The Importance of Closing Loops and Concept Maps in Personal Knowledge Management

The Importance of Closing Loops and Concept Maps in Personal Knowledge Management

Closing loops is a deceptively simple idea that comes from the work of quality control pioneer W. Edwards Deming. However, in business execution, it can be difficult to see activities as a loop and see it through to the end. Incomplete execution loops are a graveyard of wasted execution time. The PDCA cycle is a scientific problem-solving system that interacts with the sunk cost fallacy in weird ways. Toyota and other lean manufacturing companies propose that an engaged, problem-solving workforce that uses PDCA in a culture of critical thinking is better able to innovate and stay ahead. In applying PDSA, there is no trick, but rather, the org must close the loops it starts.

Concept maps are a hidden gem in personal knowledge management. They have advantages not seen in representation systems such as The Brain or Obsidian graphs. Concept maps are good for associative knowledge and mind walking. They have three essential advantages over other graph-based knowledge tools. First, the map is designed and arranged by hand. Second, nodes can be arbitrarily complex with nested images and texts. Third, they allow tracking and mapping your knowledge horizon. The slow design process of concept maps and the fixed placement of the nodes and edges allows you to take a mental picture of the map.

The creation of concept maps is a powerful way to arrange concepts in a way that supports associative thinking. The slow manual process of constructing the maps allows you to think about the contents and capture your knowledge horizon. Concept maps are excellent for capturing and holding this knowledge horizon so that you can return to the known unknowns when you have time and need to dig further. Mr. Rumsfeld summarized the important idea of distinguishing between the known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. The work you put into your maps and the process around it will eventually come to represent your own knowledge discovery journey.

The importance of closing loops and concept maps in personal knowledge management cannot be overstated. Closing loops is essential to avoid wasting execution time, while concept maps are excellent for capturing and holding knowledge horizons. Both are powerful tools that can make a significant difference in personal and business growth. In essence, both closing loops and concept maps are systems that promote critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation. By using these systems, we can stay ahead of the competition and achieve our goals.