Co ie The Ultimate Guide: How to Use Post-It Notes for Problem Solving We at ReakimeBoard love post notes, actualy, wear fans. Recently we were inspired by the book Rapid Problom Solving with Post. Notas writen by David Strate. In this post we explain how to use online past: nates for problem solving and focus onthe methods described Inthe book: Postup, Swap Sort, Top-Down Tree and information Map. Use yur fcltimefoard endless whiteboard, post totes and creatwiy and go abeadt Problem Solving Part 1. Step-by-Step Guide for Post-up in RealtimeBoard The frst technique we ae focused on jad Postsup, proves methods forgetting information into chunks Post ups based on four methods - Brainstorming, rainuriting, Nominal grup technique and Crawford sip method, The Post-up method work in several dimensions. Fst, allows people to work simukaneoushy thus speeding thes Jn and geting everyone engaged a once. It als gets people ematlonaly engaged a= they are wring ther own ideas rather than have other people write or interpret them, Posting up one tea at atime by person ensures equality through the team and also allows that each ea is considered by all eam members, Preparation Step 1. Define the problem First ofl you shoud decide about what are you tying to solve and make the prabler visible for everyone. Use isi nal and type your session goal. Lets take"How to make an app better asthe example GOAL: How to make our app better? Qawr/ooAeean Step 2. Make special sections on your board Divide your board into several parts using shane, icons, and tattoo Help section for Goal, Constraints, idea Stimulators, rte them down before the rey onthe ef~ Participants section - special indvidual zones where people can pos ther notes during the ideation process (green secon inthe mide divided into 4 parts fr 4 efferent people). = Workspace forthe bestideas fellow secton onthe right side aan ooavesn Action ‘Step 3. Invite your team and explain the rules. nuit your eam othe board, The simplest ways to use “Share wth the tea feature if you have & ‘Team account), Another way Isto send them inves via eral or ad from frends Ist. Tell them how to play: = Rist let people se the Gol and explore the help section ~The only tool they should uses Post (key7) = Fach postit note should contain only one dea = Use color coding - blue posts for facts, yllow for opinions, pink for assumptions. Step 4. Writing of ideas cue your team some time to think an brainstorm individual approx. 7-10 minutes you think they reed more- pve them more) They should net at this tne stick thelr posts t the common workspace INDIVIDUAL WORKSPACES: Step 5. Post up ideas ‘The team then posts up their ideas on the ideas workspace. Agood way of doing hiss to have each Person take turns to post one the most valuable idea,aaansooseaae EE i? any ida tres ote ideas for anyone inthe team they can wether on more posits and ad {hemto tha indvdsl secon When ldo re posted, hen you can ao weather rote methods to generate even more ideas (we put tif commen etn. BE Rec ur eUurs peat Problem Solving Part 2. Step-by-Step Guide for Swap Sort in RealtimeBoard This partis devoted tothe next technique -Swap Sort, whch is based on ub srt, Paired comparison and Erionzaton mia, Swap Sort extremely useful when you need o put asetof ideas Inco priority ordr. seit only wen you have relive few tems to priartize nat hundreds, realy. ft00 mary. may ‘become a rouble You can ty Post up o other echiques ident ideas for prietization. Wi always make decisions by comparing and contrasting. Taking two Items atime, as inthis swap-sort, ‘creates focus and attetion on just those two items, making decison asto which fs more important easier. The pattern of repeated comparisons and exchanges comes frm computing, where itis known 35a ‘bubble sort Snap sort takes the same concept and brings itt the whiteboard with posts. Preparation Step 1. Identify the problem Fst of al explain your team what problem you are trying to solve, Welltake the previous case devoted ta the app impravements, Now our goal eta decide what willbe the order of the selected Improvements. Take a lok athe pture below, You con continue working on one of your broirstoming Boor ruse you fine roinstorming resus. Step 2. Make special sections on your board Use texto shapes, ans and anything that wl hep you to visualize. You should have the folowing spaces = Help section withthe goal and ertera,'~ Preparation zone where you put the all the ideas written on post-ts. = Workspace for swap sort ard fina resus Step 3. Identify the criteria Identity the eriteria that you are going tobe using to prioritize, These shoul be rlatwely few. Ona jst fine. Trees ok. Fives rather lt. Wie them on Postit notes and pu these into peioty order (use help section) using amin swap-sort. Then reference these for every comparison exchange, QQuK/7 Asean Action Step 4. Invite collaborators If youhad a beainstorming Sesion aeady, you can continue to develop the ideas and concepts with the some people or invite independent expert, Use chat acini chat ifyou have Team or Pro account) if your eam works remy Step 5. Pairwise swapping Wie the items that you want to compare on Post notes. Shufle them so they are retin any Yeading ‘order then place them out ina ine (verticals often the best, though a horizontal ine ijustine) Now take the fst to ems and compare them. the higher one ha vertical ering) Ismore Important than the lawer ene then swap them. Tren repeat this comparison and possible swap with the second pal, third pair and so on until you get te the bottom. Put the result onthe right.aawxss Dorit use color coding or posts ofiferent ice in onde to ova misunderstanding or wrong rortzavon Problem Solving Part 3. Step-by-Step Guide for Top-Down Tree in RealtimeBoard This partis devoted to the next problem solving tochnique - Top-down Tree. This method is based on ‘eee Dingram, Why. Why Diagram, Howtom Diagram and Process Decision Program Chat Top-down tres are used to break problems down into cansttuent parts wit increasing levels of deal and are useful when the problems eirly wall knonn at abroad level, but complex. So, this technique works well when the nature ofthe problem is unknown and you nee to find more deals to solve Top-down tre is wolstructured hat’ the cstncive feature ofthe method, Short glossary Node atre lement one postin our case) Foot the starting node The names of relationships between nodes are modeled after fly relations — node's ‘parent's anode one sep hither inthe hierarchy (ser tothe rest node) and ying ‘onthe same branch. "Chilis lower than parent, — *Sbling’ brother or‘sster)nodes share the same parentnode. — Anode's "uncles are siblings ofthat node's parent — Anode that's connected tal loner level nodes called an “ancestor. The connected loner-level nodes are “descendants ofthe ancestor node, How to Visualize Trees - Different Approaches We consider five af them fr top-down trees top-down, star, comb, right to left and fishbone Take a lool at them,Preparati Step 1. Define the goal First of al think about the problem you are tying to sole and invite the participants. As you can remember from the prevous poss, we re trying to find out how to improve the app. The goal af his brainstorming session wil be to define the key factors, which affect the app popularity among Step 2. Make special sections on your board and prepare the questions Use texto, shapes, cans and anything that wil hep yout visualize your sections onthe whiteboard, You should have the following spaces: = Help section withthe goal and questions. Preparation zane where you put the all the ideas writen on posts = Workspace for top-down ree and final results. aawesoaseae ‘Step 3. Write the key question on the root post it note se the goal rom the fst step to identity problem. For example, In our case the problem may be “people dom use our app for entertainmeni” Write the problem on a post: and place ton your workspace. This willbe the root node, and allthe athe willbe chien. We have chosen the top-down structure and pu the root rede on the top. Action Step 4. Define Children Nodes ‘Ask the questions from the help section to identify the children and write theron posts. You can Inivaly pu tham on idea wal Step 5. Link the nodes Link the nodes (parents and children between each other and define familes. Now you willbe ableto 20 the whole ree structure,a 2) Step 6. Check the whole tree ‘When you finn the work on your tee, check fie complete it anwers every question fram the help section clear (rlationships betneen parents and chidren are obvious) and useful (helps to achieve the Ina goa ‘analyze the results and add necessary commenisectsions, 'roblem Solving Part 4. Step-by-Step Guide for Information Map RealtimeBoard Wie have already revened 3 usful methods -Post-up, Swap Sort and Top-Down Tre, which re great for generating ideas and prontzing ther, Now wo wil tak about information map. This method is based on Relations Diagiam, Mind Maps, Enly-Relation Diagram and State-Tanstion Diagram. How it works Information map ic ussful when you need to find intarrelations between diferent elements. Use Information map when you know ora leat suspect) that iferent elements have Interconnections between eachother. This tools extremely useful during creative sessions when you have no strict structure and need to connect the dos. Information maps can retec nt althe posible interconnections, andin order to discover somehidéen ‘but important things you should act consequently asking the questions which willed tthe goa Note that maps are not so walstrucured as trees han you are building interrelation, consider some important points you can face wit — chai of poz ts wth one arow between eoch node. This mane that the elements have taight connection anf you excude the frstone, the las wll never happen. — Boreneck fone posi has alot of Input arrows, and only few of output arms, this means you hhavea so-called bottleneck hich potentially may cause incidents, = Source. Postits which have onl output arrows are called sources these canbe information sources suppliers etc) = Stocs. hese are posts that have only input arrows (information stocks).Preparation Step 1. Define the goal First of al think about the problem you are tying to solve ad invite the participants. As you can remember from the prevous posts, we are trying to find out how to improve the app. The goal af this brainstorming sesion wil be to understand the connections between app updates growth of popular. Step 2. Define the principles at question wl yu use tind related elements? Note thatthe question should contain a verb, which well describe the characteris of relations (Le. induce connect. prove etc). Our question Is "What factors ffet the growth of app popularity” Step 3. Make special sections on your board and prepare the questions Use text tol, shapes, cans and anything that will hep yeu to visualize your sections onthe whiteboard, You should have the folloning spaces: = Help section withthe goal and questions. ~ Workspace where you putthe ll the ideas writen on pasties = Zone for information map and fal results. Qawxsoneean 2 ‘Action Step 4. Find the root post-it Find the rect post rand put it in the center of your workspace. In our case the rot wil be ‘Growth of ‘pp popularity. Use ancther color or markup tools to make this post spacial and ible Step 5. Find interrelations Start asking questions to find from the Step 2to find the elated pieces of information, When you cllct ‘some, place them around your root post note, ‘Step 6. Repeat the previous step to find more post-its Repeat the previous step to find more elated elements asking the question fom step 2. Place the new elements around related posts Leave enough space between post ts oad links between them. Step 7. Add arrows (links) to show the connections ‘When you are fished wh the posts, ad links between them use the Link tool onthe tools pane! below. If you see that the elements don't have straight connection, but one affects another, use another‘ype ofthe link AQars7aee Step 8. Check the map Check the whole map, review the connections correct f necessary and be ready to make disor. Wl now afte we have raved for ultmately effective ways to use port notes for problem solving, hope youare inspired enough to practice it and solve your problems using an endless celine vtebaard Dont forget to invite your team and conduct a aLtime brainstorming session to make your prablern sehing 100% effective What to read next: ) Dt Reinet Corner Ut onsnaes ‘ementions, bulk ad stickers, comment fd, idea Life Gye From Concept to kl wireframes, Fuel creataty {as and emg eactions| implemertatendevelopers and creatives trust us worldwide. eon