The Outline of Doom

One of my professors in college (way back in 2002) was a huge practitioner of outlining. He suggested going through an entire book, writing down all the headings in a Word Document and then proceeding to fill in those headings as you read through the book. And, he made us do it twice. While this was a very effective method for understanding the contents of a book, I never did it again. Mainly because life stops when you get that involved with anything. While I've blogged about books, journaled about books, written letters to an author after every chapter of a book, I've never retried this very time tested version of outlining until today.

I've developed an interest in Business and Process Analysis. During my MBA, my class got really into SCOR Analysis, which is a way of reviewing supply chains. While my group used the method extensively for our project, I wanted to go a little more in depth. So, I ordered a similar book that would fit my particular field a bit closer, the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Guide). 

There is nothing Earth shattering about either of these two methods. They are simply ways of aligning thought processes between multiple people, across multiple cultures. If you already know how to think, getting a grasp of these communication skills, not necessarily any particular method, makes doing business, engineering, supply chain, or whatever a whole lot easier.

However, fitting my creative mind into a structure is like pounding a square peg into a round hole, so I got the book. And now, after years of resistance, I am about to do that time honored outlining method and hope it works just as well as I remember.