There's a lot of way of organizing ideas and meetings using them that are really non-obvious. This (short, sweet) book covers some: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1555611427 Coders will get the ideas after the first chapter, but others should find the rest of the book educational as well (plus give some insight into basic data structures).
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A whiteboard.
Seriously. A whiteboard, post-it notes, and lots of pencils and paper.
I'm a firm believer in UML-as-sketch (vs UML-as-blueprint), and for sketching, nothing I've seen beats the old school.
EDIT: fixed punctuation
Post-it notes are more powerful tool than most people realize because they:
- Rearrange easily (no copying)
- Support text and diagrams
- Are concurrently editable (as a group)
- Convert virtually useless walls into huge work surfaces
The idea that really hit it home for me is The KJ Method (aka Affinity Diagramming aka Snow Carding). Here's one description: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_86.htm
There's a lot of way of organizing ideas and meetings using them that are really non-obvious. This (short, sweet) book covers some: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1555611427 Coders will get the ideas after the first chapter, but others should find the rest of the book educational as well (plus give some insight into basic data structures).
Diagrams on post-its, are you kidding?
No, diagrams made out of post-its on a white board. So you can move the various parts around.