A bold new way to tackle tough business problemseven if you draw like a second grader

When Herb Kelleher was brainstorming about how to beat the traditional hub-and- spoke airlines, he grabbed a bar napkin and a pen. Three dots to represent Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Three arrows to show direct flights. Problem solved, and the picture made it easy to sell Southwest Airlines to investors and customers.

Used properly, a simple drawing on a humble napkin is more powerful than Excel or PowerPoint. It can help crystallize ideas, think outside the box, and communicate in a way that people simply "get". In this book Dan Roam argues that everyone is born with a talent for visual thinking, even those who swear they can't draw.

Drawing on twenty years of visual problem solving combined with the recent discoveries of vision science, this book shows anyone how to clarify a problem or sell an idea by visually breaking it down using a simple set of visual thinking tools &tools that take advantage of everyone's innate ability to look, see, imagine, and show.

THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN proves that thinking with pictures can help anyone discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve their ability to share their insights. This book will help readers literally see the world in a new way.

"The premise behind Roam's book is simple: anybody with a pen and a scrap of paper can use visual thinking to work through complex business ideas. Management consultant and lecturer Roam begins with a 'watershed moment': asked, at the last minute, to give a talk to top government officials, he sketched a diagram on a napkin. The clarity and power of that image allowed him to communicate directly with his audience. From this starting point, Roam has developed a remarkably comprehensive system of ideas. Everything in the book is broken down into steps, providing the reader with 'tools and rules' to facilitate picture making. There are the four steps of visual thinking, the six ways of seeing and the 'SQVID' — a clumsy acronym for a 'full brain visual work out' designed to focus ideas. Roam occasionally overcomplicates; an extended case study takes up a full third of the book and contains an overload of images that belie the book's central message of simplicity. Nonetheless, for forward-thinking management types, there is enough content in these pages to drive many a brainstorming session. Illus." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Used properly, a simple drawing on a humble napkin can help crystallize ideas and communicate in a way that people simply get. Roam shows that thinking with pictures can help anyone discover and develop new ideas, solve problems, and improve their ability to share their insights.

Dan Roam is the founder and president of Digital Roam Inc., a management- consulting firm that helps business executives solve complex problems through visual thinking. He has brought his unique approach to clients such as General Electric, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo Bank, the U.S. Navy, HBO, News Corporation, and Sun Microsystems, among many others. He lectures around the country for clients and at business conferences.