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- IDEA TREE TUTORIAL
- A PREVIEW OF THE DEMOS
-
- DEMO 1 - IDEA TREE COMMAND STRUCTURE
- Take a walk through a tree which shows you all of the actual
- IDEA TREE commands, including a quick reference explanation
- for each. DEMO 1 also shows you how to use this command
- tree as an on-line "help" reference.
-
- DEMO 2 - A BRIEF TUTORIAL ON IDEA ANALYSIS
- Starting with the idea "throw a lawn party", this tutorial
- takes you through the steps of developing, copying and
- moving a tree, and lets you get some "hands-on" experience
- with the program.
-
- DEMO 3 - A BUSINESS FUNCTIONAL DECOMPOSITION
- IDEA TREE has unlimited applications to your business
- activities: job descriptions, business operations
- management, organizational structure and even data
- processing requirements definition. DEMO 3 is a
- decomposition of an administrative business function and the
- creation of a job description from this decomposition.
-
- DEMO 4 - CORPORATE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
- The trees involved portray the functional responsibilites of
- corporate MIS, and the structure of an organization to carry
- out those responsibilities.
-
-
- USING THE DEMOS
-
- We'll assume that you've gotten through the installation
- process safely and now you're ready to go. You do not have
- to work through all four demos. However, we suggest that
- you complete Demos 1 and 2 before going ahead on your own.
-
- In the demo instructions, the command keys to be pressed are
- enclosed in single brackets, <>, and separated by commas.
- You only need to press the first letter of a command. Upper
- case and lower case command letters have the same effect.
- Words to be typed at the keyboard are enclosed in square
- brackets, []. Type only the word or command letter, not the
- brackets.
-
- The arrow keys, which are cursor movement commands, and the
- "home, "end", "enter" and "escape" keys, are represented as
- follows:
-
- <RT> - right arrow
- <LT> - left arrow
- <UP> - up arrow
- <DN> - down arrow
- <ENTER> - carriage return
- <ESC> - escape
- <HOME> - home
- <END> - end
-
-
- QUITTING IDEA TREE
-
- 1 - Press <G>o to, <E>xit.
-
- 2 - Read the message on the screen and press <ENTER>
- or <ESC>.
-
-
- STARTING IDEA TREE
-
- If you are using a hard disk system:
-
- 1 - [CD\IDEA]; this gets you into the IDEA directory.
-
- 2 - [IDEA], <ENTER>; this loads IDEA TREE.
-
- With certain computers using DOS versions earlier than
- V.3.2, the main menu cursor may be hard to see or missing if
- you are not using a color monitor. In this case
-
- 1 - <G>o to, <E>xit, <ENTER>; this exits IDEA TREE.
-
- 2 - Type [IDEA B], <ENTER>; the program should load
- correctly.
-
- If you are using a floppy disk system, select the drive
- containing the IDEA TREE diskette, and then proceed as
- above.
-
- In the following demos, the IDEA TREE files you will be
- using should be either in the IDEA directory on a hard disk
- system, or on the IDEA TREE floppy diskette.
-
-
- DEMO 1
- IDEA TREE COMMAND STRUCTURE
-
- IDEA TREE provides a set of commands which are easy to learn
- and use. Some of these commands allow you to create ideas
- as they naturally occur during the thought process. Other
- commands then allow you to rapidly rearrange these ideas
- into a logical sequence of thoughts and actions. Commands
- are grouped under main command names on the main menu
- depending on the common functions shared by each group. For
- instance, selecting the <R>emove command from the main menu
- pops down a submenu of commands which specify what can be
- removed.
-
- The DEMO1 tree file contains only one tree, which has been
- titled "HELP". This is a complete breakdown of the IDEA
- TREE command structure. Each idea you of this tree is a
- brief explanation of a command used in IDEA TREE, with an
- attached note providing a more detailed explanation of the
- command. You can use this tree for on-line help by loading
- it into your computer's memory when you start IDEA TREE, or
- at any point during an IDEA TREE session. You can then work
- on your own trees and refer to this "command tree" whenever
- you need help remembering what a certain command does.
-
- To look at the "command tree" and get used to using it,
- follow the steps outlined below.
-
- 1 - [DEMO1], <ENTER>; loads the DEMO1 file and
- displays the first page of its tree.
-
- What you have here is a quick reference to the complete set
- of IDEA TREE commands. You may either print this tree and
- its notes to use as a hardcopy quick reference, or load it
- into memory when using IDEA TREE as an on-line quick
- reference.
-
- To print the HELP tree:
-
- 1 - Turn your printer on. Make sure it is loaded with
- 8 1/2" x 11" continuous feed paper and that the
- print head is lined up with the top of a page.
-
- 2 - <P>rint, <T>ree, <ENTER>; the entire tree will be
- printed. For more information about tracking your
- way through the printed tree, see Section III.8.
- <P>rint in the user's manual.
-
- Moving Through The Tree
-
- The highlight you see over the words "Go to" on the top left
- of the display is called the main menu cursor. To move the
- main menu cursor from one command to another, either press
- the <TAB> key or press <SHFT> and <TAB> simultaneously. You
- can select a command from the main menu by either moving the
- highlight to the command and pressing <ENTER>, or simply
- pressing the first letter of the command.
-
- The highlight you see over the top idea, "IDEA TREE command
- structure", is called the idea cursor. To move the idea
- cursor around the tree, just press the arrow keys.
-
- Many of the ideas in this tree feature a small letter "n" in
- their lower right border. This "n" indicates that there is
- a page of text attached to a particular idea.
-
- Let's display a "note":
-
- 1 - <DN>; this moves the idea cursor from the top idea
- to the furthest left idea on the next level down.
-
- 2 - <E>dit, <N>ote; a page of text is displayed. If
- you select these commands when the idea cursor is
- over a position which does not feature an "n", a
- blank page will be displayed.
-
- 3 - <ESC> or <ENTER>; pressing <ESC> returns you to the
- previous tree display without saving any changes
- you may have made to the note. Pressing <ENTER>
- returns you to the previous tree display, but any
- changes you may have made to the note are saved.
-
- The tree is organized to represent the actual structure of
- IDEA TREE's commands. The the first level of the tree (the
- page "root"), describes the general concept of the whole
- tree. The second level, reading from left to right, briefly
- describes each of the main menu commands in the order in
- which they appear on the main menu. The third level,
- reading from top to bottom, briefly describes the sub
- commands available for each main menu command. The attached
- notes provide a more detailed explanation of each command.
-
- To use the HELP tree for on-line help:
-
- 1 - After starting up IDEA TREE, load the DEMO1 file
- into memory just as described above. You can then
- load other files and display the trees you want to
- work on, or create and display new trees and
- files.
-
- 2 - Press <G>o to, <T>ree; this displays the
- list of currently loaded trees. Select the
- tree at the top of the list. The tree at the top
- of the list will be the HELP tree if it is the
- first tree you load after starting IDEA TREE.
-
- Go on to the next demo.
-
-
- DEMO 2
- A BRIEF TUTORIAL ON IDEA TREE ANALYSIS
-
- Most ideas worth thinking about have some degree of
- complexity. The objective of idea tree analysis is to
- organize this complexity by identifying its component
- pieces. Such an organization is called a "decomposition".
- As you carry out this process, one of the things you
- discover is that the process itself leads you to new ideas
- about the idea you're decomposing.
-
- Let's suppose we want to throw a lawn party. Here are some
- of the things that come immediately to mind:
-
- invite guests
- arrange food and drink
- arrange music
-
- 1 - <F>ile, <L>oad; a field for file name entry
- appears on the screen.
-
- 2 - [DEMO2],<ENTER>; loads a file named DEMO2.
-
- 3 - <G>o to, <T>ree; displays a menu that lists the
- titles of all trees in this file. The list looks
- like this:
-
- FILE TITLE DESCRIPTION
-
- DEMO1 COMMANDS Idea Tree command structure
- HELP Idea Tree command structure
- DEMO2 Lawn Party decomposition analysis tutorial
- step 1 lawn party
- step 2 *invite guests
- step 3 *invite guests
- step 4 *invite guests
-
- The line, "DEMO2, lawn party, decomposition", etc., shows
- you the DOS file name of the newly loaded file - "DEMO2",
- the title we have given the file - "Lawn Party", and a brief
- description of the contents of the file, "decomposition
- analysis tutorial". The next line, beginning with the
- words, "step 1", is the title and description of the first
- tree in the DEMO2 file.
-
- The DEMO2 file contains four trees altogether, "step 1",
- "step 2", "step 3" and "step 4". These trees were created
- to illustrate each stage of the demo tree development.
-
- 1 - <DN>; moves the bar cursor. Press <DN> until the
- cursor is over the tree title "step1".
-
- 2 - <ENTER>; selects and displays this tree.
-
- The tree now displayed has been titled "step1". In this
- tree, the food and drink item has been split into "provide
- food" and "provide drink". The result is that the second
- level of the idea has four sub ideas, and each of these,
- obviously, will have further sub ideas of its own.
-
- Let's think some more about the first one, "invite guests".
- This calls for making up a guest list, getting invitations
- and then mailing them. We'll use IDEA TREE to show you how
- each stage of the tree development might look.
-
- The "step 2" tree shows the breakdown of the "invite guests"
- idea. Select <G>o to <T>ree to display the "step 2" tree.
-
- Now select <G>o to <T>ree to display the "step 3" tree.
- This will take you to the tree titled "step3", where you can
- see that the process has been carried a step further; the
- guest list idea has been broken down into three sub ideas,
- two of which you can see on the screen. The arrow near the
- bottom of the screen indicates that there are additional
- ideas under "make up guest list" besides the two you can
- see.
-
- The single idea at the top of your screen is the root idea
- for this "invite guests" tree. The three ideas below it
- form the second level of the tree. The ideas under "make up
- guest list" are at the third level. Any ideas below these
- will be at the fourth level, and so on.
-
- An idea tree can consist of any number of levels, limited
- only by your imagination and your computer's available
- memory. To display the tree, IDEA TREE shows you three
- levels at a time, consisting of the top idea, or root, and a
- second and third level of ideas. These make up a page.
- What you are looking at now is a page root idea (page level
- 1), three page level 2 ideas, and two page level 3 ideas.
-
- This page actually has three ideas at page level 3. The
- arrow at the bottom of the screen tells you that there are
- more ideas at this third level. Press <DN> four times to
- scroll the display and move the idea cursor down to the
- third idea on level 3.
-
- Let's take this process through one more step - "send the
- cards". This idea is on the right side of your screen at
- page level 2. This calls for getting addresses, writing
- invitations, and addressing the envelopes.
-
- 1 - <G>o to, <T>ree; displays the list of trees in
- this file.
-
- 2 - <DN>; Press <DN> until the bar cursor is over the
- tree title "step4".
-
- 3 - <ENTER>; selects and displays this tree.
-
- The level 3 ideas under "send the cards" express these
- actions. The first level 3 idea is "get addresses". Some
- of these addresses will come from Joan, some from yourself
- and some from the office. The arrow to the right of this
- idea box tells you that there are sub ideas for it.
-
- 1 - <END>, <DN>; this moves the idea cursor to "get
- addresses".
-
- 2 - <RT>; this moves you to a new page that repeats
- the "get addresses" idea as its root, and then
- shows the next level of the overall tree. The
- three ideas at this level detail the sources for
- the addresses.
-
- 3 - <UP> to return to the parent page.
-
- The next idea at page level 3 under "send the cards" is
- "write the invitations & addresses". If it's a big party
- you may need help, so let's list the manpower as a set of
- sub ideas for "write the invitations & addresses".
-
- 1 - Press <DN>; moves the cursor down to the idea
- "write the invitations and addresses".
-
- 2 - Press <N>ew, <R>ight; creates a new page, displays
- the parent idea as the page root, creates a new
- idea position and enters the edit mode.
-
- Let's include the names of people who might help:
-
- 1 - [Joan], <ENTER>; the name Joan is displayed in the
- new idea box.
-
- 2 - <N>ew, <R>ight; creates a new idea position, and
- enters the edit mode.
-
- 3 - [Adrian], <ENTER>; the name Adrian is displayed
- in its new box.
-
- 4 - Press <N>ew, <R>ight, [yours truly], <ENTER>.
-
- You should now be looking at a list of helpers. Now let's
- see where we are. Type:
-
- 1 - <G>o to, <R>oot; this moves the idea cursor to the
- top of the "invite guests" tree.
-
- "invite guests" is one of the major components of our
- overall idea, and what you see is the top three levels of
- its development into sub ideas representing clearly defined,
- do-able actions. You can only see three levels at a time,
- but the small arrows on the display show you where to move
- the idea cursor to see the rest.
-
- But what about the bigger picture? "invite guests" is just
- one part of the "lawn party" idea tree. Therefore, let's
- put this tree into that one so we can see "invite guests" in
- the context of the "lawn party" idea.
-
- 1 - <G>o to, <T>ree; this takes you back to the list
- of all trees in memory.
-
- 2 - <DN>; press <DN> until the bar cursor is moved
- over the "step 1" tree title, which is where our
- lawn party idea started out.
-
- 3 - <ENTER>; the "step 1" tree is displayed.
-
- Now let's move the detail of the "step 4" tree into the
- "step 1" tree.
-
- 1 - <DN>; moves the cursor to the "invite guests" idea
- box.
-
- 2 - <T>ree, <P>lace; selects the Tree Place function,
- and displays all of the trees that are available.
-
- You might notice that the tree we're in (it's
- called "step1") isn't shown, because you can't
- place a tree into itself. Another point: the two
- trees, "step2" and "step3" don't have anything to
- do with solving the problem. They're only in this
- file to show the creation of a tree, one step at a
- time. The tree we want to place into our "lawn
- party" tree is "step4".
-
- 3 - <END>; moves the bar cursor to the tree "step4" at
- the bottom of the list.
-
- 4 - <ENTER>; selects the tree "step4" for placement.
- You now are returned to the original tree
- ("step1") and questioned as to whether you want to
- move or copy the selected tree ("step4").
-
- 5 - <M>ove; moves all of the ideas of the selected
- tree into a new position to the right of the
- cursor, where it becomes a sub idea of "lawn
- party". It also erases the tree "step4" from
- memory. You can check that out by pressing <G>o
- to <T>ree; "step4" is no longer in the list of
- trees. Press <ESC> to return to where we were.
-
- There are many ways of merging and combining trees in IDEA
- TREE. The one we have just used duplicated the "invite
- guests" idea. The next two steps fix that:
-
- 6 - <LT>; moves the idea cursor to the duplicate
- "invite guests" idea.
-
- 7 - <R>emove, <P>osition; removes this idea, box and
- all.
-
- Idea decomposition analysis is like brainstorming: something
- interesting comes up, you make a note of it, develop it a
- little, then let it sit while you go on to another part of
- the problem. Periodically, you merge the pieces into a
- larger whole.
-
- The process not only suggests further detail, but as you
- work you will see that certain ideas are more or less
- important than you first thought; that groups of ideas need
- to be relocated; subsets within groups need rearranging; and
- so on.
-
- There are three basic components to an idea:
-
- 1 - the action
- 2 - the object of the action
- 3 - responsibility for carrying it out
-
- Try to make your tree reflect an orderly progression down to
- a level of detail where each of these elements are
- inarguably specific, either separately or in combination.
-
- With this in mind you'll find that you can use IDEA TREE to
- create, structure, analyze and document reports, books,
- catalogs, projects and processes, business procedures,
- organizational structures, job analyses, functional
- decompositions, database planning, system
- architecture...there's really no limit.
-
- At this point you should have a basic understanding of some
- of the main commands and uses of IDEA TREE. If you like,
- you can stop at this point in the tutorial and plunge into
- creating your own trees.
-
- If you want to go on to the next demo:
-
- 1 - <R>emove, <F>ile; a message pops up asking if you
- want to remove the currently displayed file.
-
- 2 - [Y]; the list of trees in memory is displayed. At
- this point, only the DEMO1 file should still be in
- memory. You must select the tree in the file.
-
- 3 - <ENTER>; the HELP tree is selected and displayed.
-
- 4 - <F>ile, <L>oad, [DEMO3]; the DEMO3 file is loaded.
-
- 5 - <G>o to, <T>ree, <DN>, <ENTER>; the tree list is
- displayed. Move the bar cursor to the first tree
- in the DEMO3 file with the <DN> arrow key and
- press <ENTER>. The tree is displayed.
-
-
- DEMO 3
- A BUSINESS FUNCTIONAL DECOMPOSITION
-
- This tree describes a specific business activity,
- "Administrative functions". We can use this tree to define
- jobs for individuals in the organization responsible for
- this activity. The second level of the tree is a good place
- to begin, since it implies some individual organizational
- elements. One possible job involves the management of
- billing. Let's create a job description from this
- organizational description:
-
- 1 - With the arrow keys, move the idea cursor to the
- "Manage Billing" idea on level 2.
-
- 2 - <T>ree, <D>efine, <B>ranch; this defines the
- "Manage Billing" idea and its dependent children
- so that they can be manipulated separately from
- the rest of the tree.
-
- 3 - <C>opy; a tree title page is displayed.
-
- 4 - [Billing Manager], <ENTER>. The defined branch is
- copied into its own tree under this title.
-
- 5 - Press <G>o to <T>ree. This takes you to the list
- of available trees. Move the bar cursor to
- "Billing Manager" with the arrow keys and press
- <ENTER>.
-
- The "Billing Manager" tree is now displayed. This is a copy
- of the branch we defined in the original "Admin functions"
- tree. Since this is a separate tree, we can modify and
- reorganize it without affecting the "Admin functions" tree.
- You can look at a modified version of this tree in
- "DEMO3.1".
-
- 1 - <G>o to, <T>ree; the tree list is displayed.
-
- 2 - <DN>; move the bar cursor to "demo 3.1".
-
- 3 - <ENTER>; the tree is loaded.
-
- This is a copy of the "Billing Manager" tree which has been
- changed into a job description. The first step was to
- modify the root idea to read "Manage Billing Operations".
- Next, we recast the invoicing and credit functions into a
- context that reflects the tasks required to manage their
- execution. Finally, we added some jobs that reflect the
- fact that there is a management to which this manager
- reports.
-
- Now let's put this job description into its own file.
-
- 1 - <T>ree, <F>ile create; the tree titled "demo 3.1"
- has been moved from the "DEMO3" file into a file
- of its own.
-
- 2 - <G>o to, <T>ree; as you can see, this new file has
- no name, title, or description.
-
- 3 - <ESC>; the "demo3.1" tree is displayed again.
-
- 4 - <E>dit, <F>ile title, [Job Descriptions], <DN>;
- the file title page is displayed. Type in the
- file's name and move the bar cursor to the data
- entry field next to "FILE NAME".
-
- 5 - [jobs], <ENTER>; the file has been given the name
- "jobs". The first tree of this file, "demo 3.1",
- is redisplayed.
-
- The new file name now appears in the upper left hand corner
- of the main menu.
-
- 1 - <F>ile, <S>ave; you are asked if you want to edit
- the file title.
-
- 2 - <N>, <ENTER>; the tree will be saved to disk as a
- new file called JOBS.TNS.
-
- You can reload this file in a later IDEA TREE session by
- selecting the proper directory with the <F>ile <N>ew path
- command, followed by the <F>ile <L>oad command using the
- file name [JOBS].
-
- If you want to go on to the next demo:
-
- 1 - <R>emove, <F>ile; a message pops up asking if you
- want to remove the currently displayed file.
-
- 2 - [Y]; the list of trees in memory is displayed. At
- this point, only the DEMO1 file should still be in
- memory. You must select the tree in the file.
-
- 3 - <ENTER>; the HELP tree is selected and displayed.
-
- 4 - <F>ile, <L>oad, [DEMO4]; the DEMO4 file is loaded.
-
- 5 - <G>o to, <T>ree, <DN>, <ENTER>; the tree list is
- displayed. Move the bar cursor to the first tree
- in the DEMO4 file with the <DN> arrow key and
- press <ENTER>. The tree is displayed.
-
-
- DEMO 4
- CORPORATE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
-
- Today, most large organizations experience the need to
- acquire, organize, support and manage data and information
- systems at a corporate level.
-
- The "DEMO4" tree file contains two trees: the first
- describes the functional needs of corporate information
- management for a company, and the second describes the
- organizational structure needed to carry out these
- functional responsibilities.
-
- If you are involved in corporate data management, you should
- be able to modify this tree to fit your needs.
-
- Once you have the functions defined to a suitable level of
- detail, you can turn to the question of an organization to
- support it.
-
- 1 - <G>o to, <T>ree; the list of trees is displayed.
-
- 2 - <DN>; press <DN> to move the bar cursor to "Corp.
- MIS Organization".
-
- 3 - <ENTER>; the second tree is now displayed.
-
- By cycling back and forth between these two trees, you can
- see how the intimate relationship between function and
- organization can be easily forged using IDEA TREE.
-
- As a final thought, if you construct a file of job
- description trees for the jobs implied in "Corp. MIS
- Organization" and then load that file with this one, you
- will have a three-way relationship between function,
- organization and job description.
-