The Straw Man Method
Note: by "straw man" in this article, we refer to the technique used in the context of problem solving and decision making – not “straw man” popularly exercised and used in a political concept.
A “straw man” is a draft version of something that a team can debate, pick apart, and improve. It is hypothesis-driven and enables an iterative process for getting to increasingly better solutions.
Straw Man can appear as initial hypothesis, a preliminary outline, or a simple, working model of a worksheet in excel. This initial work makes it easy for a team to engage in discussion about a draft version of something rather than debating it in abstract.
The intent is never for the straw man to be the ultimate answer – instead, it is a tool to help get to the best answer. Arguments and ideas that arise from the straw man provide valuable feedback that inform and improve the final answer.
Without a straw man you may end up having a lack of common understanding of a problem, or potential solutions results in miscommunication, frustration, and wasted effort; or, your team ends up stuck in the brainstorming phase without making progress toward a solution.
Without a straw man to test and discard, teams could end up wasting valuable time developing and refining solutions that are suboptimal or incorrect
How to use the Straw Man Method –
Present your solution or proposal as a rough draft
Make sure your straw man is highly preliminary and meant to be picked apart or built upon
As feedback comes, iterate on your initial idea; discard or improve the straw man
Don't over-invest time and effort – it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of time and effort fine-tuning and polishing a straw man as it merely serves as a jumping off point for the more correct and right solution or proposal.
If you find yourself defending your straw man too vigorously, take a step back and make sure you're arguing for the hypothesis and not for your own work – the straw man is meant to be attacked and picked apart; either so it can be discarded or so that it can be improved.
The straw man is preliminary, incomplete, and possibly incorrect. Sometimes, the most successful straw man is the one that gets discarded but adds tremendous value by revealing where the answer is NOT.
Often, the best arguments against a straw man end up being or leading to the actual solution.