Thinking Styles

This section is intended to explain why there can be such violent disagreements among decision makers during system development. It involves the ways people approach the process of designing a system.

Critical VS Political Thinking

There are two general kinds of thinking commonly employed in the product development process. These are referred to as critical and political thinking.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is concerned with the relative possibilities of alternatives. It doesn't care how much something is wanted only the relative merit of alternative approaches.


A critical thinker will stand up against the majority to point out conditions that are thought to be overlooked. Many engineers, artists and designers are critical thinkers. Critical thinkers believe committees never produce anything.

Political Thinking

Political thinking is about the intention to come to agreement. It is usually laced with compromises that are barely satisfying to anyone but which are necessary to achieve a successful outcome. Many managers, marketers and administrators are political thinkers. Political thinkers ask; "When do we shoot the engineer and ship the product?"

Critical and political thinkers often do not play well together. One reason is that they do not see the value of the alternative thinking style.

Reconciliation

One way to reconcile these different styles is to consider that in the early phases of a project, critical thinking should prevail in order to be certain that the best possible product will be produced. Then as the project progresses, political thinking should predominate otherwise a product may never be delivered. As the scheduled time to ship the product to the customer arrives, difficult decisions are required that strain personal relationships. A political thinker is well equipped to encourage win/win situations. On the other hand a critical thinker is often perceived to be intransigent and not a team player. The critical thinkers should learn to make their case early and then live with the consequences.

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