Affinity grouping in progress
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HARNESS THE REAL POWER OF DOCUMENTING
188
Since the sticky notes let you detach and reapply, you can reposi-
tion the notes as needed.
Once things have settled out, you can draw circles around each
grouping and connect them with lines. Voilà! Now you’ve got a mind
map. Snap a digital photo of the whiteboard, and email everyone a
copy.16
Next Actions
! Make a mind map for the next book you read.
! Make a mind map for your career and lifestyle plans or per-
haps for your next vacation.
! Experiment with the effect of color; get some colored pencils,
and try using color to encode meaning for individual nodes.
! Experiment with graphical annotations: doodle on your mind
maps and see what happens.
! Keep iterating. After you think you’re “done,” go back and add
just one more thing. Now do that again.
6.9 Harness the Real Power of Documenting
One of the tenets of agile software development is to avoid needless
documentation. That is, if documentation doesn’t provide value,
don’t do it: writing documentation for documentation’s sake is a
waste of time.
That’s because it is common to waste a lot of time preparing
low-level, detailed design documents that become obsolete almost
immediately. Worse, these sorts of documents generally have no
audience—they aren’t serving any useful purpose, other than ful-
filling a checkbox to prove that the team “produced documenta-
tion.” Because it’s such a wasteful practice, agile teams take a hard
look at any documentation they are required to produce to ensure
that there’s a genuine need for it.
Many people interpret this as “agile developers don’t do documen-
tation,” which is wrong. Agile developers do create documentation,
16. Many cell phones and laptops (and most Macs) now come with built-in cameras, so capturing just keeps getting easier.
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HARNESS THE REAL POWER OF DOCUMENTING
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but they use a pragmatic filter to make sure the investment in cre-
ating any documentation is really worth the effort. It has to have
value.
That brings us round to this idea: what’s
the value in producing documentation Chance favors the
to the writer? Producing low-level design
prepared mind.
documents that simply mirror the code
(and become obsolete almost immediately) don’t provide any value
to anyone. But other forms of writing documentation may prove
valuable, even if there is no obvious audience for it.
Louis Pasteur once said, “Chance favors only the prepared mind,”
and functional MRIs and EEG tests are proving him correct. A
recent study17 suggests that mental preparation that involves an
inward focus of attention can promote flashes of insight, even if
the preparation occurs well in advance of facing any particular
problem.
Turning your attention inward, as you would do when working with
a mind map, sets up some condition in the brain that allows for
happy flashes of insight later in the project. So, it might be that
documenting is more important than documentation.
Reader and pilot Derek Wade sent me the following related story:
I noticed this phenomenon when preparing for an aerobatic routine.
Sequences of aerobatic maneuvers are often preplanned and
diagrammed using Aresti notation before being flown. During the
flight, we should pretty much have the sequence memorized, but
having a card taped up in the cockpit with the sequence drawn on it
helps during brain farts.
There are Visio add-ins that allow people to create very nice-looking
Aresti cards, but I prefer to hand-draw mine, in an almost ritualistic
way. I sat down to do so at the airport one day, and the owner of
the school nudged another student, pointed to me, and said, “Watch
this, this is cool.” I had no idea why she thought so. I thought I was
just drawing out my card and taking too dang much time about it.
But apparently I was also “preparing the mind.”
Derek Wade
17. The Prepared Mind: Neural Activity Prior to Problem Presentation Predicts Subsequent Solution by Sudden Insight [Kou06].
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LEARN BY TEACHING
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As I mentioned earlier (in Section 6.8, Visualize Insight with Mind
Maps, on page 181), taking notes seems to be very important, even
if you never read them again. In Derek’s case, there may be several
elements at work:
• Hand-drawing
the cards emphasizes R-mode processes.
• The active creation of the notes/cards helps prepare the mind
for the later activity.
• Visualizing the sequences and maneuvers can help “groove”
the mind (we’ll talk more about this shortly in Section 7.6,
Imagination Overrides Senses, on page 212).
TIP 31
Write on: documenting is more important than documen-
tation.
You don’t have to use index cards or even real paper; the back of
the napkin is just fine or maybe a large whiteboard.
Or perhaps you might want to take an
Make a screencast.
hour to create a podcast or screencast.
You may find that’s more productive for
yourself and more engaging for the consumer of the information.
It’s also probably cheaper than taking a week (and a committee) to
produce a lengthy document.
Screencasts are really useful to convey something dynamic: show-
ing a user how to perform a task using your software or modeling
the life cycle of an object through a complicated set of processes.
It’s a cheap and cheerful way to have lots of people (or remote peo-
ple) look over your shoulder to see what you’re talking about.
Just think of it as another way of teaching yourself the subject.
Of course, another powerful learning technique lies in teaching
others.
6.10 Learn by Teaching
One of the simplest and most effective techniques to learn some-
thing is to try to teach it. Teaching in this context doesn’t neces-
sarily mean grabbing the chalk and heading into the classroom;
there are several different ways to go about it. You can begin with
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LEARN BY TEACHING
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simple verbal “rubber ducking.” In The Pragmatic Programmer, we
described the following scenario.
You’re stuck with a difficult bug. You’ve
already spent a lot of time on it, and the Talk to the duck.
deadline is looming. So, you ask a co-
worker for help. They walk over to your screen, and you begin
to explain what’s going on—and what’s going wrong. Before you
get very far into the description, a flash of insight smacks you in
the head, and you exclaim, “A-ha!” You’ve found the bug. Your
bemused co-worker, who never had to say a word, shakes their
Pragmatic Thinking and Learning Page 23