The Back of The Napkin is Dan Roam’s follow up to his popular The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition): Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
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The main idea behind Dan’s books is that we can solve business problems by applying the principles of visual thinking and drawing simple pictures.
Rather than being just a sequel, this book is a “self contained four day workshop” where you work hands-on to learn Dan's method of visual thinking and problem solving. Each day covers one of the steps of Dan's visual thinking process. The days are organized as follows:
- On Day 1, you learn how to Look, or visually collect information.
- Day 2 covers Seeing or recognizing patterns.
- On Day 3, you use Imagining to discover new outcomes and on
- Once you have new ideas, you want to share them with others. Day 4 covers creating pictures to share you ideas with others.
I find Dan’s 6 x 6 rule very effective in analyzing problems. According to this rule, there are only 6 different kinds of problems, and each type of problem share the same 6 elements.
The last section of the book is a wonderful case study demonstrating how to take a particular solution and use the problem solving framework to present the solution to all of the stakeholders involved in a way that delivers information in a way that is important to them.
