Everybody at TUG has a superpower; Joe Elmendorf has two. The first: he's a phenomenal listener. The second: he asks deep questions, with enormous patience, so the superficial falls away and the true core issues emerge.

Joe recently applied his superpowers to create TUG’s Modeling For Clarity , which teaches you how to use models to understand and explain complex problems. TUG had its first run of Modeling For Clarity in August and we wanted to ask Joe what his thoughts were on the new all-remote workshop.

Maybe we can start with the basics. What's your definition of a model, and what is it for?

A model is an abstraction of what we understand about what is true in the world. A picture based on reality. 

A lot of what models are helpful for is bridging the gap between technology folks and business folks. Models become the central tool around which people can get a shared understanding and alignment. 

Who do you think this workshop is for?

We find that product managers and UX folks find a lot of value in this workshop, but really anyone who needs to communicate complexity will get a lot out of it.

We talk about models in this workshop as pictures. But another, perhaps more common way to communicate complexity is with words through something like a report or a brief. The intent of all of these formats is to convey ideas. Anything that can be expressed with words can also be expressed with a picture-based model. I don’t want to be too down on reports and articles, they have their place, but there is a power in expressing complexity through pictures. Pictures allows people to more easily understand complexity.

It's applicable across a wide range of roles and industries, but it's not taught that way so much; often it’s taught within a particular professional niche using a particular modeling style. I wanted to offer something widely applicable. 

It’s interesting you say that it isn’t “taught.” We encounter models like Journey Maps, Sitemaps and User Flows all the time. Couldn't someone just rely on a modeling template?

Well, this workshop is less about how you make a model and more about how you understand the process, so we are trying to go beyond specific modeling templates or languages; instead, getting at what it is that we do when we model, because we all do it unconsciously, but if we can make that unconscious practice conscious, we can do it better. 

Models are most powerful when explaining things that people don’t understand, especially when those things apply to diverse parts of an organization. In those situations, you have to go past a template and rely on a framework for discovering and representing the complexity. 

When you embrace models as a way of discovering the unknown, you realize that no set of information is going to be the same. That makes templates a way to start, but not a standard to rely on. Our models are better when we come about them honestly, when we say, “what does the information want to be? What shape does the information want to be?” Maybe it doesn't want to be a Journey Map, a Sitemap, or an Object Model, maybe it draws from the truths of those models but it’s something completely different and unique. For this reason, I've never made the same model twice. If I made a model a year ago and then went to represent that same information today, I would create a different way of representing that information; there isn’t one right way to do this stuff. 

What is taught in the workshop?

The goal of the workshop is to introduce model thinking as a framework rather than a collection of templates and languages. We start by figuring out what we want a model to do and learning how to document that intent before starting to make the model. Then we talk about what needs to be considered each time one makes a model in order for that model to be clear. Lastly, we talk about context priming, how to make a model sharable and understandable by other people.

One of the biggest mistakes people make when creating models is not thinking about how they will be interpreted by people seeing them for the first time or from a different perspective. If I expect someone else to get as much out of a model as I do, I need to provide context and framing for them to develop understanding. So we teach tactics for how to impart the context, the meaning, the “why” of the model into the model. This extra context might not be helpful for me as the model-maker, but it is critical for people being introduced to the model for the first time. These tactics can be as simple as a title, but they also include more subtle ideas, like narrative, staging, and metaphor.

If nothing else, we want people to get into the habit of asking two simple questions: “What am I trying to make clear?” and “Who am I trying to help understand?” By knowing what you want your outcome to be at the onset, you can create clear models. 

Do you expect people to have modeling experience before starting the workshop?

The very first thing we do is show people that they’ve been modeling their entire lives, even if they didn’t always think about it that way. Everyone has done some amount of representing intent, what they want, through a non-verbal medium. Spreadsheets are models. Calendars and project plans and proposals and charts. We model all the time. But being intentional about what we model really changes how you approach these otherwise familiar activities. 

What kinds of online tools do you use to run this workshop?

Paper and pen still work great; people just need to take a photo of their paper when they’re done and upload it to the Miro board we use for sharing. Of course, there is nothing wrong with using more sophisticated digital modeling tools like Omnigraffle or Lucidcharts. Really we just want people to quickly create models using a tool they’re comfortable with, because this workshop is less about how you make a model, and more how you make models clear.

What's the format like? It looks like you're doing something a little different than typical professional workshops.

All of the lecture content is pre-recorded and you can watch it as many times as you want. We have six videos ranging from fifteen to thirty minutes each. For each video we provide an activity that you do at your own pace over the course of the week. At the end of the week, we get together as a cohort for ninety minutes to share and discuss what we’ve learned. We talk about the activity, the content, and how each person individually understood and applied the content. We’re also in touch online through Slack, so anyone can reach out to me or other students in the workshop and discuss things as they work at their own pace.

Why did you decide to take this approach?

We wanted it to be for professionals, and some people think we all have lots of time during the pandemic; but I know I have a lot less time, so we wanted to make something friendly to the way we are living now. This stuff also benefits from an iterative approach that includes time for the information to marinate. Through years of teaching at a university, both in-person and online, I’ve learned that shorter lectures are absorbed much better than longer ones; so it just makes sense. 

There is also real value for people in being able to work through the content by themselves first: this gives people the comfort to take what they've learned from a video, work with it, try it out, and maybe go back to the video for clarification before getting together with a larger group. When we do come together for the live sessions, I try to add as little to the session as possible. People have seen me on video for many minutes and heard what I have to say about this stuff; the value of these live sessions is for them to hear how others have interpreted and applied the information. 

If there was one thing you could do now with technology, or materials, or curriculum to improve this workshop, what would it be?

We are already thinking about the next version of this workshop. There is a lot of value in seeing modeling as a tool and practice for everyone. What I'd like to do is see it expand past UX designers. Modeling is a thing that UX folks often do unconsciously or in a formal kind of way and we want to blow that up and help them make better decisions about how they model, but that's an improvement on what they are already doing. I'd like to bring this way of thinking and doing to people who have never modeled before, but still need to communicate complex ideas. Modeling is a superpower and being able to express and communicate in this way can create more efficient clarity of meaning.

Sign up for TUG’s Modeling For Clarity Workshop to start seeing problems in new ways, asking better questions, understanding and explaining how complex problems work, and communicating complexity to others.