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A philosophical question - Is lateral thinking a valued trait in engineering?

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RJSV:
NICE !
  A very good post, as an Engineer I think (or try to think), about both existing / mundane, and about new/ unformed.
   I think, maybe too much like East Asia folks; Thailand, Vietnam, India. But a good thing, avoiding (extreme) superstition.
   But I need to comment: This thread is already going to take some days, to read, proper.

  I think about seemingly TRIVIAL and meaningless factors, to creative success.  What about a 'clean', tidy DESK... (So What ?)
My opinion, clean-tidy, AND EMPTY work areas 'INVITE' creation...a sort of VACUUM pulling, out of 'nowhere'...
Try, leaving your desk piled high, crap on crap, and an old sandwich half, in there ...
Then, start your creative efforts, for the day...

   "LATERAL ...?" golly, that's a Hallmark, of inventors like Edison, Tesla, even artists like Mark Twain and...my favorite: Stanley Kubrick.

Don't forget Jimi Hendrix, helped usher in the 'feedback' thing, in popular music.

(Photo shows YOGA, stokes the flame of 'Lateral Thinking, big time...).

-Rick B.

e100:

--- Quote from: Cerebus on March 01, 2022, 06:05:48 pm ---
--- Quote from: e100 on March 01, 2022, 04:58:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cerebus on March 01, 2022, 03:09:20 pm ---My innate suspicion on encountering the sort of person who starts with telling you "I'm good at lateral thinking" is that they have left out the second half of the sentence "but I'm terrible at logical thinking or actually getting on and doing something".   >:D

--- End quote ---

If you were stuck on a particular engineering problem and such a person offered to help you find a solution, would you automatically reject their offer because of your suspicions? The consequence of rejecting that offer could be that you never find a solution, or it takes much longer to find a solution.

I think I've just created a new catch phase, I shall call it "anti-engineering" - the processes by which you fail to achieve an engineering goal because you distrust or dislike someone and therefore you avoid them even though they may be able to help you.

--- End quote ---

I haven't suggested anything like that, you've put words in my mouth by hugely extrapolating from something that, quite obviously, is a mere quip. Moreover, you've suggested that a mere suspicion would motivate me to reject someone's help. It wouldn't, my judgement would only be formed by the quality of their suggestions, not a mere initial suspicion. I'm hugely against the idea of jumping to conclusions from insufficient evidence, whereas you seem to have done exactly that.

Let me guess, you like to go around telling people how good you are at lateral thinking.  >:D

--- End quote ---

No, I tell people  that I'm good at breaking stuff because I know engineers don't spend much time thinking about edge cases.
Take for example the apparently simple task of establishing the identity of a person within a family. Is first name, last name sufficient?
The first thought is yes, but what if a family member gets married and changes their surname, it's still the same person right? That's 50% of the people in your database, not just an isolated case.
What if a family adopts a child that has the same first name, last name and date of birth as one of their existing children. How do you tell them apart? The engineer will say that will never happen and therefore there's no point thinking about it. I'll say, you may be right, but what if it does happen, will your system be able to cope or will it get horribly confused?

coppice:

--- Quote from: e100 on March 02, 2022, 02:04:15 am ---No, I tell people  that I'm good at breaking stuff because I know engineers don't spend much time thinking about edge cases.

--- End quote ---
Competent engineers spend much of their time thinking about edge cases. The common cases aren't usually that challenging. Maybe you've encountered too many bad engineers.

CatalinaWOW:

--- Quote from: coppice on March 02, 2022, 02:11:30 am ---
--- Quote from: e100 on March 02, 2022, 02:04:15 am ---No, I tell people  that I'm good at breaking stuff because I know engineers don't spend much time thinking about edge cases.

--- End quote ---
Competent engineers spend much of their time thinking about edge cases. The common cases aren't usually that challenging. Maybe you've encountered too many bad engineers.

--- End quote ---

And this gets back to the heart of the OPs question.  Lateral thinking is an important and useful skill.  But most people who are good at it don't last long doing the repetitive center case work.  The read the standards book and generate the answer guys are also valuable (and therefore competent in their domain). 

The problems always come when people are mismatched to their jobs.  If Briggs Meyer doesn't work for you as a framework for accomplishing that, fine, but something does have to be done.  Good management is as challenging as any other job.  As can be seen by how uncommon it is.

RJSV:
By the way, Cerebus and others, interested in concept, of non-achieving IDEA Man:
  I felt that, partially, am one of 'those', having to push, for any practical side, for approaching business and science.  Looking and 'talking' like an 'impractical' idea flapper...
BUT, I'm remembering the older work, PC Board repair Technician, Teletype electronics troubleshooting, in factory.  Managers had my numbers, (units repaired per quarter, etc).  They were pretty impressive, I heard.
   But that side takes work...Where's my staff, my coffees getting cold, here ?

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