I have board-game rage… not a general “I have to win” type rage, but a very specific rage that is brought about by specific circumstances.  You might be wondering what this has to do with Thinking Styles, as the title suggests…bear with me we will get there.

In my house when we go to play a board game that is new to us, I’m very happy to open the box and start taking pieces out and figuring out what’s what, flicking through the instructions, even playing a practice game, the way I had assumed most people approach learning something new. On the other hand my one member of my household insists on reading the instructions OUT LOUD to anyone in hearing distance prior to anyone touching a thing, and to make matters worse, has friends who are inclined to do the same thing. This is like a fire to my nerves and I can feel a hot ball of rage growing with each word read…OUT…LOUD…all the way through to the end of the booklet, while everyone sits around and listens, while a perfectly good game is sitting there waiting to be set up.

While I will freely admit that I don’t believe everyone feels this strongly about reading instructions out loud, I believe this is a great example of different thinking styles and how they can alter the way different people approach similar tasks.

An overview of Thinking Styles

Some quick research into thinking styles and patterns will return many different theories and methodologies for understanding people’s preferred thinking styles. I personally like one I learnt about half way through my university degree  (about 15 years ago). A subject had a module on understanding how our minds work, to try to get the best out of our time spent studying. The exercise was designed to find out your personal thinking style using the Mind Styles Model by Anthony Gregorc.

This little exercise did and continues to serve me well over the years as it was something that really struck a chord with me in relation to how my mind works best. I’d never really thought too much about how I consumed and used information before this.

How knowing my style helped me

My style was determined to be a Concrete Random Thinker – someone who deals with the “here and now” or the obvious and likes to experiment. Identifying with this style over the years has allowed me to understand how to approach tasks in a style that works best for me. I find it incredibly hard to get motivated about a solution or task when someone want’s to impart all of their wisdom on me upfront, either verbally or with lots of reading material, without giving me a chance to apply it (hence the board game rage…told you I was heading somewhere with that). One of my most feared phrases when starting a new job (apart from “tell everyone about yourself”) is being given a stack of manuals/documents to read to get familiar with the organisation.

I have found that if presented with a situation where there is no other option than to “read the manuals” or “listen to the spiel”, I have to find other ways to digest the information. Things like concentrating on taking notes and creating my own document with the bits that interest me for reference at a later stage.

There is a training course I have taken two times, in order to keep some qualifications up to date.  It’s a great example of the same information being presented in two different ways. The first time I completed the course it was delivered over four days face to face, with three pieces of assessment due in the months following.  I really struggled with this, I just wanted to do the assessments while we were there and get it all done with. After the four days it was really hard to get motivated to do the assessments, and I relied heavily on the course notes to complete them.  The second time I did the training it was delivered online with assessments spread throughout the course.  At the end of the self-paced training I was done; this was definitely my preferred method. 

If you want to find out your own learning style this page includes a test and instructions on calculating your style: http://www.thelearningweb.net/personalthink.html

How can this help in IT Development teams?

Understanding your own thinking style, allows you to identify and adapt to other peoples styles. Making working as a part of a team a little easier.

As a Business Analyst taking the time to try to determine the thinking styles of different team members helps identify the way I need to approach working on tasks with them. When working with Software Developers its great to understand if a person has a Abstract style – likes to receive all of the requirements upfront and to understand the whole picture prior to beginning work on an item. In situations like this, giving the Developer all of the requirements upfront and setting up a meeting to walk through them may be the best way to begin the task. On the other hand a Software Developer with a preference for a Concrete thinking style may not want a picture of the finished product, and may only want to be given the requirements broken down into individual work items to be completed one at a time, with feedback being given at the end of each task.

Catering for different thinking styles when it comes to end users of Software products, can also help do develop solutions that offer an excellent user experience. Many products give users the option to have a step by step tutorial when first using a product, or the option to skip and get into it straight away, is a great example of using thinking styles when developing a product.

Wrapping up…

Identifying, understanding and being able to adapt to different styles is the key point I’m trying to make. If you understand how you think compared to those around you, you can use this to recognise the different styles of a team and adapt your interactions to get the best outcome possible.

Back to where we started with the board games – I understand my learning style isn’t to hear all of the instructions upfront, so I adapt by offering to make drinks and snacks while the reading occurs, and then spend the first round of the game asking everyone what’s going on. I understand that this probably really annoys the Abstract Sequential thinkers in the group, but remember we all have to adapt.