El libro de los diagramas (Concise Advise)

by Kevin Duncan

People find it difficult to express ideas and solve problems purely with words. They find it much easier to use diagrams. Distilled into a single, perfectly sized volume are fifty of the most useful diagrams that are used by consultants, academics, MBA students, and smart managers globally to assist with problem solving and thinking. Triangles and pyramids, grids and axes, timelines, flows and concepts, and circles”the fifty diagrams are each presented and explained in an accessible manner, including tips and advice on how you can apply them to your own situations. LID Publishing's popular Concise Advice Lab notebooks are designed to be quick and comprehensive brainstorming tools and skill-building resources for busy professionals. The small trim size makes it easy to take along in a briefcase or purse. Interior pages are matte finish, so ink won't smear, and there's plenty of space to jot notes. A ribbon makes it easy to mark your place, and the elastic outer band keeps the notebook closed.

Genres: Business, Design, Nonfiction, Reference

122 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2013

Reviews

[Andrea James · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book "gives you the fish" rather than teaching you to fish.

The title says "50 ways to solve ANY problem visually" and while I'm not stringently holding them to the "any", I do think the title implies that the book will show you how to work through example problems using diagrams. And then with an understanding of how to see problems from different visual perspectives using different visual tools, one can attempt to adapt and apply that base understanding to other problems.

I already use diagrams to analyse issues and explain concepts and I was excited to learn how to expand the ways I approach and probe problems.

This book is the complete opposite of that. It just provides standard management diagrams of varying shapes like "the feel, felt, found" triangle and a graph with the year broken into quarters. (Really? We can look a year as quarters and have quarterly cycles and targets? Genuis!). And even worse, each of the 50 examples are only glossed over in a shallowest way.

This book is testament to why we shouldn't make late-night impulse purchases.

[pattrice · Rating 1 out of 5]

Deeply disappointing, due to the deeply misleading subtitle. This is a business book filled mostly with trite (and sometimes inapt) diagrams for things like sales and assessing your own happiness with your job. While the preface claims that this book could be an aid to visual thinking, only a handful of the diagrams might be used to spark innovative thinking in any realm other than business.

[Bodhidasa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was an impulse buy in a WH Smiths at Cardiff train station. I am drawn to the visual representations of issues as a means of solving problems for use in my classes. The book is simply written, well designed (and marketed) and filled with a variety of intriguing strategies that have to be tried in order to certify their value because no evidence is provided by the author to suggest that any of them actually work. Disappointing and shabby. Plus, it is primarily written to sharpen your business strategy about which I could not care less, suggesting that I am perhaps not the intended audience for this book. (Damn that clever marketing!) Add to this the discredited Cone of Learning - an oft repeated example of misleading educational bunkum - presented here as gospel, and you are left wondering if the author even Googled the contents before deciding to include them. The book is poorly researched and unsubstantiated. Nevertheless, a souvenir of Cardiff for which it receives one star.

[Alex Styl · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are curious about how various problems can be expressed and solved using shapes, you'll enjoy this book.

The title is misleading. In reality this book shows you 50 types of problems that can solved by using a specific kind of shape or graph. Still interesting

[Artis Ivanovs · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has some explanations of basic concepts, but they are explained too simplisticly. Most of the book is just some random management diagrams thrown together. If you can get it on a discount, go for it.

[Guillaume · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wrong title, should have been named "50 tips for marketing people, nearly related to diagrams". For example, the so-called F "triangle" is just a way of making a phrase to overcome sale objections "I understand you feel X, I felt it too, but then I found that Y". This book is not what I was looking for, even if I use various diagrams daily to express ideas and solve problems.

[Tat Berezhnaia · Rating 1 out of 5]

As for me - the most useless purchase. MS Excel F1 pretends to give more information. Just a sipmle catalogue of existing diagrams, some of them are interchangeable.
Though, it's a perfect one for those, who pay more attention to quantitative measure at the planning management:
+1 book to list in 45 minutes

[Larissa Trisetyowati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laaaffff it! I’m a visual person tho not so great in doodling. However this book have gathered up most of the necessary doodles on how to explain, even simplify, one’s problem, either it’s for work/business, or for personal matters, or even just trying to describe simple behavior.
Great book for people who needs to present an issue to a broader audience. Or people like me, who sometimes overthinks matter and needs to simplify what the brain wanted to talk about.
My Picks would be:
- The Cone of Learning
- The Ebbinghaus Illusion
- The Golden Circle

[Mireille Raad]

There are only a couple of new ideas for diagrams at the end of the book. Most concepts are super popular and not new. I would not buy it, but would skim through it if it was on a table in a coffee shop . I read the book through my safari books online subscription from O’Reilly media

[Neil Williams · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beautiful object containing almost zero value. This isn't a toolkit for explaining things visually, it's a list of specific diagrams the author likes, most of which are well known, few of which are transferable to other use cases.

[VJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book needs improvement. It’s written like a study guide.

[Angharad Dalton · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Lite’ and some well-known stuff covered, but useful nonetheless to get a quick intro to a couple of extra clever tricks.

[kate]

I thought this would be about representing maths problems, whoops, still a solid book

[Jude Brigley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting little book.

[Skyring]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11839559

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote it

[Juan Manuel Vera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just, good.