Shareware Overload/ShartewareOverload.cdr/busi/ideatree.zip/TUTORIAL.IT

Text File | 1989-04-07 | 24KB | 619 lines

                     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.