Got a wicked problem? First, tell me how you make toast

How teams can get clarity, engagement and alignment by collaboratively visualizing the nodes & links of any system to create a shared visual model.

Tom Wujec

Jun 10, 2013 • 9 min read

4.67 (58)

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Systems Thinking

Mental Models

Sensemaking

Visualization

Workflow Visualization

Summary

When you draw the toast-making process, you will realize that there are links and nodes between the bread, the toaster, and the person. Tom Wujec loves asking people and teams to draw this process because it reveals unexpected truths about how we can solve our biggest, most complicated problems at work. Links and nodes can map out a complete system model, and this example draws the "toast-making" context. They also expose the complexity of the system by visualizing the number of nodes and connections. After many toast-making drawing exercises, Tom Wujec found out that people can produce a comprehensive system model when they unify their thoughts while working collaboratively. Watch the video to learn this exercise and hear Wujec’s surprising insights.

Takeaways

Organizations are addressing their wicked problems by collaboratively drawing the node process. They start with the question, then collect the nodes, refine the nodes to the preferred pattern for clarity, and finally the question is answered.
The complexity of any system can be measured by counting the number of nodes.
Tom Wujec loves asking people and teams to draw how they make toast because the process reveals unexpected truths about how we can solve our biggest, most complicated problems at work.
When people work in a group, they synthesize a comprehensive system model that is unified with everyone's point of view.
When you draw the toast-making process, you will realize that there are links and nodes between the bread, the toaster, and the person. It is the combination of links and nodes that produce a full system model of how it works.