In his book "Blink" Malcolm Gladwell popularized the term "thin-slicing".

"… our ability to gauge what is really important from a very narrow period of experience. In other words, spontaneous decisions are often as good as—or even better than—carefully planned and considered ones." (Wikipedia)

This "thin slice of reality" is a pattern of all things happening in your surroundings. You take the slice and compare it with patterns stored in your mind. When you find a matching pattern, you have made up your mind about a particular situation. This is an unconscious process.

I don't want to suggest that Project Managers should stop thinking. But I do think that if we want to train the mind of Project Managers and bring it more in line with Three Sphere Project Management, improving spontaneous decisions is a good target.

If you want to improve the accuracy of your thin-slicing abilities you need to

1. Increase the amount and quality of patterns in your mental database, and
2. Increase your ability to search and switch through this mental database.

In other words, 1) you need to know different views of the project world (e.g. metaphors) and 2) you need to have a flexible mind to search through your set of patterns.

Yes, dear loyal reader, two recurring themes on this site.

Oh, the point of this post?

In my previous entry I ended with the question: "How to hack the brain of a Project Manager?'

The short answer: train in different mental models and train mental flexibility.

The long answer: The Four Dharmas Of Project Management… (now this is what I call a cliffhanger to a next post :))