The following article was written for the newsletter of the Centre for Management Creativity at High Trenhouse, Malham, North Yorkshire who have supplied us with graphic software called "Visual Concept". This software easily helps turn ideas, brainstorming etc. into a graphic form to aid understanding of concepts and relationships between ideas.
We have already used the product for business planning purposes and, as can be seen below, in our mediation work.
If this interests you, please go to http://www.visual-concept.co.uk
I regularly act as a Mediator in high value Civil and Commercial claims, often involving numerous inter-related issues, where at times it can be difficult to distil their essence and get a clear picture of the dispute. The parties are often failing to see the wood for the trees.
Just after acquiring Visual Concept I dealt with a difficult mediation relating to the dissolution of a professional partnership. The relationship between the parties was very distrustful and communication almost non-existent. They therefore arrived at the mediation with little preparation and numerous areas to deal with.
I used Visual Concept to provide a visual representation of over forty issues I had identified, and these fell into six logical groups. The resulting model was visually attractive, colour coded and provided a deceptively simple representation of the challenge the parties faced. I produced this at the beginning of the event and I have no doubt that it helped bring some order to a chaotic situation and helped sort out priorities. It was the one document that everyone seemed to be carrying around with them throughout the day, and to which we kept referring when periodically checking our progress.
We have already used the product for business planning purposes and, as can be seen below, in our mediation work.
If this interests you, please go to http://www.visual-concept.co.uk
I regularly act as a Mediator in high value Civil and Commercial claims, often involving numerous inter-related issues, where at times it can be difficult to distil their essence and get a clear picture of the dispute. The parties are often failing to see the wood for the trees.
Just after acquiring Visual Concept I dealt with a difficult mediation relating to the dissolution of a professional partnership. The relationship between the parties was very distrustful and communication almost non-existent. They therefore arrived at the mediation with little preparation and numerous areas to deal with.
I used Visual Concept to provide a visual representation of over forty issues I had identified, and these fell into six logical groups. The resulting model was visually attractive, colour coded and provided a deceptively simple representation of the challenge the parties faced. I produced this at the beginning of the event and I have no doubt that it helped bring some order to a chaotic situation and helped sort out priorities. It was the one document that everyone seemed to be carrying around with them throughout the day, and to which we kept referring when periodically checking our progress.
I am impressed by the potential for the use of Visual Concept in mediation work and have shown it to others working in the field who have all shown interest in using it. It will not suit all cases but it certainly has a place in the civil and commercial mediation environment, as a simple cost effective tool to help bring visual clarity to apparently complicated disputes.
Over the last few years I have been a regular visitor to High Trenhouse. The first time I used it as a hideaway for confidential potential merger discussions, then for several years I have come to the Association of Northern Mediators’ annual Summer School which is held there, and more recently for our partners’ annual business planning meeting. I have enjoyed every visit but have had little exposure to the use of the LVT products sold by CMC, apart from buying some adhesive paper LVT hexagons. However when using these to do some recent strategic planning, I saw the need to invest in Visual Concept software do bring order to a desk full of sticky hexagons. We bought it online and brought sense to the plans.
Christopher Butterworth
Over the last few years I have been a regular visitor to High Trenhouse. The first time I used it as a hideaway for confidential potential merger discussions, then for several years I have come to the Association of Northern Mediators’ annual Summer School which is held there, and more recently for our partners’ annual business planning meeting. I have enjoyed every visit but have had little exposure to the use of the LVT products sold by CMC, apart from buying some adhesive paper LVT hexagons. However when using these to do some recent strategic planning, I saw the need to invest in Visual Concept software do bring order to a desk full of sticky hexagons. We bought it online and brought sense to the plans.
Christopher Butterworth
