If you want to record your data in digital format, in order to email it to collaborators, here are two sets of templates you can choose from. Both work as data sources to the scripts that produce the mental model diagrams. Depending on your preference, you can choose either Microsoft Word or Excel.

Combing Templates

• Combing Template in Microsoft Word
• Combing Template in Microsoft Excel

Grouping Templates

• Grouping Template in Microsoft Word
• Grouping Template in Microsoft Excel

Use the combing templates to simply analyze one transcript at a time. Use the grouping templates to bring the analysis of several transcripts together into affinity groups. In the Word grouping document, I include several towers and tasks as examples. You will want to look at that document in View:Outline mode.

Word has a fabulous outline capability that beats Excel's, however it begins to break down as soon as you enter "too many" (100, 200?) headings. The wise engineers of this product had no idea we would use it in this manner, for data capture. The breakdown is not of the catastrophic type--merely opening and closing various levels that got "automatically expanded," and scrolling back to your working position will fix it. However, it can be annoying, which is why I use the Excel template and put up with the less-than-stellar grouping (outline) capability.

If you prefer to use a different vendor than Microsoft, please feel free to post your templates here for others to adopt. The scripts may need adjustment to deal with the new data source, as well.