There is a thread going around from the General McChrystal briefing that used a complex Mind Map showing the interdependencies of the activities taking in Afghanistan. Like most gut reactions to things, all the authors got it wrong in several counts.
Granted there is really bad briefings made and really good ones. The starting point for building Power Points for certain contexts is Cliff Atkinson's Beyond Bullet Points site and book.
But care needs to be taken developing presentations and briefings at build them for the audience in question. Care also needs to be taken in critiquing the work of others. Especially in the absence of knowledge of the context and domain. And even more care, when newspaper reporters are the source of information.
Here's the slide in question...
When McChrystal commented "when we understand this slide, we'll have won the war." This is likely literally true. The complexities of the situation are possibly intractable. The "slide" is a description of the complexities of the situation. The slide is the "picture" of the reality. To show this reality in simpler terms would miss the point entirely - which the New York did (and does on many issues of complexity, may favorite being the C-130J blather a few years ago by completely uniformed reporters). Simple is a term tossed around without context or domain. See the Mencken quote at the end of this post
The arm chair critics, some of which are self proclaimed rouge thinks, and in uniform even, have confused a "picture" of the map with the map.
The slide above is a Mind Map or social networking map made by the firm PA Consulting. Tools making these maps was used to locate the 9/11 relationships in the first months after the attack. Maps like these define the interdependencies between complex problems - UAV Operations in mixed flight war theaters, New Drug Applications, up stream and down stream petrochemical process optimizations, San Francisco coordinated law enforcement operations, the airlines baggage handling process improvement (a slight oxymoron I know).
The critics don't say how the map was produced, why it was produced, and for what purpose it was produced.
As a user of things like this to visualize complex problems - my current assignment is a $37B re-do of a DoD services C3 (command, control, and communications) infrastructure program just released for bid. Imagine trying to "map" the interdependencies of "everything over IP" on the planet.
Oh let's make a simple (meaning simple minded) diagram so the dumbest person in the audience can get the picture of literally millions of IP devices.
Come on, remember the H. L. Mencken quote:
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. - H. L. Mencken
When I hear critics of complexity, I rarely hear alternative suggestions. In our world, that's called un-informed whining. When you hear this, discount the content until the speaker comes up with a viable alternative.
