Tips and Tricks

Tips to make the best from Occam's Tree

Try the following:

1. Making decisions in a group
   
   Use Occam's Tree with a data projector in a team meeting when it comes to joint decision making. You will find that it is often much easier to come to a solution to which everybody can agree.
    

2. Avoid the Abilene Paradox
   
   Occam's Tree used in a workshop is also a good way to avoid the Abilene Paradox, a situation in which a group makes a decision which no group member really wants, but each member wants to respect unspoken (and actually not existent) wishes of the other workshop participants.
    

3. Hiding monetary drill-down data from unauthorized users
   
   Use external links to an Excel workbook if some of the monetary data should be visible for another person and some not. Remove the Excel source file and the other person will not have access to details laid down in them but will still be able to see the numbers in Occam's Tree.
    

4. Occam's Tree for sales staff
   
   We tried it out: Occam's Tree is a convincing tool if you have benefits to discuss for your customer and want to bring them to a Yes.
   
   If you are from sales and have good ideas in that direction, which can help us improving Occam's Tree--we may apply them in a future version. And give extra benefit to you with a free Full version license.
   
   Contact:
    

5. Need a viewer?

   • Occam's Tree Trial version is a perfect viewer for decision trees that should be opened by someone who does not have a Full license and does currently not want to buy one.
     
     Simply send them our download address

   www.visionarytools.com/downloads/OccamsTreeSetup.zip

   or the setup file found under this address.
   
   Do not send your personal Full mode license key to others!

   • You can alternatively use the function "Export picture..." from the file menu and send others a picture file in a standard format like gif, jpg or wmf.
      

   • Use your Web browser or another XML-aware software to view the source code of an otr file. It is simple XML!
      

6. Templates
   
   Come back to this site in a regular frequency and check for new templates. Or ask us if you need new ones to support you.
    

7. Copy as image
   
   A quick way to insert a tree into a Word, Powerpoint or another program's document is the menu Edit - Copy as picture.
   
   
   
   To insert this clipboard content, do not just Paste the copied picture, instead choose Paste special. This allows you to choose, which graphic format you want to use for insertion.
   
   
   
   Benefits:

   • Metafiles are easier to scale (shrink or enlarge).

   • Bitmaps can be better used on the Web.

© 2006, www.visionarytools.com Daniel & Oliver Lehmann, Munich, Germany