Operating LogicA system for problem solving.

3.0
Concepts

"Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." — Immanuel Kant






Concepts collapse thinking into usable form. They are the visible structure that gives form to all the work you've done so far: the research you conducted, the insights you revealed, the connections you see.

Without concepts, your thinking remains loose, abstract, and difficult to share. With concepts, your thinking becomes testable. It becomes something others can pick up, shape, select, and act against. In the practice of structured problem-solving, concepts are one of the principal crescendos. They are the moment when insights tip into ideas, and ideas begin to take the shape of plans.

In the following, we’ll cover:

How to come up with a concept using what you’ve uncovered and how to evolve your concept into something clear, compelling, and buildable.




Why concepts matterThe power of concepts lies in compression. A concept pressurizes everything you've learned to date into a shareable unit of meaning. It provides a basic blueprint others can understand quickly — without having to absorb the full body of research that informed it.

Concepts make it possible to stack and organize multiple ideas into viable options. They allow teams to compare, select, and pursue the best future path. And they anchor future work with enough flexibility to adapt as new information comes in.

Every strong concept has its own unique footprint, just like an architectural drawing. When you create a concept, you are sketching the foundation for what could be built—giving others a sturdy structure to pour their energy into.



Concept formatAt its simplest, a concept can be communicated with three parts:

1 Insight: What we learned that changed our understanding.

2 Idea: The core proposal we're now making.

3 Action: The way we will move forward based on that idea.

Concepts may eventually carry more detail (full systems, frameworks, playbooks) but at their heart, strong concepts should be simple enough to explain, remember, and use.

The goal is to create an anchor point clear enough that everyone can hold onto it as the complexity of execution unfolds.




By Garrett HerzikPreviousNext