REAL OR IDEAL?

The Real Or Ideal? source method is a way to make sense of how to move from the idealised perspectives of ideas and imagination to real results and validated outcomes.  It is a way to understand how to put theory into practice and how practice can form theory.

The Real Or Ideal? concept is based on the natural human behaviour of perceiving complex and uncertain situations in an abstracted and idealised manner without actually engaging with the practicalities and realities of the situation. In theory, practice and theory in the same but in practice, theory and practice are usually quite different. Although theories are often perceived as proven validations of reality, they are usually abstractions that context free and may be challenging to universally apply to specific situations. The Real Or Ideal? Process helps people to explore the actual practical steps that need to be taken in order to make an idea or concept happen in reality. Theory is often refined by practical experimentation so the Real Or Ideal?  process can also be used to evolve theories from practical experience.

The purpose of Real Or Ideal?  is to understand the difference between what should be ideally happening in the situation and what actually is happening.  By clearly identifying the difference between theory and practice, it becomes much easier to make ideas and concepts actually happen in reality. This helps people move beyond constant planning and idealisation and moves them into taking real and practical action. The experience gained by putting ideas into practice is then fed back into the Real Or Ideal?  process so that concepts and theories can be refined before being fed forward again, back into reality. This becomes a continual evolutionary process, always bringing the ideal closer to the real and the real closer to the ideal.

• • To identify the difference between theory and practice
• • To move beyond endless planning and conceptualisation
• • To make ideas actually happen in reality
• • To move from a concept to a prototype
• • To feedback observations from reality into abstracted theory
• • To evolve processes using theory and practice
• • To move beyond constant planning and idealisation
• • To move beyond thinking into doing

To learn how to use Real Or Ideal? in your work, contact us hello@human.associates