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# Concept-u-wall
- URL: https://vaughan.ai/blog/concept-u-wall/
- Published: 2007-02-26T08:53:30.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-07T23:19:32.000Z
- Author: Vaughan Fergusson
- Tags: Getting Things Done, #medium-import

Sometimes the first step is the hardest in any journey and adding features to a software product is no different. Although I love Visio, UML diagrams, and requirements specs; they usually have too many rules and procedures attached with them. I like simple.

Quite often you can get bogged down in planning and all you really need to do is pick up a piece of paper and do a doodle. Doodles are fantastic and I am a huge fan of doodling ideas up, and quite often these doodles become the specification. In fact I am usually seen attending meetings with my jumbo sketch pad and colouring in pens. Doing a good meaningful doodle is quite hard, as you need to be able to look back on it a week later remember what the hell it was.

I have taken the doodling to the next level now and in the office we have implemented a way of organising doodles into more coherent and readily understandable ideas. Its simple, its a wall you stick doodles on with bluetac. But not just any wall, it is a “Concept-u-wall”. What is the difference? Well a concept-u-wall has these simple rules.

- Draw a doodle of an idea or concept and stick it on the wall.
- If the doodle makes no sense then do other supporting doodles until the idea or concept starts to make sense.
- A doodle can be a scribble, a printout, photo or what ever. If you can Bluetac it to the wall then it is a doodle.
- Don’t be alone. Get others to contribute to your idea, and doodle on it.
- Any wall is a Concept-u-wall

And that is about all the rules you need. The whole idea is to get an idea progressing. Once a doodle concept has been fleshed out enough that it can become a reality then it is built and when complete it graduates off of the concept-u-wall into the real world. We also track successful concept-u-wall projects with an entry on another wall called the Act-u-wall. A small note, screen shot or title is added as evidence that the concept doodle made it.

Simple. I like simple.