Problem Types01
Destroying the Myth of Brainstorming
Why brainstorming fails on the problems that matter, and what a structured method puts in its place.
Coming soonBlog
Deep dives.
One idea at a time.
Methodology essays, framework explainers, public-company case studies, and what is inside the Brain.
A few pieces live below, with more on the way.
Published
Live now. Read them all.
Every article we have published, in one place. Nothing here ever gets removed.
Problem Types01
Why Most Teams Solve the Wrong Problem
The difference between undefined, ill-defined, well-defined, and wicked problems. Why classification comes before methodology.
Read the articleProblem Types02
Say What the Solution Must Deliver, Not What It Is
The well-defined problem tells you what a solution must deliver, without ever naming the solution. A value proposition strong enough to make someone change.
Read the articleProblem Types03
Wicked Problems: When the Problem Fights Back
Rittel and Webber's 1973 insight is more relevant than ever. How MindrianOS handles problems that resist definition.
Read the articleFrameworks04
The Beam Nobody Has Won
Four rival directed-energy architectures are competing for the same job, and none has won yet. The US Army's own Enduring High Energy Laser program is a formal, dated competition to pick one. The narrative foil to the brick that won: this beam has not.
Read the articleFrameworks05
The Curve Doesn't Care What Runs It
A single technology rides an S-curve: slow start, steep middle, saturation ceiling. The exponential everyone quotes is a cascade of those curves, each new paradigm climbing before the last one flattens. Read your domain's S-curve before it flattens, while someone quietly starts the next one underneath you.
Read the articleFrameworks06
Dominant Design: The Brick That Won
Why one architecture quietly wins and everyone builds on it, from the 1958 LEGO coupling to the Nobel-winning molecule that learned the same trick. Then find your own field's dominant design.
Read the articleFrameworks07
Maybe a Tank Needs to Be an Ambulance
Battlefield medicine's dominant design is collapsing in real time: drones broke the golden hour's hidden assumption. Eras of ferment are when entrants win. Learn to spot the break in your field first.
Read the articleFrameworks08
The Great Horse Manure Crisis: When the Domain Dissolves
In 1894 the most serious urban problem in the world had an obvious trajectory and no solution. Then it vanished -- not because anyone solved it, but because a new technology dissolved the domain underneath it. The navigator's question: what is collapsing in your domain right now?
Read the articleFrameworks09
The Automobile Was the First Green Technology
By 1900 the city was drowning in horse manure, and the car arrived as the clean machine that saved it. Then it choked the city it rescued. The Futures Wheel, told through the most counterintuitive headline in tech history.
Read the articleFrameworks10
The Bag Was the Bottleneck
A vacuum's suction dies the moment the dust bag fills, and for a century everyone just built a bigger motor. The bag was the reverse salient. How James Dyson found the lagging component and deleted it, then find the one in your own system.
Read the articleCase Studies11
Ninja Got Rich on One-Star Reviews
SharkNinja did not invent the blender, the vacuum, or the air fryer. It industrialized the four PWS tools into an operating system: mine the one-star reviews, find the high-importance low-satisfaction step, attack the reverse salient (price, not performance), and out-engineer it at value. Then run the same move on your own category.
Read the articleCase Studies12
The Butterfly That Remembered
A 10-year-old in Kobe noticed a butterfly that seemed to remember him, and ended up cracking a century-old wall in biology. The real anatomy of a scientific eureka moment, mapped against modern insight neuroscience, and why the discovery needed a child to find it.
Read the articleCase Studies13
When Frameworks Intersect: Reverse Salient in the Wild
Annie Duke's quit framework, Astro Teller's tackle-the-monkey principle, and Thomas Hughes' Reverse Salient converge on the same insight about bottleneck identification.
Read the articleComing next
On the bench.
The pipeline, organized by series. These publish as they are written.
Series 01
Problem Types.
Why classification comes before methodology. Undefined, ill-defined, well-defined, wicked.
Series 02
Framework Deep Dives.
One framework, one essay. What it does, when to reach for it, what it produces.
Frameworks01
Trending to the Absurd: Push Until It Breaks
The most counter-intuitive framework in the PWS toolkit. Take any trend, extrapolate it to absurdity, find the innovation hiding in the extreme.
Coming soonFrameworks02
The Beautiful Question That Changes Everything
Warren Berger meets PWS methodology. How Why/What If/How sequencing unlocks problems nobody else is asking.
Coming soonFrameworks03
Six Hats, One Problem: Perspective as Technology
Edward de Bono's framework reimagined for AI-powered venture thinking. How Larry runs a six-perspective analysis in minutes.
Coming soonFrameworks04
Scenario Planning: Mapping Futures You Cannot Predict
From Shell's 1973 oil crisis success to your venture. How 2x2 uncertainty matrices prepare you for what is coming.
Coming soonSeries 03
Case Studies.
Public companies. PWS analysis. What the framework actually saw.
Case Studies01
How Warby Parker Found a Problem Worth Solving
A PWS analysis of Warby Parker's innovation journey. Domain selection, customer-job analysis, and the reverse salient nobody saw.
Coming soonCase Studies02
Netflix: Three S-Curves in 20 Years
DVD-by-mail, streaming, originals. How timing analysis explains Netflix's impossible reinventions.
Coming soonCase Studies03
LEGO: From Near-Bankruptcy to Platform Dominance
The tools-vs-platforms framework explains why LEGO's worst crisis became its greatest innovation.
Coming soonSeries 04
Inside the Brain.
What a teaching knowledge graph actually contains. How it was built. Why it matters.
The Brain01
What a Teaching Knowledge Graph Looks Like
How decades of classroom teaching became a knowledge graph. The architecture of methodology intelligence.
Coming soonThe Brain02
Why Framework Chaining Cannot Be Prompt-Engineered
FEEDS_INTO relationships discovered through observation, not theory. Why the Brain's chaining rules are the real moat.
Coming soonThe Brain03
Grading 100+ Real Projects: What the Data Shows
The calibration dataset behind MindrianOS grading. Grade distributions, common failure patterns, what separates A-work from C-work.
Coming soon