Organization and Creativity

One doesn't think of a methodical, organized person as creative. There's no eureka moment, frenzy of activity, or sudden change to point to. However, part of being creative is being prepared. Musicians practice long hours on very basic skills in order to have the ability to demonstrate artistry with ease. You can't play a concerto without having mastered tone and articulation. Despite what one might think, making music doesn't come naturally.

Problem solvers should build up a database (some might call it a repertoire) of information, techniques, and connections. You never know what might be of importance in addressing a problem you encounter. If you haven't toyed around with something, you won't know it's capabilities when faced with a problem. I've posted on this topic before, perhaps more specifically. Take time to learn new skills, play around with things, and build up a database of information in order to be prepared for your next eureka moment.

Here's Joan Rivers sharing about her creativity.

More about Failure

We like to celebrate our successes. We have graduation parties, celebrate the completion of projects, a big sale, etc. It's easy.

How do you deal with your failures? Do you try to forget about them, sweeping them under the rug? Maybe you're embarrassed about the failure or have been punished for the failure.

I think it's important (perhaps after some time has passed) to review your failures to see what might have gone wrong. Is there something specific you can avoid in the future? Is there a pattern emerging where similar situations end up the same? Recognizing patterns is what we as humans are good at, but we need to be looking for them. Burying your head in the sand and hoping to forget about a bad experience increase the chances that you'll end up in a similar situation again.

Also, leaders shouldn't punish people for failures (other than perhaps ethical failures - and certainly criminal failures). It will make them afraid to take risks, try something new, or be creative. How can you expect creative solutions to difficult problems if the consequences of failure are too great.

Mistakes can be golden if you learn from them.

Overcoming Mental Blocks

A quote from the signal vs noise blog. "Sometimes a design isn’t working because you think you can’t change the one element that needs to be changed"

The same goes for problem solutions. Maybe you're not finding an effective solution because you are locked in on something as being essential when it isn't. Take a step back, attack the problem with a beginner's mind and maybe another solution will present itself.

I was once faced with an analysis problem in which I couldn't avoid the compound I was trying to analyze decompose in the equipment. After many iterations of trying to find a way to avoid decomposition, I finally realized that if I deliberately decomposed the compound in a known manner, the solution was easy.

The importance of measurement.

I was in recent discussion about quality and a couple of good points were made.

• You cannot improve what you do not measure.
• You cannot manage what you do not measure.

Measurement helps to visualize problems and gives us perspective. Whenever you implement a solution, be sure to include measurements so you can evaluate whether the solution is truly effective. Ideally it is a measurement you were doing before you implemented the solution so you can quantify the improvement, but at the very least, include some measurements so that future improvements can be quantified. Sometimes it will take a couple of attempts to arrive at the optimum solution.

Lazy Thinking

Prejudice in problem solving is caused by lazy thinking. When we are pre-disposed to a particular solution, we need to be careful to avoid simply assuming the previous solution is the correct one this time also. This is related to the "beginner's mind".

How do you strike a balance between re-creating the wheel every time a problem comes up and re-applying the same solution? It has to do with lazy thinking. If you carefully consider a problem instead of jumping to conclusions, it doesn't cost much in terms of effort and will help avoid overlooking potential new solutions or new wrinkles to an old problem.

Chartjunk or Communication?

EagerEyes recently posted about a study investigation the memorability of graphics and data. That brings to mind my earlier thoughts about communication. You may have the best data in the world but if it's not communicated well, then you've missed the target. I suppose which path you take depends on your audience.

When you're presenting to an audience of a similar backround or perhaps more knowledgeable about that data than yourself, minimize chartjunk and seek to present the data in as unbiased a manner as possible.

When you're the expert and are seeking to communicate the results of your interpretation, resist the "curse of knowledge" and incorporate some of the suggestions from Made to Stick to increase the memorability of the results and analysis. A perfect data presentation following Tufte's guidance may not be the optimal solution.

Expanding your Skills

I haven't posted much this year. My excuse is that I've been spending time learning PHP and Python programming. In the case of PHP It seems I don't have an immediate need for that knowledge but since it is commonly used to control many websites it seemed prudent to at least get a basic knowledge of that language.

A knowledge of Python has been more useful. I expect that Python aficionados will give many reasons to use that language, but I've found it useful for processing text files generated by our lab equipment to create summaries so they can be processed by our software to input data in a LIMS.

Don't be stagnant in your skills but continue to explore new areas. Some may not be immediately useful (like PHP in my case) and others will be. However, without exploring something new, you'll never be open to the possibilities that the new skill may present. Don't get stuck being happy with the status quo because you don't know what else is possible because your skills remain focused in a narrow area.