There a lot of groups that really see the details. They tend to isolate ideas and make often logical separations. Most of the time, people see the relationships when they go through the titling process.

One consideration is the number of items of data you get on the board. Once you go over about 60, you're going to start getting variations of a single idea. It's inevitable. In order for them to avoid examining the minute sublties, they need a common way of relating ideas - a common pivot point to provide a rationale for clustering.

The pivot point is always your focus question. It gets specific according to the kind of information you're processing. For vision, it's common intent. For contradictions - common underlying barrier - for strategy - common action thrust.

It's important to go over this with the group. The focus question is the pivot point all the way through - the brainstorm question - the clustering rationale - the title of each column answers the focus question in a unique way. All this is part of the context. Without it, you end up with multiple unstated clustering rationales. It makes workshops difficult.

You may see connections and a higher level gestalt. You can, in order to help the group gain clarity say something like, "It seems that theses two or three clusters are answering the focus question in very similar ways." Asking the question, "How does this cluster of ideas relate to this other one or these other two?" is one way to get them to see the connections.

They need the dialogue over these things in order to create meaningful patterns. Finally, if the group can only create that sense of common understanding with 13 columns, let it go. It's theirs. Your only problem is documenting it for them.

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