The Back of the Napkin: Problem Solving & Selling Ideas Visually - Perfect for Business Meetings & Creative Brainstorming

Executive summary: This book opens up a completely new marcet for career minded people. See details below .---Dan Roam is visually summarizing in four sections how to step through problem solving tasks.Part I is a general introduction into problem solving.Part II is about discovering the ideas.Part III is developing the ideas to a business plan andPart IV is about how to showcase your presentation and sell the idea.What makes this book different is the fact that Dan is using visual clues to solve the problems.In all parts of the book he is vigorously running through each of the below questionsWho/What ...How many ...Where ...When ...How ...Why ...and emphasizes the importance and the impact of the answers to it.He is using the "Look,see, imagine and show" steps to explain whats is actually happening when a problem is analyzed, defined, a solution prepared and it must be "sold" to the upper management to get the go ahead.I can easily see how this book opens up a completely new marcet f.e. forinstructors and junior business consultants.Instructors for teaching those people that want to understand what they have missed so far and junior consultants because it visually combines their analytical skills, selective filtering skills and presentational skills and makes them explicitely aware of them and how to apply them.It is interesting to see how Dan is able in Part III to "simplify" and demystify the open source <--> closed source issue any software company is facing.That alone must be worth the book for any software company.What Dan is really show casing is what good analysts already call their own:- analytical skills- context sensitive expertise- selective filtering skills- experienceExplicitly visualizing the problem solving steps in slow motion is a powerful weapon that will give you an edge over your competition.I suggest you read the book three times.First to get an overview.Second to let it sink in andThird to finetune.Its one of those books that will give you new aspects everytime you read it.