Guidelines to optimize and document a collective thought process

GUIDELINES TO OPTIMIZE AND DOCUMENT A COLLECTIVE THOUGHT PROCESS

0. Introduction
1. The right state of mind
2. Prefer small facts over elaborate theories
3. Keep your facts straight
- 3a. Using the fact sheet the right way
- 3b. Expanding your fact sheet
4. But what about my theories!?
- 4a. Am I wrong?
- 4b. I might not be wrong, but am I right?
- 4c. Getting the answers to prove your theory
5. How to document a theory
6. Why this works


0. Introduction
During my time playing ARG's, I've learned a lot of things about group thinking, brainstorming and the way information is shared. And while the collective knowledge and intelligence is often surprisingly high, the effectiveness leaves a lot to be desired. There is a lot of wasted effort being put in, that never leads to any results.
One of the bigger problems lays within human nature itself. The will to be right. This often leads to finding connections where there really are none or believing in a thought up theory mostly because it's your own. Even if there are hardly any facts to back it up. These wild tangents keep everyone distracted from what's actually out there to find.
With this article I'm hoping to show a way to improve the effectiveness of collective thinking and introduce a way to document findings in a useful and organised manner.


1. The right state of mind
When we are trying to find out something about a situation with many variables, it's easy to get lost in the chaos. And with so many things going on, there are links to be found everywhere. Therefor it is important to keep reminding ourselves to not base our theories on too many assumptions. While assumptions make us feel better about a theory(emotion), they don't support that theory in any way(reality). Because of this mismatch between emotion and reality, it is higly likely that we invest time in something our assumptions tell us we are right about, while in fact it has very little value.
While assumptions aren't a bad thing, we should always keep track of them and be on our guard to not use assumptions as facts. Later on I will talk about how valuable assumptions can be when we treat them as conditions.


2. Prefer small facts over elaborate theories
Continuing on from what we've learned so far, we can take it a step further and look at another way we wrongfuly satisfy ourselfs. Much more than finding just one single answer, we want to know the whole story. We want to be able to explain everything at once. This often goes hand in hand with taking assumptions as facts to support your views. These eleborate theories tend to get stuck in our heads and with that comes the danger that they completely take away your open mindedness. Part of this is because the human mind isn't good at dealing with big problems. So we tend to set up boundaries for our thinking process. We make the problem smaller and easier to deal with. And within those boundaries we go looking for the answers. The other part is that we've convinced ourself that our theory is very likely, before we even really thought it through. I will talk more on this later on. Because of these properties, we come up with elaborate stories and theories that are based on so many assumptions, there is just a one in a milion chance that we're still on the right track.
It's important to be aware of these 'flaws'. We need to shift our way of thinking to focus on the things we can solve and find our satisfaction in uncovering facts, not matter how insignificant they might be. We have to realize that every fact we find is a step towards our end goal. And unlike a theory based mostly on assumptions, a fact can actually help you to answer other questions you might have.


3. Keep your facts straight
To prevent falling into this pattern, it's important to keep track of what we actually know. We need to have all our facts in one place, without having any assumptions there to distract us. This 'fact sheet' should be our guide through our entire thought process, so we need to make sure it stays organized.

3a. Using the fact sheet the right way
Earlier I talked about how human nature makes us want to be sure about our theories. One of the ways in which this shows is that we are always go looking for arguments to back up our theory. Whether these arguments are assumptions or facts. It is however far more efficient, to look for facts that prove your theory wrong first. We often overlook something, especially in situations with many variables, causing us to waste our time on something we could have easily proven wrong right away.

3b. Expanding your fact sheet
Because we always keep learning new things, it is important to constantly update the fact sheet. It's often even possible to deduct new facts from the ones you already have.
Always be on your guard when adding new facts though. It is easy to mistake an assumption for a fact and as we read on we see how this can be a heavy blow to your effectiveness as a group.
Asside from expanding your fact sheet, it's probably a good idea to review your fact sheet from time to time. Having multiple people review the fact sheet can also be helpful in keeping it's integrity at 100%.


4. But what about my theories!?
When dealing with all these facts and guidelines to keep us on track, how can we still theorize in a constructive way?
It's fairly simple to make a list of facts, since there is usually a finite amount. However, when dealing with theories, the possibilities are endless. How do we know which ones are helpful and which ones aren't?
To make sure we document and share only those theories that help us get to our goal, it is important to stick to the following rules and guidelines on documenting our theories.

4a. Am I wrong?
As mentioned before, don't waste your time on theories that have been proven wrong. Use your fact sheet to try and prove your theory wrong before doing anything else.

4b. I might not be wrong, but am I right?
Once you're sure you're not by definition wrong, it is important to see how likely it is that you are right. The process in making sure your theory holds water has two steps.
The first step: List the known facts that support or damage your theory. Do not give any idea the benefit of the doubt. This is where mistakes are usually made. Use the facts on your fact sheet only!
The second step: List the conditions for the theory to be true. This would be the place for the assumptions you had while thinking up your theory. This list basically contains everything that's required for your theory to be true, that isn't listed in the facts section.
The conclusion: These lists give an objective view of how plausible your theory is. The bigger the list of supporting facts, the better. And the smaller the lists of damaging facts or conditions, the better. If your list of conditions is longer than your list of supporting facts, you should really be asking yourself if you're not wasting your time. In general, it is best practice to disgregard theories with more than 3 conditions.

4c. Getting the answers to prove your theory
To prove your theory, you will have to move your conditions to the list of facts. This can be done in several ways. Like asking questions, finding new information or just combining what you already knew.
However you find it though, be sure to always add these facts to your fact sheet, so you keep expanding your truth.


5. How to document a theory
First of all, keep your theories simple. While you should always keep the big picture questions in mind, you should not give big picture answers with theories. A complex theory will have so many conditions, it'll be close to impossible to prove.
An example of a good theory and a good way of documenting it would look like this:

Theory: Pete is sick
Facts:
+ Pete complained about being tired
+ Pete looks pale
- The blood tests came back negative
Conditions:
* The tiredness and paleness are symptoms of a disease
Explanation:
Because Pete always looks pale and complains about being tired all the time, it looks like he's sick. The blood tests don't always show the whole story.
Actions:
* Tell Pete to go to a doctor to get more tests.
* Persuade Pete to sleep more and eat healthy

You will notice that I gave room for a more extended explanation of the theory. This is useful because a single line isn't always enough to share what you're thinking.
There's also a header called actions that lists possible steps towards either proving or disproving your theory. This will give you and anyone else an idea of what has to be done to prove a certain theory.


6. Why this works
The above method shows the value of each theory right away. This eliminates bad theories or wild tangents from the start, while keeping track of what needs to be done to prove valuable theories.
By making a clear distinction between assumptions (conditions) and facts, you can prevent stacking assumption on assumption and you will never act on assumptions alone.
This kind of structured thinking allows for out of the box thinking, but keeps you within reason.


This guide was written by BrightSilence