Defining aspects and linking information

There are two ways of linking elements in i2Brain:

When is it advisable to do which?

An element can only have ONE value for a particular aspect. (In a project plan an activity can only be carried out by ONE person).

What if an activity should be carried out by Anne AND Steve? Create a new element either with the same name, or with the same name plus the name of the colleague who will carry it out. 

If you have a network of people, and it could be interesting for the golf-players to be able to see who else plays golf, you could consider having an aspect "Hobby", one of whose values would be "Golf". But what about the people with many hobbies? One possibility would be to copy the person so that each copy has a different hobby. Generally, that's not the best way of dealing with this situation. Alternatively, you could have an element "Golf" and create arrows linking the players of golf with this element.

So how do you decide when to use the approach where you copy an element, and when do you use arrows? The question can be put more simply: does it make sense to "divide" the element into its constituent parts? When Anne and Steve are supposed to write the documentation, it DOES make sense to have one element for each of them. If Steve is off ill for a couple of days, Anne can start the documentation regardless.

But does it make sense to have a "part of Geoff" which plays golf, and another part which sings? Generally not.

How to "find" aspects

Simply talking about the information which you want to visualise can be a real help. You might say, "This activity should be carried out in March. Sue should do it. It's really urgent." There you have 3 aspects: when, who and the priority.