#THOUGHT TRAIN DIAGRAM HOW TO#

That would be overwhelming and you would have retained nothing. When your driving instructor got in the car with you the first time, they didn’t explain what every button, dial, and handle did in the car. By seeing the written words you will have an easier time building your message. If you conceptually know the message you want to convey but are having a hard time putting it in words, it might help to either talk out loud and describe what you are about to draw, or writing down an explanation of what you’re trying to accomplish. If you don’t know what your message is, ask yourself what is the value this diagram is providing? Before you draw your first box on the page, figure out your message. The same concept applies when building architecture diagrams. It provides context and a deeper meaning than simply labeling the parts of the vehicle.

#THOUGHT TRAIN DIAGRAM HOW TO#

The message the instructor was conveying was how to safely and properly drive a car. You would have tried to figure it out on your own because driving is much more than knowing what the parts are in a car.īut since the instructor explained how the pieces go together and how you interact with them, you pick up on the underlying message. If the instructor said “ this is the steering wheel, this is the transmission, and these are the gas and brake pedals”, chances are you would not have learned how to drive. There was context around each step to show you how each one was necessary to proceed to the next. When you were learning how to drive, the instructor would describe the steps necessary to start the car, put it in drive, then pull into traffic. Let’s take an analogy of learning how to drive a car. It’s not just a bunch of boxes, arrows, and text thrown around haphazardly on a page. This might sound obvious, but a diagram is much more than a picture. Let’s talk about some tips to kick start your diagramming career. You might even get inspiration for creating a brand new type of architecture diagram. You start understanding how to convey your ideas a little better and you get some muscle memory for building the different types of architecture diagrams. It took a while for inspiration to strike. I’d then draw the same box again and delete it again. I remember when I first started drawing them I would just stare at a blank screen wondering how to get started. The best and fastest way to make sure my ideas are understood is by drawing a diagram. My job as a Solutions Architect is to come up with designs and share them with others around my organization. To some, that might seem like a daunting task. 7 diagrams I needed to draw after 5 days of work. Whenever I was in a meeting, if I said I can draw a diagram for that, I wrote a tick mark.Īt the end of the week, I had 7 tick marks drawn. I had a sticky note on my desk labeled “Architecture Diagrams”.

Thought train diagram