Issue Map
OverviewHow it worksBackground
What is the Issue Map?
The Issue Map is a map that visualizes the complex issues surrounding a particular field and their structure. You start by writing out everything that is currently an issue in that field to make it visible, then connect their cause-and-effect relationships to organize what affects what and how, and what the essential issues are—turning the whole picture into a single map. Using the Issue Map, you can determine how issues should be solved within the overall system, and take the first step toward charting a path to a solution.
How the Issue Map works
How the Issue Map Was Born
The Issue Map has so far illustrated the structure of issues—organizing their cause-and-effect relationships—in areas where multiple issues intertwine to form one large social problem, such as the issues of nursing care, women's wellness, and specific regional issues. These diagrams are created on request; ZUKAI has helped with planning and facilitating workshops and with producing the diagrams. For example, in an effort to visualize regional issues, we actually traveled to the region, listened to the people involved, and built the diagram through repeated research. The Issue Map is not something you make once and are done with—it keeps changing. But by visualizing issues and making them open in this way, we hope it lays the groundwork, even a little, for discussions toward solving issues, and is used as a communication tool.
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