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Appreciation

Extracting Maximum Information from Facts

Appreciation is a very simple but powerful technique for extracting the maximum amount of information from a simple fact.

How to Use the Tool:

Starting with a fact, ask the question 'So what?' i.e. what are the implications of that fact? Keep on asking that question until you have drawn all possible inferences.

Example:

Appreciation is a technique used by military planners, so we will take a military example:

Fact: It rained heavily last night

So What?

– The ground will be wet

So What?

– It will turn into mud quickly

So What?

– If many troops and vehicles pass over the same ground, movement will be progressively slower and more difficult as the ground gets muddier and more difficult.

So What?

– Where possible, stick to paved roads. Otherwise expect movement to be much slower than normal.

While it would be possible to reach this conclusion without the use of a formal technique, Appreciation provides a framework within which you can extract information quickly, effectively and reliably.

Key points:

Asking 'so what?' repeatedly helps you to extract all important information implied by a fact.

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In our next article we look at Drill Down, a related technique that helps us break complicated problems down into simple parts.To read this, click "Next article" below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath.

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