2016 Issue

THE CRAWFORD SLIP METHOD: The Most Under-Appreciated and Misunderstood Collaboration Tool W e engineers typically need to col- laborate with others in an effort to uncover the best solutions. Espe- cially for today’s complex systems; one brain is just not enough. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to our middle managers telling us we need to drop everything and go use some “brain- storming” tools. “I know,” our well-meaning boss might say, “why not the Crawford Slip Method? We have plenty of post-it notes!” Not really wanting to waste time on silly little slips, we patiently try to explain the difference between brainstorming and col- laboration. Then, after we fail, we create a distraction and briskly walk away hoping for short memories. We know one thing for sure. We will NEVER fall for some hokey brainstorming scam that uses post-it notes. Well, that’s what I would do, anyway. But, wait! Your bosses may be so wrong about so much that they are actually right. As a youngUSAF captain, I studied under Dr. C.C. Crawford at USC in the mid-1980s. So here is the real story. And be of good cheer, it does not involve post-it notes. DuringWorldWar II, Crawfordmade exten- sive use of a technique he first developed back in 1925. He had wanted to keep track of his many, many ideas that he wanted to include in his books. Research index cards had long been used to keep track of specific reference information, but he expanded the concept. He placed every single idea he had on their own individual uniform slips (See figure 1). This resulted in thousands of slips. This would be a daunting and overwhelm- ing pile for most. But he discovered ways to make this work. And by placing complete thoughts, one each, on slips of paper, he could manipulate his ideas by shuffling them about by hand in the physical world. Shuffle enough, and his book was right there in front of him. What did he discover to keep him from being buried and overwhelmed by piles of slips? At best, human brains are somewhat chaotic and easily distracted pattern-matching ma- chines. But the human brain, combined with these slips, becomesmore formidable. CSM helps the easily distracted (and doesn’t that describe all of us?) to focus. A swirl of ideas can be captured on paper and then ma- nipulated to get at the heart of the primary idea. Once written down and then spread out, reading the fanned slips spurs the brain to reconsider and dig deeper. Contempla- tion of the ideas in front of you gets you writing more slips. Those slips usually strike nearer to the bulls-eye of the thought you are reaching for. In other words, it teases out the pure idea behind your initial thoughts. Ideas continue to be sorted by you in accor- dance with a criterion that may only become apparent as you read the slips during the sorting. Freed from its usual drudgery, the sorter’s brain—your brain—can skip along meta levels of thought and create new sort- ing criteria on the fly. You can not only see new connections, but can reject old patterns that do not appear useful. SoDr. Crawford’s discovery was this “mental low gear”. He called it that since it helps you climb steep hills of thought with heavy loads. Mental low gear teases ideas out of your head and onto paper where they might do some good for others. By trial and error, Dr. Crawford found the ideal material for the slips. They are created by taking 20# bond paper and carefully cutting it into 8 equal parts. You must use industrial-grade paper cutters with a competent operator. This cuts sev- eral reams at once with precise uniformity (See figure 2). Other sizes do not encourage the par- Figure 1: Dr. C.C. Crawford and his little slips of paper helped boost our military production during WWII Figure 2: Slips must be cut in a precise way 26