Conceptual Frameworks E-Book

Chinmay Kakatkar

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 117

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Conceptual Frameworks can help you structure complex analyses, make better decisions and deliver persuasive presentations. This is the first book of its kind to bring together the most common framework types in a single, quick and easy-to-use guide to framework-building. The framework types discussed in this book are: * Hierarchies (or tree diagrams) for drilling down into problems to identify key drivers. * Matrices (including the 2x2 matrix and larger multidimensional tables) for comparing factors and analyzing trade-offs. * Processes (linear and iterative) for mapping out and executing plans. * Relationships for representing transactions, membership, and causal and correlational links among people and other entities. In Conceptual Frameworks you will learn how to snap together a small set of "building blocks" (framework types and dimensions) to come up with useful frameworks for your particular situation. The concepts described in this book have been validated time and again in academia and industry in the past. The combination of straightforward explanations, examples of relatable real-life applications, prompts for the reader, and collection of top tips and further reading makes Conceptual Frameworks a practically relevant reference for everyone - from students that want to become more insightful and achieve better grades, to professionals that want to become more effective and boost their careers.

Leseprobe

Conceptual Frameworks

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKSDedicationTechnical Note on Reading this E-BookIntroductionPart I: A Three-Step ApproachChapter 1: Step One - Define the Framework’s ObjectiveChapter 2: Step Two - Identify the Framework Type and DimensionsChapter 3: Step Three - Combine the Framework Type and DimensionsPart II: Framework Types and DimensionsChapter 4: Hierarchical FrameworksChapter 5: Matrix FrameworksChapter 6: Process FrameworksChapter 7: Relational FrameworksChapter 8: Framework DimensionsPart III: Over to YouChapter 9: Top Tips for Making Conceptual FrameworksChapter 10: Supplementary ReadingAfterword and AcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorCopyright

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

A Guide to Structuring Analyses,

Decisions and Presentations

Chinmay Kakatkar

BoD – Books on Demand Verlag

Dedication

To my parents

Technical Note on Reading this E-Book

This e-book is an EPUB document. EPUB documents can be viewed on a variety of devices using a number of apps. However, some of the detailed figures in this e-book may be best viewed on larger screens. At the time of publishing, an optimal reading experience was achieved by viewing this e-book on a laptop screen, PC monitor, and a 10-inch tablet using Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/), a free and cross-platform software that can be used to read EPUB documents.

Introduction

Frameworks are everywhere. If you are reading this book, there is a good chance that you have already come across a framework at some point in your life so far – and it is hardly surprising. A framework is basically a tool for organizing things. A lot of the things we do in our personal and professional lives need to be organized in some way, and frameworks can help us do just that.

This book is specifically aboutconceptual frameworks, which are essentially analytical structures for representing abstract concepts. It is a lot less scary than it may sound. Think of all the times that you (could) have considered the “benefits and risks” or the “short-term and long-term consequences” before deciding to do something. These are common examples of high-level, conceptual frameworks that we can use in order to structure our thoughts better and improve our decision-making. Of course, we may often use simple frameworks without explicitly pointing them out. In fact, you are only likely to hear people actually use the word “framework” in a work-related environment, where it may be especially important to describe – and defend – your thought process.

The great thing about conceptual frameworks is that they can help you turn abstract thoughts that exist in your mind into concrete, tangible products that other people can see and appreciate. This can be especially important for the so-called “knowledge workers” among us, whose jobs involve collecting, analyzing and deriving conclusions from data. If you are reading this book, you are probably also a knowledge worker. To paraphrase the famous management guru Peter Drucker, “it is data that enables knowledge workers to do their job”, but it is the ability to meaningfully organize this data that leads to a job well done. As such, conceptual frameworks may be relevant to you on roughly four levels:

Understanding frameworks:

At the most basic level, you should be able to understand the frameworks that someone else presents. You could be sitting in a classroom at school, or a meeting at work, when someone presents a framework. Rather than getting confused and tuning out, you should be able to at least get the gist of the framework and have some appreciation of its relevance to the point that the presenter is trying to make.

Applying frameworks:

At the next level, merely understanding frameworks may not be enough – you may be required to actually apply them. Perhaps you have to make a strategic decision, write a report, or deliver a presentation to an audience. Using an existing framework can help you structure your decisions and make your communication more effective.

Evaluating frameworks:

At a more advanced level, you may have to critically evaluate a framework. This could happen when you are checking over some else’s work to ensure that their arguments make sense. You could also be looking at different frameworks, and have to choose the one that best fits your current needs.

Building frameworks:

Finally, at an even higher level, you may find the need to actually build a framework yourself. Maybe the existing frameworks are not directly applicable to your particular situation, or maybe coming up with a new, custom framework is your task in itself.

The aim of this book is to provide you with an easy-to-understand guide to building conceptual frameworks. Ideally, in the process of learning how to build frameworks, you should also become better at understanding, applying and evaluating frameworks. The next sections of the book are structured as follows. In Part I, you will see a simple, three-step approach to building conceptual frameworks. In brief, the three steps are:

1. Defining the framework’s objective

2. Identifying the right building blocks (i.e., the framework type and the framework dimensions)

3. Putting the building blocks together in an effective manner to answer the framework’s objective

These steps form an iterative process, and you may find yourself cycling through them a few times before you get the framework just right. In the author’s experience, the three-step approach has proven itself in numerous real-life scenarios across academia and industry. For example, students and researchers can use the approach to structure their coursework and analyses (e.g., as essays, reports, or presentations), while managers in industry can also benefit from the flexibility afforded by the approach to frame strategic problems and justify their decision-making.

Part II covers Steps 2 and 3 (identifying and combining the building blocks of the framework) in more detail, since this can be especially overwhelming for those who have little practice in making frameworks.I understand what the framework is supposed do, they might say,but how should I actually lay it out? Is it a matrix, a tree, a flowchart? What should the dimensions of the framework represent? And how do I put it all together?There are different options to choose from and combine, but few resources out there that cut through the noise and tell you how it can be done. As such, the focus of Part II is on the most common framework types and dimensions that can be used to structure the vast majority of analytical projects in practice.

Finally, Part III rounds off the book by leaving you with a set of top tips for building conceptual frameworks that serve your current situation and can also be reused in the future. These tips are really a consolidation of the things you will have learned throughout the previous sections of the book. Additionally, Part III also includes a curated list of resources for further reading. These resources might cover a particular framework type or dimension in more detail, or the process of framework-building more generally, or they might be a repository of frameworks that are especially well-known in practice.

At the time of writing, this is possibly the first book of its kind to bring together different framework types and dimensions in a single, coherent discussion about framework-building. The combination of simple explanations of concepts and examples of real-life applications pitched at a broad audience (including students and professionals across domains) also makes this book a practically relevant piece of reference.

Of course, just reading this book will not immediately make you a pro at building frameworks – for that, you will have to actually start applying the things covered in this book to your own setting. To help you along, each chapter in Parts I and II (the meat of the book) is structured with the practical application in mind. Each chapter starts with a brief overview of the concept being discussed, keeping the language as simple as possible. Next, we “get real” and explain the concepts using real examples to help you see how they can actually be applied, as well as their benefits and limitations. Finally, each chapter ends with a summary of the key takeaways, and a set of questions prompting the reader to think of applications in their own setting. The aim is to help you quickly understand the basic principles and get you thinking about how you can use them in your own work.

Part I: A Three-Step Approach

Chapter 1: Step One - Define the Framework’s Objective

Overview

The first step in building a useful conceptual framework is to define a clear objective for it. This will involve thinking about at least three fundamental questions:

1. What is the nature of the context in which you want to use a framework?

2. In concrete terms, what should the framework accomplish?

3. Do you need to build a new framework, or will an existing one suffice?

Before diving into framework-building, it is worth considering the nature of the context in which you want to use a framework. The construction of the framework should be tied to a higher goal, such as the completion of a project, the delivery of a speech, or the formulation of a decision. You should also always try to understand the key criteria for success in any given context; if these criteria are not known or explained to you at the outset, seek out this information proactively. For example, maybe the quality of the final product is more important than the speed of completion of your project, maybe your speech needs to appeal to laypersons rather than experts, and maybe flexibility is the most important thing about your decision. An appropriate framework can then be used to meet these success criteria.

Once you have properly understood the context in which you want to use the framework, you should think carefully about what the framework should accomplish in concrete terms. Do you need the framework to help make a decision? If so, the framework should be in a form that allows you to clearly identify the inputs needed to make the decision, run these inputs through the framework, and produce a suitable recommendation as an output. You should find out what the specific input and output variables will be. Is the framework meant to structure the flow of your argumentation in a report or a presentation? If so, the framework should enable the audience of your message to better appreciate what you have to say by leading them through your reasoning in a logical, systematic and persuasive manner.

Just because you need a framework does not mean that you have to build one yourself. In fact, in most cases, you can probably get away with using an existing framework. Academics, consultants and managers are constantly churning out new conceptual frameworks, and the chances are high that one or more of them will – at least in principle – be relevant to your situation. As the saying goes, you don’t need to “reinvent the wheel”. Reusing existing frameworks has benefits beyond the most obvious one of not having to start from scratch. If the framework has been around for some time, its main features, as well as its strengths and limitations, may be well-documented and tested in different settings. Such insights can help you to not only quickly understand how the framework works, but also get a sense of whether it is relevant to your specific needs.

Getting Real

Let us walk through two typical, real-life situations in which a conceptual framework can come in handy. For each situation, we will consider the three fundamental questions presented at the outset of this chapter. The first situation deals with the classic dilemma that managers face in sifting through several pieces of information to reach a go/no-go decision:

What is the nature of the context in which you want to use a framework?

For example, suppose you are the manager of a manufacturing plant, wondering whether to add a new piece of equipment to increase production capacity to meet a forecasted increase in long-term demand for the goods being produced. The success criteria of the decision (regardless of the framework used) may be standard indicators of plant performance (e.g., level of capacity utilization, speed of production, quality), and whether the investment in the new equipment leads to a net gain for the company as a whole by boosting sales.

In concrete terms, what should the framework accomplish?

For you as a plant manager, the framework will presumably boil down to a formula that describes the relationship between a set of input and outcome variables. The input variables might include costs of procuring, integrating and maintaining the new equipment in the plant, as well as the forecasted benefits (ranging from operational savings within the plant itself, to the ultimate growth in sales). The outcome variable may be typical of the calculus of investment decisions (e.g., the net present value, or the time to reach breakeven for the investment).

Do you need to build a new framework, or will an existing one suffice?

As you can probably guess based on the discussion of the previous question, there are some well-established frameworks for synthesizing the set of input variables of investment decisions to generate the outcome variables. For example, most of you who have done a course in finance will have encountered the so-called discounted cash flow (DCF) framework. Without going into the details, DCF lets you derive the net present value (NPV) of an investment by adding up the costs and benefits that may arise across the lifespan of the investment. If the NPV is above some positive threshold, then the investment may be worth making. Using DCF may involve making some simplifying assumptions (e.g., whether the costs and benefits will be constant every year), but it can still serve as a useful initial framework for making a go/no-go decision.

The next situation that we will look at has to do with the presentation of a decision, analysis or argument:

What is the nature of the context in which you want to use a framework?

Suppose that, as a plant manager, you have finally made the decision to invest in the new equipment. Your next challenge is to justify the investment decision to a committee that includes your boss and other higher-ups, who are in charge of jointly approving plant purchases. Key success criteria for a presentation framework in this scenario include objective clarity (the committee should understand the logic of your investment proposal), and strength of persuasion (the committee should be compelled to greenlight the investment).

In concrete terms, what should the framework accomplish?

To get a positive decision from the committee, you should think carefully about your message, audience, and delivery format. Part of your message may be about educating the committee on issues specific to your plant, while another part of the message may be about persuading the committee to invest now rather than later. How large is the committee and are the individual members well-informed about the situation? Is your pitch for the investment going to be delivered in person (e.g., a slideshow followed by a discussion), or does it need to be handed in as a report? By considering such questions, you can adjust the presentation framework accordingly.

Do you need to build a new framework, or will an existing one suffice?