Forcing Functions
Do you have a favorite set of forcing functions? In patterns & practices, one of our forcing functions is building a slide deck. Building a deck is a forcing function because it forces us to distill the points, close down on issues, identify what we know, don't know and need to know next in a fairly constrained way. It helps to balance our elaboration on certain issues.
I like to use blog posts as a forcing function. There's plenty of topics I could write books on, but I like using a post as a forcing function to chunk something down into a nugget of insight, or a collection of nuggets of insight.