How to Make Toast

By: Nia Braccidiferro

One would assume that everyone thinks about making toast the same way, but they would be wrong. In the past week, I’ve been exposed to the method of “Draw How to Make Toast”, which was discovered by Tom Wujec. During a Ted Talk, he stated that when someone comes to him with a “wicked” problem, Wujec first asks them how they make toast.

Any sane person would question his motives, but he has a logical reason behind his question. The way people draw how they make toast reveals a lot about their thought process. Each drawing differs depending on the person drawing it. An engineer would focus more on the aspect of the toaster rather the toast itself, compared to someone who works in a field that is more oriented towards the aspect of people and their emotions. They would indicate that the person making the toast is the most important aspect of the entire process.

When we made our own versions in class, I was surprised by the results. Originally, I was expecting everyone’s drawings to look somewhat similar, but when we placed our drawings on the wall to be displayed, I noticed that only a few of them were similar to my own. I eventually found out that that was because we had similar majors and thought processes. The ones that were different from mine either had additional or fewer steps. Some drawings had detailed images, with fewer steps, due to the fact that their need for perfection took up most of their time.

A person’s values were easily visible through their work on this exercise. It was a very eye-opening experience. It taught me that not everyone around me thinks the same way I do. Tom Wujec said that this was an important thing to realize because combining people’s ideas in group notes allows for deeper levels to appear. And that is how new ideas form, from the thoughts of more than one brain.