[9] Got a wicked problem? First, tell me how you make toast.

Tom Wujec explains how to solve problems by drawing the process of making toast.

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When workers of big companies ask Tom how to solve difficult problems, he starts from telling them to draw how they make toast. First step is to draw it on a sheet of paper. Most people draw some nodes representing steps and links representing connections with them. In the second step they have to draw the same process on the sticky notes. Now they tend to draw more complex structures with the larger number of nodes. As a third step Tom asks them to write it in a group. It gest very messy, but eventually they mix their ideas and they come up with the best ones.  It integrates diversity of each person's point of view.

Tom explains that drawings help us to understand the situation and the steps we should to take. You start with the question, you collect the nodes, you refine the nodes and the patterns emerge. And the group gets clarity. By doing this he helps the organizations solve their problems. 

To solve a wicked problem you have to make your ideas visible, tangible and consequential.

Vocabulary:

tangible - real and not imaginary, able to be shown or touched.

- We need tangible evidence instead of your imagined proofs to consider that matter.

iteration - the process of doing something again and again.

- Iteration has a big role in the process of learning.

refine - to make something pure or to improve something, especially by removing unnecessary material.

- You have to refine your notes by getting rid of unnecessary ones.

prominent - very well known and important.

- This prominent student is bound to be a head of school government. Everybody knows him.

revenue - the income that a government or company receives regularly.

- Governmen't reveue comes from taxes.

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Sources of definitions: 1,