Introduction
THE OUTLINE APPROACH
The key to the power and flexibility of ThinkTank is its outline approach to organizing information. The outline approach mirrors our natural way of processing information. Suppose this morning when you came to work you learned that:
There is snow on the ground
Your car needs gas
The price of gas is up again
The stack market is down
It is cold
The consumer price index is up
Your boss is absent
When you think about this information, you don’t think of it as seven separate, independent items. Instead, you group
related items together in organized categories:
Weather
Snow
Cold
Economy
Stock market down
Inflation
Consumer price index up
Price of gas up
Work
Boss absent
In other words, you organize the items very much like an
outline.
Let’s take a more practical example. Suppose you are a corporate product manager developing a proposal for a new product line. You might start by writing down your thoughts as they occur to you, in random fashion: