Flying Logic for Visual Thinking
Some time ago, I was pointed towards a software tool called "Flying Logic" from Sciral. I was told that Flying Logic would support to plan backwards from the goal. I like software that helps me to display my thoughts (I call that "Visual Thinking") and I fully subscribe to the thinking backwards idea (famously promoted by Stephen Covey's "7 habits for highly successful people" as "Begin with the End in Mind").
 TOC mindmap - another way of "Visual Thinking". By now I use Flying Logic regularly and use my mindmap as a guide to the eBook and to TOC.
TOC provides different model types that help you focus on different aspects. Two of these models are the "Current Reality Tree", which is used to analyse the weaknesses of the current situation, and the "Future Reality Tree", which is used to envision a future solution. The latter, the Future Reality Tree, is actually the model type that let to me learning about Flying Logic. You start with the goal and analyse from there backwards how to achieve that goal. The provided grammar helps to think in a constructive way. Overall, Flying Logic is a simple tool that allows you to display your thoughts. It comes with strong support for a backward thinking ("Begin with the End in Mind") due to the underlying theoretical framework TOC. My understanding to the framework is available here as a mindmap. But Flying Logic is not limited to the framework and you can easily create your own graphs types. The tool isn't cheap, but it was worth the money for me. |
