Rich Pictures
There are very few rules around the drawing of rich pictures. They are a free-form diagrammatic way of capturing the richness of a complex or ill defined situation. They seek to identify and link a series of concepts or states. The creation of a rich picture provides a forum in which to think about a given situation. Rich pictures should concentrate on both the structure and the processes of a given situation.
They may be drawn by an individual or a group. By having everybody in a group contribute to a rich picture they can be used to help develop a shared understanding of a given situation.
A simple rich picture of a personal loan application interaction. From “Blended learning: rich experiences from a rich picture”, Rupert Brown, June 2003, Training and Development in Australia.
Rich picture of vice in a London area, "Dealing with Complexity", Robert Flood and Ewart Carson, Plenum Publishing 1988.
And the rich picture for our Cellar Door:
Rich Picture of the Cellar Door.
A rich picture helps us describe and define a system - it also helps us to understand that system's boundary. This is a very important consideration because things outside the boundary of the system are often outside our control. We have to be aware of them, but often don't have much control over what they do.
For example, the Cellar Door has a supplier that sells terrine. It's great terrine, but the Cellar Door has little control over what that supplier does. They might decide one day to stop making terrine. The Cellar Door would have to deal with that change.
Another example - the Government sets tax policy for cellar doors. At the moment it is quite favourable. To encourage regional tourism, the tax the Cellar Door has to pay on wine it sells is less than that levied on sales from normal retail outlets. This works well for the Cellar Door. They can lobby the Government to keep the arrangement, but a change in Government may result in a change of policy. The tax policy is in the Cellar Door's operating environment. It has an effect on the Cellar Door, but it can't be directly controlled by the Cellar Door.