I use many models in my thinking, whether they are mine or someone else’s, yet I don’t think of myself as a theorist. I thought it may be helpful to some on why models are so valuable to a pragmatist. Another word for model is framework…

“essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful”

– George E.P. Box

This quote is the first thing to remember when you begin using any model; you need to remember that at some point a model will break down and no longer support what you were using it for…  Like a lean start-up idea, create and use models passionately, but stop using them the moment evidence points that they are no longer helpful.  (he nice thing about a model though is that generally this means you have crossed an edge-case where the model doesn’t work any longer, but may still be useful in the long run.  If the model consistently doesn’t work, then perhaps the model has some invalid assumptions.  Exploring these assumptions then may help you refine the model into something that once again works or to find or develop a model that does work under the broader circumstances.

This brings me to the next point – ALWAYS realize models have a set of assumptions.  Explore how the model works under these assumptions.  This helps you understand when the model may be useful and when it may not. With that, why do you need them if you are simply someone (particularly a coach or manager) who needs to help people get things done?

Models help you understand systems; they may not provide a means to achieve an answer, but may simply may provide a means for organizing your thoughts.  The Cynefin model by David Snowden is one of these latter ones – it can help you understand the problem space you are exploring for decision-making. Finding models that can represent systems or at least significant and important portions of a system is mostly useful for helping you organize your thoughts.  The act of thinking through when and how these apply including valid and invalid assumptions about variables, algorithms, or organization (for more pictorial models) really helps you determine on which things to pay attention.  Even if you find the model doesn’t work, the amount of thinking you went through will serve you well.

And I invite you, particularly when you don’t find a model that seems to represent what you need, to try and think through creating one.  Don’t worry about it being perfect, you can always adapt the model after inspecting how it works.  Again, you are using this to organize your thoughts.  Creating a model could be as simple as combining models; Jurgen Appelo’s CHAMPFROGS model about motivation does this.  It appears Jurgen saw gaps, overlaps, and some inconsistencies in representation and blended a new model to make it more clear to him.

It’s also extremely useful to find where different models connect in explaining the same observations (data) differently.  This helps you understand where options may be found and where the thinking on these has many dimensions, which again exposes assumptions about the models.

Going back to the usefulness, one huge benefit for applying or creating a model is stepping back from tactical thinking to a more strategic layer.  This helps in prioritizing based on importance over simple urgency.

People serving as coaches and managers are there to help the people improve the system, you can do this best when you have your own thoughts organized. Models can be an essential tool in selecting and organizing the particular tools and techniques needed to apply.