01 · Starting point
Implicit knowledge
Decades of judgement — bound to your person, documented nowhere, accessible to no one. Yet.
Decades · unretrievedProcedure · Tier I–III
Three phases.
One model.
Four decades of decisions have produced something in you that appears in no org chart, no handbook and no succession plan: judgement. We ask the right questions, long enough, in the right order — and build a model of your thinking from your answers.
Phase 01 — days 1–30 (Basic)
Elicitation
One single, precise question per day — where you already think: on your phone. Each question builds adaptively on your previous answers and drills where your experience is densest: critical decisions, misjudgements, grey areas, gut calls that proved right.
Phase 02 — in parallel
Structuring
Episodes become patterns. Your answers are methodically condensed into heuristics, decision rules, priority orders and edge cases — the actual scaffolding of your judgement, which you yourself would never have written down this way.
Phase 03 — from day 30
Modelling
The structured knowledge is turned into a machine-usable Mind Model: queryable in dialogue, integrable into your organisation, trainable on new situations. Your thinking — available even when you are not in the room.
Fig. 1 · The architecture of the method
02 · Days 1–30
Elicitation in series
One precise question per day on your phone — Critical Decision Method, laddering, boundary probes. Episode by episode.
30 days · 1 question / day03 · in parallel
Structuring
Episodes become patterns: heuristics, decision rules, edge cases — the scaffolding of your judgement.
Patterns, not anecdotes04 · Outcome
Mind Model
Your thinking as a machine-usable model: queryable in dialogue, integrable into your organisation — and in your possession.
Queryable · transferable · yoursFig. 1 — Externalisation of implicit knowledge with the mindmodels method. The daily short dialogue (Critical Decision Method, contrast & boundary probes, laddering) retrieves episodic experience; continuous condensation turns it into three modellable layers from which the personal Mind Model emerges. Method: Christopher Peterka, gannaca.
V·01The method canon — which techniques apply when
The serial dialogue rotates six elicitation techniques, each retrieving a different layer of decision knowledge:
- Cue capture (snap judgement): captures the pattern recognition of the first glance — what experts “see immediately” (recognition-primed decision, Klein).
- Expert–novice contrast: makes implicit cues explicit by asking what the inexperienced overlook.
- Premortem: retrieves risk heuristics through prospective hindsight (Klein 2007).
- Calibration: elicits thresholds and number sense — where does a judgement tip?
- Episode anchor: activates autobiographical experience along the Critical Decision Method (Klein, Calderwood & Macgregor 1989).
- Action simulation: captures process and network knowledge (“Your first three calls?”).
The order is no accident but a pre-defined, auditable protocol — questioning technique and time of day rotate almost orthogonally, so that patterns can be attributed cleanly.
V·02Chronometry — why the when of your answers counts too
The method works with elements of experience sampling (ecological momentary assessment, Shiffman et al. 2008): questions reach you at systematically varied times of day. Response latency, modality and length are read — with your knowledge and consent — as context signals.
This yields not only a picture of what you judge, but of when your judgement works analytically and when associatively. For the later model, that is gold: it also learns the operating conditions of your thinking.
V·03Quality criteria — what separates the method from a questionnaire
- Seriality: 30 days of daily dialogue beat any weekend retreat — consistency and contradictions become visible over time, not in a snapshot.
- Adaptivity: every question builds on all previous answers; the question engine calibrates itself to your way of thinking.
- Triangulation: episodes, heuristics and calibration values are checked against each other; the model adopts only what holds up more than once.
- Auditability: schedule, questioning techniques and condensation steps are logged — the provenance of every model component remains traceable.
- Review loop: you correct the emerging model — it learns from your objection (member checking).
The gallery
No two Mind Models are alike.
What does judgement look like when you make it visible? Four models, four entirely different architectures — because a dealmaker thinks differently from a negotiator, a portfolio strategist differently from a crisis decision-maker. The sculptures show what the method retrieves: the structure, density and pathways of a thinking that is unique in each case.
The Dealmaker
A dense web of relationships, few but highly resilient nodes: opportunities are recognised through people, not lists.
The Negotiator
Layered scenarios, each level a trajectory: positions, fallback positions, exit points — transparent down to the last resort.
The Portfolio Strategist
A grid with weighted intersections: capital, time and attention flow to where nodes condense.
The Crisis Decision-Maker
A compressed core — and always three ways out: whoever leads through crises thinks in options first, causes second.
Fig. 2 — Four architectures of judgement. Artistic materialisations of real model types from the mindmodels workshop. Your model will look different — that is the point.
Two ways in — one costs €490, the other a conversation.
The Probe is the small proof in seven days, fully credited towards Tier I. The mandate is the whole way: 30 days, one model, your property. For universities and organisations there is the Cohort Programme.