A sticky note is a small rectangular piece of paper that we can stick on a wall, and move around. It has three key characteristics — color, size, and stickiness.

And with just these three, they are a key tool of modern product, design and business strategy.

What makes sticky notes so special?

#1 Sticky notes help us capture new information quickly.

Writing something down on a sticky note gives us the ability to quickly capture a new piece of data or information we’ve gathered from the universe — whether it’s something a user said, an interesting idea we came across, or a simple reminder like “do laundry”.

By capturing this information, we get the time to make sense of and act on it without forgetting what it was. We do this naturally, like “do laundry”, goes right next to “pick up groceries”, or “pay the phone bill” — which goes into a list of “weekly chores”, that we’ll have to complete.

#2 They help us make sense of information efficiently.

We as species are visual thinkers — Half of the human brain is devoted directly or indirectly to vision (source). In fact, the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. ( source, source)

We make sense of new information by organizing it in the context of things we already know. The color and size of sticky notes help us differentiate and arrange the information, and their stickiness enables us to reorganize it.

The larger the set of information we’re working to process, the more dimensions we need to organize the data. Here’s an example from doing qualitative research:

Color: If you’ve just completed one user interview, you might want to take down everything positive they said on a green sticky note, everything negative on a red one, and everything neutral on a yellow one.

Size: And if you go on and do another five of them, you might need a slightly larger sticky note to label the ones inside into more specific categories like “pain points”, or “goals”, or “motivations”.

Stickiness: Finally, if you’ve done another twenty, you might need to reorganize the lists from earlier into more specific categories such as “pain points while doing exercise”, and “motivations for going to the gym”. Their stickiness makes it possible to reorganize that data.

Why do businesses love them so much?

#1 Sticky notes facilitate collaboration

In addition to giving us the ability to organize our own findings, sticky notes help gather data others have observed, and collectively make sense of the larger set of observations.

They make it possible for people from across functions — design, business, customer support, and engineering to come together and share what they have observed with each other. And build a shared understanding by organizing these notes on a customer journey map, or align on strategic goals like “where do we see ourselves in five years”.

This ability to visually collaborate while categorizing new information explains their omnipresence product management, design, and business strategy.

#2 And their utility is super versatile

If you stick them on a kanban, they help you manage projects. If you put them on an empathy map, they help you understand a customer, and if you add them to a SWOT analysis, you can collaborate on a strategy.

You can use sticky notes to organize any sort of information, and that’s what makes them so awesome.

The problems with using sticky notes.

After every design or strategy workshop, there’s always a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in everyone who was there. But leave this room, and you’ll find it hard to communicate what was actually accomplished. Was it all just a gimmick?

#1 You’ve got to be a part of the synthesis, to believe in the insights.

The first problem is that there is no easy way to communicate their value to anyone who wasn’t in the room. They just have to trust you on what you’ve figured out.

It’s like telling your spouse that you’ve got the chores under control — they’ll believe it when they’re done.

#2 There’s never enough wall

The second problem is that the more complex, or nuanced the set of data — the more space you’ll need to make sense of it. No matter how large the room, and how big the walls, if you’ve got a lot of data, you’re going to run out of space.

#3 All you end up with are pictures

You’re going to need a lot of A1 papers to segment that data into smaller questions, analyze it, and replace it with a fresh sheet when you move to the next piece. Each one of these used papers is going into a pile, and all you’ll have left of them is a picture.

And you can never find them again

Finally, when a month later you want to revisit your competitive landscape — you’ll have to call up Judy who summarized those findings to send them over, and rework how you came up with that plan in the first place.

In essence, despite all their benefits, their utility is limited by space, lost in storage and forgotten with time, and their value is hard to communicate.

A better way to organize information.

We love sticky notes because they help us collectively organize and make sense of new observations, and align on our actions accordingly.

But there’s no easy way to externally communicate the insights we derive because it’s hard to keep track of where that information behind the sticky notes comes from.

Taking action based on those insights relies purely on the trust of the person, or team sharing the insights — great for autonomous, culturally sophisticated organizations, but extremely hard to implement in companies that require “evidence-based” decision making.

Perhaps the key stationery of modern strategy is causing the biggest problems in its execution?

Every single journey map, competitor analysis or persona that gets created is based on a set of real-world observations made by someone. The reason those insights get questioned or ideas get roadblocked is in the lack of evidence that can be used to back them.

Maybe all we have to do is find a way to connect data to the insights and ideas we think will work, and we might find the roadblocks to innovation disappear. 🤔

Unfortunately, it also means we’ve got to find a better solution than sticky notes, to collaborate on and organize new information. At least, that’s one of our premises.

What do you think?