How analogical thinking can improve your problem solving (and your project managment) skills

So there you are. Head on your desk.

It has been a few hours. At least.

Maybe more.

And your mind is stuck.

It could be your tired.

Maybe caffeine is the answer.

You are feeling stuck as problem solver.

Maybe its time to stop thinking about the inside view and look outside your domain for an answer.

Notice, I didn’t say, think outside the box. That term or phrase, has been so overused and misused, it almost has no meaning.

What I am saying is use outside your domain thinking. Or Analogical Thinking.

Analogical Thinking

“Deep analogical thinking is the practice of recognizing conceptual similarities in multiple domains or scenarios that may seem to have little in common on the surface.”

Analogical thinking starts with the inside view.

For example, take any project.

The project is supposed to last two years. About one year in, you ask team members for their estimates about how much longer is actually realistic.

Typically, when people try to answer these kinds of questions, they estimate (or guesstimate) from their experience on the current project.

In other words, they stick to the inside view.

Analogical thinking says, take that inside view and find something similar but OUTSIDE your domain.

“Our natural inclination to take the inside view can be defeated by following analogies to the the “outside view”. The outside view probes for deep structural similarities to the current problem in different ones. The outside view is deeply counterintuitive because it requires a decision maker to ignore unique surface features of the current project, on which they are the expert, and instead look outside for structurally similar analogies. It requires a mindset switch from narrow to broad.”

Heres the thing.

We almost always underestimate a project we are working on (inside view).

But given the chance to evaluate someone ELSE’s project (outside view), we tend to be more realistic.

Wicked Problems

Wicked Problems are simply those where there is no repetitive pattern and little to no immediate feedback loop.

“In a wicked world, relaying upon experience from a single domain is not only limiting, it can be disastrous.”

The wicked world is complex. And requires a different kind of thinking. A type of thinking which requires thinking outside ones domain.

We all can get buried in methodology or process.

But if our job as project managers is to ultimately be problem solvers, then we can’t afford to wear that Methodologist hat.

Here is what the Methodologist does. They were once super soaking learners. They soaked up everything about project management. Then they found the one methodology for the project they were working on and it worked. From then on, they used that single methodology for every single project.

Didn’t matter that every project was different.

Didn’t matter that every context is different.

They stuck to that same methodology.

Methodologists quickly become inside view people only. They often struggle to look outside their own domain (ie methodology) and look for other ways to solve the problem/project.

In the end, this is very limiting. And ultimately, becomes a form of failed leadership.

What’s a project manager to do?

Develop analogical thinking

The very BEST way to do that is to focus on building your project management toolkit. Continue to thinking BROADLY as you develop your SPECIFIC skill of project management.

This toolkit is full of all sorts of useful hard skills and soft skills.

It is filled with those technical project management skills and those stakeholder relationship skills.

It is filled with various methodologies (yes, various).

It is filled with learning from other fields: sales, marketing, finance and business.

It also helps to have a hobby.

You like military history? How many analogies from military battles could you draw from to think about your project?

You like gardening? How many analogies from digging in the dirt can you draw from to think about your project?

Read about how other people, in fields and industries VASTLY different from your own, solve problems.

Learning how a chemist solves a problem may help you the next time your developers are struggling to code your new feature.