Vertical thinking

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Vertical thinking discussed here is in terms of managing projects as popularized by David Allen of David Allen Co.

"Vertical" thinking is: how do I detail out a single project, theme, or topic? Vertical thinking is the top-down (back-of-the-napkin) approach and is generally considered the creative part of an endeavor. If vertical thinking is all you ever had to think about, you could feel pretty comfortable with life- and go on creating plans and feel comfortable with the plans you had made- drawing upon them without interruptions. unfortunately life is more complicated than that and also requires some horizontal thinking. We believe you should outsource that.

Vertical thinking is about the "top down" view of a "purpose" or innovation. For example, when Sue and Russell invented the concept of Theme Zoom, it was "imagined" at 2:00 a.m. at a local Denny's restaurant and diagrammed out on a napkin and a place-mat. Vertical thinking is really about creating process maps and clear vision- hopefully from a very high view. Horizontal thinking will be necessary to make this intangible "plan" a reality.

See also horizontal thinking.

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