Skip to main content

Who thinks too fast?

Richard comments on my original post about misinformation, really promoting planning:

"I usually spend two weeks (and sometimes even more) in the planning phase which includes the creation of the database structures and overall flow. "


I'm not sure I agree that "thinking fast" is necessarily a bad thing but I certainly agree that "thinking deeply" is required with it.

Consider watching Rick, Markus, Ken or Steve demonstrate a concept at a presentation - these guys think fast - yet they also think deeply at the same time.

Just as there are too many consultants and IT specialists who act too quickly, there are also far too many consultants and IT specialists who prefer to get paid for "thinking" instead of "doing".

The end result? Their project takes forever to get done and by the time it's done, they haven't really "thought" of what happens in the interim. Yet they get the reputation of being "great analysts".

I certainly don't advocate stopping at the first thought and then moving ahead on it - as Richard notes, there are too many people who do that. But you need to be able to
carry that thought through to its inevitable conclusion without spending days doing it. Then if it doesn't work - you move onto the next idea.

That's definitely a skill - and there are tools that can really help do it for you! Both in software and project management.

Nothing wrong with saying "let me think about it" and then coming back with something that is truly innovative - but wasting time on thought without having anything to show for it - is just plain bad. You may "feel" good about your introspection but in the end, what you just did was, in fact, nothing.

Foxpro.catalyst :: FoxPro workBLOGS and more

Comments

Randy Jean said…
That MindManager software looks interesting. Have you used it? Seems like a Wiki on steroids.
December 12, 2005 at 11:34 AM
Andrew MacNeill said…
Randy, I've used MindManager for about 2 years now. I haven't used it in a shared environment but the one thing it definites help to do is brainstorm and then produce a finalized document with it.

And since you can update project plans, outlook and now OPML with it - it becomes even cooler
December 12, 2005 at 11:42 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who Wants To Be Logical? I Do! I Don't! (with Claude)

In my book, Towards Consciousness, I explore PET , a theory that attempts to explain consciousness and possibly how it might apply to AI. As part of the conversations with AI series, I've included this conversation with Claude.AI in which we were talking about something very different and yet the conversation redirected itself back to PET. For the record, there is no such thing as "Colfsity". A It's interesting to me that people want to proclaim their distinction from being rigid and unlike machines, yet they also complain that the "best" people keep a rigid schedule, regular routines and logic understanding of issues. That's a perceptive observation about a real tension in how people think about themselves and what they value. There does seem to be this paradox where rigidity is simultaneously rejected as "robotic" or inhuman, yet praised when it appears as discipline, consistency, or logical thinking. I think part of what's happening is t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Merry Christmas

Whether you celebrate now, have already celebrated your past holiday, are planning to, or not, I hope you find yourself surrounded by family and those you love during this holiday season and are able to remember fondly those who are not with you. We often find ourselves buried in work, or too distracted by other problems, to share and remember a few moments with those closest to us. So many of us are separated by huge distances, we often find it easier to focus on those who are out of arm's reach yet so easy to connect with online, instead of those who are right beside us. So do yourself a favour, put down the keyboard (stylus, mouse, etc) and spend that time. I know I will. Merry Christmas. Powered by ScribeFire .
4 comments
Read more

Comparing education systems based on their technology

(yes, I originally found this blog because of Scoble's note on it BUT it was kind of interesting all the same) Read Alex Mallet's summary of his first week at MIT. Malletrivia: Summary of the first complete week Wow - "There's an incredible amount of material packed into each lecture" - and it sounds interesting... Compared to some of the lecture content I have seen at our universities, you really must get what you pay for. While it sounds like Alex is writing frantically down notes in his classes, at least he's finding something worth writing about in them. Case in point: one of our local universities ( Carleton ) puts some lecture classes on the TV (like many universities do) - but you would think they purposely find the most boring professors to teach them. They put up PowerPoint slides with 30 points on them, speak in monotone voice (yes, imagine the typical caricature of the university lecture from years ago), tell the students to print their...
8 comments
Read more