The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam

Dan Roam is the person in a meeting who jumps up and starts creating diagrams on the whiteboard. If you are interested in improving your own ability to understand and solve problems through drawings, The Back of the Napkin, Dan’s book, is a good and thorough introduction to the world of visual thinking.

As I read through, I must admit that on occasion I wished the book were a little shorter. This would not detract from the message or its value but it would make the book more engaging and immediate. As it is you have to battle through the ‘who/what, how many, where, when, how and why’ questions from several different directions before you seem to begin to make progress with the subject. I was also disappointed to find that Dan does not refer to Malcolm Craig’s Thinking Visually. Malcolm Craig describes causation conveyed by various diagrams, whereas Dan Roam talks about ‘How’ diagrams. However, Dan does not provide the range of causation or ‘How’ diagrams that Malcolm Craig describes and I found this slightly disappointing.

Dan, however, provides a concrete game plan for working through business problems visually. This includes two devices for taking problems apart. The first is the ‘who/what, how many, where, when, how and why’ questions already alluded to. Secondly there is a set of imagination focusing questions designed to help you understand what it is that you should be showing. These have the mnemonic ‘SQVID’. By the time the six basic questions are combined with the five imagination questions of SQVID, there are 30 possible diagrams to consider.

So, you rapidly form the impression that Dan has been working with people who wanted a step by step formula that could be applied in solving problems, and this indeed is what Dan has provided. If you want a simple formula that will empower you in stepping up to the white board and laying out the issues of the day so that you can help your team generate solutions this book will help.

I was very impressed by Dan’s web site http://www.thebackofthenapkin.com/. It is a very well crafted site and I am sure is helping to drive his book sales. If you are thinking of buying, a visit to this site will probably convince you to take the plunge.

I award the book 4/5. As I was slogging through the repetition at various stages, wishing for the shorter version, I was thinking that a lower score was warranted. However, the overall result is positive and the book is certainly useful hence, 4/5.