Since I left the Navy, a
whopping 21 years ago, some of the positions I've held electronic technician,
engineering technician, service technician and even now as a user experience
architect have all required analytical thinking skills or the ability to do analytical
analysis. Let's face it, everyone does it, it's just that some people can do it
at a very detailed level and even a smaller group enjoys doing it. I'm not
boasting to be the best at analytical analysis, but I do enjoy it and I can
break things down to a level that will bore many of you to death. Just ask my
wife.
So what does analytical
analysis mean? In the simplest terms, it's taking information (data) and
drawing conclusions. Here are a few examples that will bore some of you, but
stay with me. I'm going someplace a little different.
- Tracing errors through a system (software, hardware,
etc.), isolating the working parts/sections/sub-systems to help pinpoint
and identify failures, this is often a process of elimination - That's
troubleshooting
- Breaking down and documenting the steps to maintain,
repair or accomplish a higher level task - That's process flow
- Understanding user types, their goals and what's
important to them; then taking that information to present a process or
set of tasks to accomplish a business oriented goal - That's
developing a user experience
- Tracking and evaluating the actions of a person, using
that information to project what he or she will do in the future. Taking
known data to calculate unknown data and then acting on that information
to get a specific response from a person - That's poker!
Right about now, some
you are calling bullshit. You're saying that poker is gambling and it's all
luck. You may contest that people do win only to eventually lose it all. You
would be correct for many that play the game; however, for those that study the
game through analytical analysis, you would be very wrong.
In my next post, I’ll go a little deeper into the poker wormhole. For now, I'd like to hear what you think.
