Learn Systems Thinking with Object-Process Modeling in PKM

welcome back to visual PKM I'm jolt today we continue our exploration of diagrams by exploring the object process methodology but why should you care in our complex World Systems thinking is crucial whether we're wrestling with global challenges or navigating our own personal workflows understanding the interconnectedness of systems is a essential but what does systems thinking entail what tools for Thought are you using to facilitate this process OPD and opl are ISO standard modeling tools designed for system thinking after last week's video some of you have commented how you struggle with the practical application of concept modeling I'll respond to that by modeling M personalities popularized by Anor Leon Nick Milo and Thiago Forte using OPM thus my hope is to hit three birds with one stone to teach the basics of OPD and opl to show how different tools are useful at different stages of our thinking and to demonstrate how OPM can help understand complex systems we'll start with a few questions now if we were chatting over a coffee I'd wait for your reply and with have a discussion but given our circumstances I'm just going to pause shortly after each question giving you time to come up with your own answer but before we dive in I just want to mention that you should definitely check out the video description I included some helpful resources there should you wish to explore OPM further and now the questions what are the things that exist in the universe what do we call them the answer is objects are the things that exist or might exist for example a book is an object in OPD objects are nouns they start with a capital letter and are represented with a square what are the things that happen in the universe the answer is the processes are what happen or might happen for example reading is a process in OPD processes are verbs in present participle form that is ending with ing they start with a capital letter and are represented with an ellipse but processes cannot happen in vacuum they happen to something therefore the follow-up question is what are the things to which processes happen the answer is that processes happen to objects the things that happen happen to the things that exist you represent this relationship with a line in OPD there are a few different type of connections the one I'm using here is the instrument relation you read it as reading requires a book this sentence is the opl representation of the OPD let's take a moment for a very important side note the strength of OPM lies in its ability to facilitate ual Channel processing by grounding our understanding in both Visual and textual formalism simultaneously OPM enables us to engage our verbal and visual faculties at the same time giving you twice the brain power using all the cores of your CPU what do processes do to objects the answer is that processes transform objects but what does it mean for a process to transform an object transforming an object by a process means one of three possible things the process can create an object the process can destroy or consume an object and a process can affect an object for example reading yields one or more fleeting notes or ideas I use the term fleeting noes in reference to how to take smart nodes by zun arens the arrow I'm using here is a procedural link that represents input output and results in this case output the little plus sign next to the arrow is a participation con strain and denotes at least one in turn our note making process consumes at least one fleeting note and yields at least one note but what does it mean for a process to affect an object a process affects an object by changing its state so here we introduce in addition addition to objects and processes a third term which is State objects must therefore be stateful in other words they must have States thus we are talking about not just objects but stateful objects and processes that transform them for example a book can be unread or read and reading changes the book from unread to Red now let's shift gears and ask another question that we will need to answer later on what are the two complementary aspects from which any system can be viewed two important two key aspects the two key aspects are structure and behavior structure is the static aspect it answers the question question what is the system made of what are the parts and how are they related the second aspect the complementary aspect is the behavior it's the dynamic aspect that answers the question how does the system change over time what happens to the system and the objects in it so for example a knowledge base consists of at least one catalog many notes many connections and additional parts and a connection refers to two notes the solid black Arro head is a structural link and denotes aggregation or participation when readed in the other direction the horizontal line between the arroe head and the knowledge base denotes that the aggregation is not comprehensive if the line were not there we would assume the knowledge base only has these three components additionally refers to on the Arrow between connection and note is called a tag it is used to specify the nature of the relationship another example is the generalization structural relationship video blog and book are content and consuming generalizes reading and watching note that you could turn both of these sentences around thus I could have said content generalizes video blog and books and reading and watching are consuming generalization means that specialized element inherit the properties of the generalized element thus we can also say that content can be unknown or known and consuming changes content from unknown to known finally there is an aspect that is only relevant to man-made systems what is it well it's the function or utilitarian subjective aspect that answers the question why is the system built and for whom this question holds significance solely within the realm of man-made systems as opposed to Natural occurrences but I can imagine that by now your head is spinning we've covered a lot let's take a break and talk about learning languages similar to spoken languages there are different modeling languages as well just as you use different languages to communicate with different people you will use different modeling languages to represent different concepts for example bpmn for modeling business processes uml for software design Arc down for argument modeling Ibis for dialogue mapping or dmn for decision modeling just as there are many spoken languages there are many modeling languages however the good news is that you don't need to learn them all to navigate through life nonetheless you should at least learn one or two now if you have ever tried to learn a language you will know it's hard work but once you've learned it it opens doors to new cultures and perspective mastering a modeling language offers a gateway to new insights and understanding however learning a modeling language is not as hard as learning a foreign language but but it still takes effort now I don't want to bore you to death with my object process model of PKM I'm going to share a link to it so you can explore and edit it in exol draw I just want to highlight a few things before wrapping this video up first I want to clarify that I am also just learning OPM I have watched all the videos I could find and spent a good five six hours studying the Doris book but please take my model with a crane of salt I'm not a native OPD or opl speaker so my grammar vocabulary and accent are likely very rudimentary because of this I even created a dictionary for myself just as you would when learning a foreign language I will share a link to it in the video description I hope you find it useful second second you will notice that I have four big circles on the map this is opd's solution for zooming in and out to different levels of abstraction if the model becomes too complex you can zoom in or out to view it at different levels of detail on this map architecting curating gardening and authoring are the higher level processes this is how the model looks when I hide the details Within These circles to make this view even cleaner I slightly reorganized elements and hid some of the structural decompositions by removing the breakdown of a PKM framework and the specialization of content third this is not a flowchart while there are processes in syst systems real systems seldom operate in a sequential manner usually there are concurrent sometimes competing and maybe probabilistic activities however to get a sense of order the general rule is to read these models from top down finally to address the comment about the practicality of all of this let's discuss the architect librarian guard Gardener and writer within all of us based on my rudimentary OPM model it is clear to me that it is not a question of either or but rather these personalities playing in concert our journey in personal Knowledge Management starts with curating content much like a librarian organizing books but soon you'll realize the need to architect the system for storing notes and managing your backlog of content you've yet to explore this is where the architect in you takes charge as your library grows you'll find yourself gardening organizing sorting and connecting ideas then it's time to create the rer in new steps forward however these roles don't exist in isolation they are interconnected the diagramming and modeling techniques we've disc in recent videos are particularly helpful when your inner architect is at work in closing I hope you found this introduction to object process modeling helpful if you did please hit that like button subscribe and share your thoughts in the comments don't forget to check out the description below to find my dictionary and my OPD model of PKM in case you were wondering I Ed the exol draw plugin in obsidian MD to create the illustrations for this video as well as to run the slideshow while there are many dedicated diagramming and modeling tools out there the unique combination of free form illustration and Link notes offered by the excal and obsidian combo makes this my tool of choice for visual PKM I'll include links in the description to my plug-in as well as to my video about the slideshow script that I'm using additionally there is a free OPM modeling tool called opcat available the tool is a bit dated as it requires Java runtime environment and you will need to Google for opcat download since the download link on the official website is broken however it is useful for learning the grammar I'll include the link to the official website in the description until next time thanks for watching this is jolt signing off

Channel: Zsolt's Visual Personal Knowledge Management

Views: 8,998

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Id: se7odslzd5U

Length: 16min 12sec (972 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 16 2024