18th century Europe was a particularly exciting time if you were in the seafaring business. There were multiple ventures, several with vast capital investment attempting some very bold goals (most of these ventures would be outright illegal or egregious by today’s standards or ethical standards of any age – colonial ambitions, slave trade et al.... Continue Reading →
#49: Problem Solving: Figuring out when to stop
Imagine this: you are going to the theater for a movie (in a post-covid world!) and you enter the parking lot. You have to make a choice as you drive towards the theater: do you pick the first open spot that you see (which means you have to walk longer and might miss the opening... Continue Reading →
Update your priors!
The other day, I saw a t-shirt slogan – ‘Update your priors!’ These nerdy t-shirt slogans are not uncommon in the Silicon Valley. This one caught my eye – to me, it has never been more relevant given the current swirl of data and analysis around Covid-19, now that epidemiologists and statisticians are in a... Continue Reading →
Complex Systems: Limits to our understanding
Over the last several weeks, I have been writing about decision making, with the focus being how to get better at navigating VUCA environments. This has been rooted in the paradigm of reasoning and a deterministic view of the world. Which to be sure, works pretty well in most situations. And then we got hit... Continue Reading →
Problem Solving: Learning from other disciplines
Richard Feynman Richard Feynman (he doesn’t need an introduction) was a consummate problem solver. When asked about his problem-solving techniques, his colleague Murray Gell-Mann (a Nobel Laureate himself) defined the ‘Feynman Problem Solving Algorithm’: Write down the problemThink very hardWrite down the answer While this was partly in jest, this to me captures why it... Continue Reading →
Navigating extreme events with small data
Here’s a thought experiment: Fred and Bay want to run a coin toss experiment. They want to make sure that the coin is completely unbiased – so they go to the US Mint and get a quarter that has passed all its tests (i.e. there is no manufacturing defect[1]); toss the coin 100 times. They... Continue Reading →
Designing a Learning System
In 1651, Thomas Hobbes wrote, “reason … is nothing but reckoning (that is, Adding and Subtracting) of the Consequences of generall names agreed upon.” It is widely accepted that with this, he laid the foundation for the Computational theory of the mind. And as often happens in science, one thing led to the other and... Continue Reading →
#55: Problem Solving – working with Biases
Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the legions of philosophers (lesser known, which is a travesty) from early 20th century. He is best known for language games – one of the questions that he posed: ‘Are you using a ruler to measure the table or the table to measure the ruler?’ This is more than just... Continue Reading →
#54: Problem Solving – Solving the right way
Last week, I talked about the different types of questions and had ended with reasons on why it is important to ask good questions. I had ended with a discussion on what is perhaps the most important reason: ‘getting to the right problem to solve’. Not that you need a whole lot of convincing on... Continue Reading →
#53: Problem Solving – Asking the right questions
Socrates was said to have referred to himself as the ‘gadfly’ – and that all societies need one to ‘sting the steed of state into acknowledging its proper duties and obligations’. It didn’t out too well for him though – Athens didn’t take too kindly to this ‘fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching... Continue Reading →
#52: Problem Solving – Critical Thinking
Here’s a thought experiment: you get to create a dream team of problem solvers in your organization. What would the team look like? Who would you have on your team? Over the last few weeks, I have talked about various dimensions of problem solving: this one and the next few will focus on the importance... Continue Reading →
#51: Problem Solving: Systems thinking
It was the 1950s and General Electric was the largest appliance manufacturer in the US. In one of their factories in Kentucky, the managers were struggling with what seemed to be an intractable problem – there were times of the year when the factory would be working 3 or even 4 shifts, and then there... Continue Reading →
