Issue Mapping Webinar Series

New!! Issue Mapping Webinar Series

CogNexus has distilled its experience to create our new, 5-part Issue Mapping Webinar Series, the first of which was launched in July of 2008. Classes are going so well, that we are offerring the third series this year, the next one starting on October 22, 2008. Classes are three hours long and are scheduled every other week. For the specific times and dates of upcoming Series, click here.

“…the information and practice on IBIS - as well as how to think more logically - was very valuable. I’ll be a smarter and better thinker because of the course and it will definitely help me to help groups think better! Thanks so much!”--Kelcy Benedict, Facilitation Plus, Inc.

Who will it help and what will it teach?

This series is for those involved in highly complex projects, including managers, project leaders, consultants and facilitators who want to:

be able to lead a group to a robust decision that endures and that inspires consistent actions and outcomes despite internal and external pressures

get traction in the "swamp" of a project that is cursed with both technical and social complexity

have real dialogue without getting bogged down in politics, personalities or an overload of information

help a team get its bearings in the fog of confusion, contradictory objectives and changing constraints

be able to focus a group's energy in a way that boosts collective intelligence: the capacity to work with ambiguity and equivocal knowledge

be able to capture and organize a large volume of unstructured information to create a coherent foundation for thinking and learning in an organization

Like all of our workshops and webinars, this series is designed for people who are interested in learning about new ways to work with complex challenges and societal issues and better ways to visualize and make sense of the issues they are working on.

The Issue Mapping Webinar Series is designed to give you new skills: top

learn how to create great maps – maps that are attractive, fun to read, clear, and compelling

immediately start using Issue Mapping effectively in your work and life; the class will focus on practical experience and map building

command a rich range of options for publishing and sharing maps

lead with maps: create direction, momentum, and energy with issue maps

quickly and effectively do critical analysis in dynamic situations

organize unstructured information and discover patterns and connections within it

It will also give you a deeper understanding of:

the fundamentals of IBIS, Compendium and bCisive

the high-level patterns that give clarity and power to issue maps

how decision rationale is represented in a map

map evolution - managing time and entropy in issue maps

making critical thinking visible for inspection and analysis

How will it be held? top

The Webinar will be held over the Internet. Participants will be directed to a web conferencing site that allows full participation and sharing among the group. The audio connection can be by landline telephone or Internet phone (VOIP). Class participants will be sent link and dial-in information before each class.

The instructor will be Dr. Jeff Conklin.

What is the cost?

The cost for the series is $995. There is an Early Bird Discount for registering two weeks or more before the start of the Series.

What is Issue Mapping? top

Critical thinking made visible. Groups or individuals can use Issue Mapping. It is a process for crafting a “map” to systematically analyze an issue and make critical thinking visible in a clear and simple way. It uses a specific question-based language (IBIS) and a specific kind of software tool (Compendium or bCisive).

Wiring diagram. An issue map is a graphical network that integrates many problems, solutions, and points of view and shows the big picture of an issue.You can think of an issue map as a “wiring diagram” for an issue, since the structure follows certain rules and, if done well, it reveals the basic elements of a complex issue and how they relate to each other. Although the basic rules are simple, skill, experience, and imagination come into play to create maps that are great!

Issue based. Issue Mapping frames things as issue-based rather than in the conversational basis that we humans most often use which includes linear thinking, reactionary responses, a lack of deep listening, repetition, getting off track and going "all over the map". Within the issue-based structure of Issue Mapping, we use questions to frame the discussions.

See our latest YouTube video to find out more about issue-based versus conversational-based communication.

Issue Mapping is writing. Issue Mapping is also a writing process involving composition in both prose and graphical structure. As with writing it is a creative process - creativity about wording the nodes in the map to be clear and succinct, and graphical creativity about weaving the IBIS elements (Questions, Ideas, Pros & Cons) together with documents, sub-maps, and other graphics to create a clear and visually appealing graphical structure. The Issue Mapping Webinar Series is thus a writing workshop for those who would like to be masterful in creating great maps that, like great stories or articles, stand by themselves and communicate powerfully to a wide audience.

When it's useful. Issue Mapping applies to a wide variety of situations. Examples include: creating robust strategy, reducing costs in a large system, making profound organizational changes, coordinating interactions among parts of a large project, and gathering and making sense of requirements for software systems. Issue Mapping can also address wicked problems, but its power is not lost on everyday problems.

How is Issue Mapping different from Dialogue Mapping? top

Issue Mapping is Dialogue Mapping minus group facilitation. It is most powerful when an individual sits down to map out an issue to understand it better, or a group gets together and tasks themselves with analyzing an issue rather than just having a meeting or conversation about it.

Dialogue Mapping is a form of group facilitation that is about creating great conversations, and learning Dialogue Mapping requires students and teacher to be gathered together face-to-face.

Issue Mapping, on the other hand, is about creating great maps, and Issue Mapping can be learned on the Internet. It is the foundation skill on which Dialogue Mapping is based, and in the future the Issue Mapping Webinar Series will be a prerequisite for Dialogue Mapping training.

Although the immediate focus of the Issue Mapping Webinar Series is getting a handle on personal and business issues, the ultimate vision for this work is to provide a lingua franca that allows diverse stakeholders to systematically build toward a shared understanding of the most complex and urgent challenges facing humanity. Learn more about this vision by reading "Growing a Global Issue Base: An Issue-based Approach to Policy Deliberation", a paper that was presented and published by Jeff Conklin at the "Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing;Conference on Online Deliberation" in Berkeley, California in the summer of 2008.

For questions about Issue Mapping contact us.

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