I often make fun of McKinsey- style four quadrants when overused, but they really boil down to something that makes a lot of sense in communicating a problem space:
a) carefully choose the two most important dimensions of concern (as Alan Kay said: the correct point of view is worth 80 Iq points)
b) make them binary: are we happy here or do we need to change?
In a way similar to the pareto ratio, you keep a surprising amount of value in something “so simple it cant be possibly so useful”.
Of course, you can also weaponise the choice of axes for your (office) politics: pick the two axes right, and the policy outcome you want to pick might already be baked into the whole process from the start.
a) carefully choose the two most important dimensions of concern (as Alan Kay said: the correct point of view is worth 80 Iq points)
b) make them binary: are we happy here or do we need to change?
In a way similar to the pareto ratio, you keep a surprising amount of value in something “so simple it cant be possibly so useful”.