How to Make Sense of Any Mess by Abby Covert

Chapter 3: Face Reality | Page 60

Timescale matters.

While you’re thinking about scope and scale, consider the timescale you’re working with.

A timescale is a period of time your map or diagram represents. There are three main timescales:

• Then: How did things used to be?
• Now: How are things today?
• When: How do you see it being in the future?

It’s often easier to think about how things were then or how they are now before proposing changes.

As an example, if we wanted to make sense of changes to the American healthcare system over the last year, we could diagram at each of the three timescales:

• Then: How did healthcare work ten years ago?
• Now: How does healthcare work today?
• When: How do we want health care to work after we’ve made these changes?