Taxonomised thinking: if you don’t taxonomise your thinking you’ll get your results taxed
/By Duncan Anderson and Gig Mogiannis. To see all blogs click here.
Reading time: 7 mins
Summary:
Making a taxonomy involves breaking up the problem space into sequential levels. I find making levels... ‘levels up’ your ability to understand the problem space. Without taxonomising your thinking I find you end up focusing on a piece of the picture, but with sweet sweet taxonomised levels you can often see the bigger picture!
Creating taxonomies can be a really helpful way to better get to know the problem you’re trying to solve, and is an effective strategy for use across a wide (maybe limitless) range of topics.
What is a taxonomy?
Making a taxonomy is the process of classifying something into levels.
Some of my fav taxonomies:
How it’s simple to seem like a genius when problem solving
Einstein's five ascending levels of intelligence:
L1: smart
L2: intelligent
L3: brilliant
L4: genius
L5: simple
Comment:
“If you can’t explain it to a 6 year old you don’t understand it.” Einstein
DA’s addition to Einsteins levels :)
L1: smart
L2: intelligent
L3: brilliant
L4: genius
L5: simple
[DA addition]L6: make a taxonomy
Comment
Know how it’s simple to be a genius? Make a taxonomy!!
I used to think making taxonomies was super hard… but I used to think that writing cursive was super hard. You get better at the things you try to get better at :)
Here is a taxonomy for you:
Small
Medium
Large
I often split problem solving by ‘small vs medium vs large amount of unknown’.
For a problem with medium+ amount of unknown I’ll normally try and make a taxonomy to help explain the problem space.
The taxonomy I make is often with levels. You’ll see ‘levels’ or a taxonomy in many of my blogs on CloudStreaks, I just make them up :).
Here is a taxonomy I’ve just made for writing blogs:
L1: just words
L2: words + equations
L3: words + equations + visuals
L4: words + equations + visuals + a taxonomy
I remember when I first saw Bloom’s Taxonomy and I thought it was one the most insightful things ever. Mind blown. It changed how I thought about education.
I thought making a taxonomy like Bloom’s was a level (pun intended) of thinking someone might hope to do once in their life.
Imagine if you could make one taxonomy in your life I thought. Wow, that would be incredible.
Now seriously I’ll make at least one taxonomy a week, at times multiple taxonomies in a day.
I had a severe fixed mindset towards taxonomies in the beginning. But I should have realised that making taxonomies is like any mental skill, you start with no abilities and if you do deliberate practice you slowly get better.
Duncan’s journey of mindset towards taxonomies… in a taxonomy:
-L1: taxonomies are so awesome, I could never do that
L0: maybe one day I’ll be able to make a taxonomy, right now I’m just able to use Bloom’s taxonomy and Dreyfus taxonomy and modify slightly (transfer) into new places.
L1: hazar!!! I’ve made a taxonomy like ‘student who don’t try vs students who try and fail vs students who try and succeed’.
L2: OMG I can make taxonomies if I try, it’s not an act of god that somehow materialises the taxonomy in my mind
L3: I proactively know to make a taxonomy to help myself explain the problem space.
Some examples of taxonomies I’ve made in CloudStreaks blogs
G1: person is a good / bad employee
G2: person has strengths and weaknesses
G3: strengths and weaknesses have strengths and weaknesses :) (eg someone is good at managing a certain type of person but bad with another type of person)
G4: G3 + when looking for the root cause, did it originate from the individual (I used to assume far too often things originated with the individual), others (eg someone has poor tone because someone provoked them vs the individual originated the tone) or the environment (eg looming deadline is causing stress leading to poor tone)
G5: G4 + including how ‘emotional tank levels’ for all parties at G4 can affect things (eg if someone is in a really bad spot their comms tone might be far worse because of this, eg if you are really drained today you are probably looking at the world more negatively than is fair)
Decision frameworks: “How to approach solving problems is itself a problem to solve.”
Problem 1: no problem solving done at all
Problem 2: treat all decisions as irreversible
Problem 3: do not balance solution confidence vs decision sufficiency threshold to make a decision
Problem 4: do not take into account how much change a decision is and / or how controversial it is
Problem 5: make decision only in ‘theoretical land’. IMO most decisions about whether to go ahead with something should have data gathered from ‘practical land’.
Levelling up problem solving ability through the 'Treasure Taxonomy' - what to do during a user feedback interview for your product:
Level 1: summary - verbatim = just writing down what happened
This is not useful. When you are problem solving / in a conversation / reading article please only try to do Level 2+
IMO, during work time you should never be eg reading an article and not trying to do Level 2+
Once people know about the higher levels of the ‘Treasure Taxonomy’ I find they are typically much better at doing them. That’s right, simply knowing about higher levels makes people much better problem solvers!
Level 2: summary - key points = being able to extract the key points and articulate them in a significantly shorter manner.
eg you get 80% of the value of a 1 hour conversation in 3 mins AND then can take the components and use elsewhere.
this is extracting the key ingredients of a problem space / a conversation and packaging them nicely
Level 3: synthesis - key point push back = you will disagree with part of an problem space solution / article / conversation AND have a reason why. No reason no disagreement!
saying how one of the ingredients from the problem space / article / conversation doesn't make sense.
"Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one. But unlike arseholes, opinions should be examined very closely!" Tim Minchin.
Also see Devil (Un)disqualified Decision.
Level 4: synthesis - internal joining = you can take two components of the problem space / article / conversation and join them together to create something new.
you able to join two ingredients together to make a new ingredient. This is not saying these two ingredients belong next to each other, it’s creating a new ingredient from the combination of two ingredients found in “Level 2: summary - key points”
Level 5: synthesis - external ingredient = join an ingredient from the problem space / article with an external component to create new knowledge
you are able to join an ingredient form the article with an external ingredient and make a new ingredient
Level 6: create a model - internal joining = join pieces together into a new meta story
you are able to take the ingredients from the problem space / article / conversation and join them together into a recipe that makes sense. This adds a meaning layer above all the ingredients
put another way you get pieces of a picture (ingredients) and you join them together into a cohesive picture.
this might involve pushing back on different individual ingredients as in “Level 3: synthesis - push back”. “Level 3: synthesis - push back” is more 'I don't like this ingredient and here is why' vs Level 6 is 'I don't think this ingredient fits into this recipe and here is why'.
Level 7: create a model - external ingredients = joining what is in the problem space / article with external ingredients into a cohesive structure/ recipe
As at the top, god I find this is fun.
Problem solving * good for the world = purpose.
Group * problem solving * good for the world = purpose + joy.
Group problem solving I find even better than individual problem solving!
IMO getting good at problem solving is a key way to have a lot of fun in life!
Making a taxonomy is problem solving, so this is problem solving about problem solving! Or fun about fun :)
Level 8: Heston Blumenthal - joining multiple recipes (models) together into epic scrumptiousness!
This is taking 2 existing recipes (ie collections of cohesive ingredients) and then combining them together into a way a better super recipe.
Now that we know what taxonomies are, how can they improve problem solving?
They give you a new lens through which to consider a problem, which can foster creativity
“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” – Albert Einstein
See, Einstein knew it was important to break our thinking into ‘levels’ when trying to solve problems :)
They can make progress feel more achievable by breaking it down into steps/levels to work towards, which can be more motivating and less intimidating than trying to tackle a big problem head on.
They allow you to address individual facets of a problem separately – sometimes one idea will help to solve one part of a problem while a different approach is required to deal with a different component of the issue.
They teach you to think with nuance and recognise that almost nothing is straight up black and white – nearly every situation has shades of grey! Blog link
They provide you with a bigger vocabulary that you can use to discuss an issue, which gives you greater capacity to find a solution. If you can’t communicate effectively about something, how do you know you really understand it?
“A problem well stated is a problem half solved.” – John Dewey
They can aid in self-reflection, by giving you a framework you can use to identify where you’re at and where you need to go.
A taxonomy about taxonomies – taxonoception?
Consider where you might be at in the below pyramid, and what you need to do to upgrade yourself by just one level.
Instead of ‘thinking outside the box’, try ‘thinking inside the pyramid’!
If you only take away one thing
If you pay lots of taxes you normally are rich.
I thought to make a taxonomy meant one must be rich of mental ability. [high mental ability => can make taxonomy]
But I’ve realised one route to be rich of mental ability is to make lots of taxonomies. [make taxonomy => level up to high mental ability]
One of the best hacks I know to improve your problem solving abilities is to ‘just make a taxonomy’.
Give it a try :)