On Powerpoint

[AdamG]

'When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war:' US generals given baffling PowerPoint presentation to try to explain Afghanistan mess

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...#ixzz0mPQb5ZPT

[Cougfootballfan]

In my sqdn this needs to be hung in every office, we rely too much on powerpoint

[Tukhachevskii]

...but I don't think powerpoint, if used correctly, is such a bad thing. As a dyslexic I am primarily a visual learner and retain images in my memory (and the text/presentation that goes with them) much better than I could through purely sitting down and listening to a presentation (and yes, I like books with pictures in them!). Given that most segments of the population can be divided into aural and visual learners you really need to hit the right balance. Even I cannot function if hit by too many slides in a ppt presentation. Its like most things, you need a balance.

[Firn]

PPT makes a good box to tick off and gets abused in that way. It facilitates getting away with little thought. But it can be a powerful tool, weaving all supporting media into a solid spine.

Firn (who almost sounds now like bulleting his way through)

Back to my presentation

[Charles Martel]

Many on this forum have correctly identified that it is lazy thinking, not PowerPoint, that is the problem. PowerPoint is the symptom. The underlying problem is the way we train commanders to sit back and listen to watered down, consensus staff input then adjudicate between two relatively equal options (with a third, throw-away option included to be an easy kill). This gets great reviews at Staff College and our Training Centers, but does not comport with what works in the field, as we have seen for now almost 9 years.

What works there is commanders, who are out seeing the battlefield, who, frankly, know more about the enemy and friendly situation than most of the the staff in the TOC and are the most experienced Soldiers in their unit, developing the plans ICW the staff -- the staff can work through the details to make the plan work, but the successful Commanders have their fingerprints on the plan from the beginning. Not in a dictatorial way that stifles good ideas, but in a positive, focused way that puts the onus on the commander to lead.

Somehow we have come to a process that rewards commanders who sit back waiting to be "fed." Let the staff churn, burn long hours, then hang it out there for the commander to chop off when the commander should have had an idea of what he was looking for before the staff began.

We teach a process tailor-made for PowerPoint and all the attendant problems. The more time the staff puts into fancy builds, transition effects and extraneous sounds, the more some recipients like it -- despite the debilitating effect of those non-value-added features have on the other things that the staff should be doing -- which includes sleeping.

Scapegoating PowerPoint misses the real problem. The problems are our planning and thinking processes that stifle discussion and thought.

[William F. Owen]

Scapegoating PowerPoint misses the real problem. The problems are our planning and thinking processes that stifle discussion and thought.

Not scapegoats, but the guilty!

I'll admit to this making me extremely angry. How does this twaddle get any amount of serious consideration. Please just read the explanation. It this is what "Systems thinking" gets you, it's more worthless than I realised, when applied to warfare.

[marct]

Hey Wilf,

I'll admit to this making me extremely angry. How does this twaddle get any amount of serious consideration. Please just read the explanation. It this is what "Systems thinking" gets you, it's more worthless than I realised, when applied to warfare.

Personally, the only major problem I've ever had with systems theory is its serious limitations. When the two are combined in a ppt, however, there are some problems . Did you notice that Moynihan stated:

Unlike linear thinking, the default mode of the human brain, system dynamics thinks about repercussions and occasionally unintended consequences of actions.

That's an interesting assumption, that the default mode of thought is linear, and I don't believe it is borne out by the data. It may be the situationally appropriate default mode (by training), but it isn't the default for the species, and this has some implications for the use, comprehension and value of systems thinking.

For one thing, systems theory operates in a minimum of 4 dimensions (go back to von Bertalenffy), but powerpoint rarely is able to present more than 3. When we are dealing with interacting human systems, each node (person) is also input and output capable and, just to make things interesting, is totally able to construct almost any picture of their operating environment that they wish. We can probabilistically "predict" patterns, and make interpretations based on those predictions, but they aren't a "vision of the future". Unfortunately, powerpoint presentations have a biasing effect that influences how what is presented is interpreted (from a probabilistic to a predictive).

To my mind, systems theory is OK, as far as it goes, but it has some serious limitations that are exacerbated by powerpoint. Just my $.02

Cheers,

Marc

ps. Wilf, love the FB rant against the overuse of "complexity"!

[Fuchs]

"Afghanistan Stability Chart" by the Daily how with Jon Stewart