The D as Diagramming Project

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CALL4

6 min readAug 10, 2021

Exploring the power of diagrams and diagramming

Diagram is one of my essential three knowledge units. I love to dwell in thought with diagramming. I even wrote a 108-page thesis that developed a theory about diagrams and diagramming in 2018. I consider two groups of ideas for my theory about diagrams. The first group is “meta-diagram, diagram, and diagram system” and the second group is “diagramming as an activity of knowing, theorizing and reflecting”.

The notion of “meta-diagram” considers a special type of diagram as an independent thing that doesn’t have to be a representation of an existing theory or model. For example, the 2x2 matrix diagram is a meta-diagram that doesn’t refer to any concrete theory or model such as BCG’s Growth-share matrix. A diagram system is a series of diagrams that share an intrinsic spatial logic and a visual identity.

The notion of “diagramming as an activity of knowing, theorizing and reflecting” adopts a process view to understand Diagrams. In other words, it is “becoming.” That means we can use diagrams as a tool for our thinking. We don’t need to consider all diagrams as outcomes.

I have discussed this topic in a previous article: Activity U (IV): The Engeström’s Triangle and the Power of Diagram. If you want to go deep, you can read the following sections of the article:

5.1 Diagram (Representation) v.s. Diagramming (Instrument)
5.2 Spatial thought v.s. Linguistic thought
5.3 Knowledge model v.s. Knowledge brand

As Engeström mentioned, “I use the graphic models in series of successive variations, not just as singular representations…With the help of such variations, I try to demonstrate how the models can depict movement and change. The reader is invited to formulate and test his own variations.” (1987, p.47) We should remember that a diagram is not a dogma but an action guide.

The D as Diagramming Channel

I launched the D as Diagramming channel on Doowit last year. The channel displays several meta-diagrams I designed in past years.

It is a great collection and exhibition! I also designed a logo for this channel.

Now I realize this channel is the initial objectification of my passion for diagramming.

My journey of diagramming was only about self-reflection before 2021. I didn’t run it as a project.

However, it dramatically changed in the past several months!

In April, I wrote a book titled The ECHO Way to reflect on the Activity U project and the HERO U framework. You can find details here. I spent one chapter discussing diagrams, diagramming, and knowledge curation.

In June, I created a board about the historical development of a diagram for the Supportance model on Miro.

In July, I repeatedly used my meta-diagrams such as Tripartness and other diagrams.

Diagram Explained

To review the historical development of the diagram of the Supportance model, I wrote some ideas on the board. In 2018, I wrote a 108-page thesis titled Diagram Explained. I developed a framework for understanding multiple layers of diagrams and wrote a list of topics about diagramming.

I also started writing short notes about diagrams on Medium and Linkedin. Eventually, I realized it was time to call it a project.

The D as Diagramming Project

The newest development of the D as Diagramming Project is research. I started moving from the position of a designer to the position of a researcher.

As a research project, the D as Diagramming project aims to explore the power of Diagrams and Diagramming. From the perspective of Activity Theory, Diagram means a tool while Diagramming means an activity. Thus, the D as Diagramming project is both about tools and activity. From the perspective of cognitive science, diagramming is about spatial cognition which is my favorite topic. From the perspective of Curativity Theory, Diagrams are knowledge containers for knowledge curation.

Moreover, I wanted to know the value of diagrams for turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Thus, I set this goal as the present objective of the D as a Diagramming research project.

I use three approaches for the project:

Reflect on my own works
Interview others
Collect examples

This method could be considered roughly a triangular method. I learned the basic idea about Triangulating Data from Clay Spinuzzi’s book Topsight: A guide to studying, diagnosing, and fixing information flow in organization. There are at least two types of triangulation:

Triangulating across data types
Triangulating across data instances

Clay says, “In a qualitative study, you should have at least a few different types of data, and these should give you different views of the phenomenon. You can’t rely on just one. If you just rely on observations, you’ll only have your perspective; you will be able to describe what happened, but not why or how it connects with their goals. If you just rely on interviews, you get their perspective — their story — but sometimes people recall incorrectly or are just flat wrong. So as much as possible, you have to build a story by looking across the data to see what the different data types are telling you.”

For the D as Diagramming research project, I realized the Diagram Explained thesis doesn’t have enough data. Last week, I started interviewing others and collecting drafts of diagrams from their work.

The Diagramming as Thinking Sprint

In the past weeks, I was running a Diagramming as Thinking sprint with the following three steps:

Draw diagrams on index cards.
Design diagrams with software.
Write short notes about these diagrams on Linkedin or Twitter.

This sub-project is about reflecting on my own work.

The D as Diagramming Interview

In the last ten days, I interviewed three friends about their diagrams. I wrote a research report for each case.

I will continue this sub-project. You are welcome to recommend relevant cases.

The D as Diagramming Archive

I also collect examples of diagrams for this project. For example, I bought two books last week. One book is about using Triangle diagrams to discuss organizational design while the other book is about the 2x2 Matrix diagram for business thinking.

According to Robert W. Keidel, “Here are more than 200 triads — taken primarily from Western academic and popular management and organizational literature (and secondarily from writings on cognition and physical design) — that parallel autonomy/control/cooperation.”

Alex Lowy and Phil Hood collect 55 extraordinary 2x2 frameworks from leading business thinkers such as Michael Porter, Stephen Covey, and Igor Ansoff.

If you find similar books, I’d like to add them to my archive.