I love collecting mental models and applying them across different areas to see if they’ll fit. It’s a puzzle and an experiment at the same time, and one of the more intellectually stimulating things out there. There's one in particular that stood out to me today - the Double Diamond model of design and innovation. It's particularly relevant as I've just started on the second diamond for my own life redesign.
The double diamond model visualizes the non-linear path we take when we're starting from ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. In the first diamond, we invest in understanding and defining the problem and vision. In the second diamond, we know the problem and have a general vision for the solution (the why), but are not yet sure on the details in getting there (the what, who, when, and how). In each diamond, we start with divergent thinking (research in the first diamond; solution ideation in the second diamond), then we converge to crystallize the vision and the solution, respectively.
We used this design process at The LEGO Group to explore potential opportunity areas, identify problems to solve for customers, and finally design and bring to market solutions for them. Although the diagram attempts to fit this into a nice process, in actuality it's far more chaotic, dynamic, and non-linear. Each opportunity area has its own double diamond. Some projects are killed as we learn more. Some gain more focus. Some diamonds merge with other diamonds. It's a tightrope walk maintaining openness to new information so we can pivot as needed while still staying focused enough on moving forward so we can bring the products to market. Every moment spent on divergent thinking creates the need for at least another moment on convergent effort. It can be tense, but it can also be alive and in the real world.
As I learn more mental models and read more philosophy and history, I'm noticing patterns and resonance across structures. Isn't divergent vs. convergent thinking quite similar to the explore vs. exploit tradeoff? Didn't Einstein famously say that if he had an hour to solve a problem, he would spend 55 minutes defining the problem (first diamond) then 5 minutes solving it (second diamond)? Isn't focusing so much on defining the problem so you can ensure you're working on the best thing the purpose of Hamming questions (originally from Richard Hamming at Bell Labs)?
When I see mental models resonate across decades (or even longer), I gain confidence in those models because of the Lindy effect. If Newton stood on the shoulders of giants by learning from what had already been learned and shared, shouldn't we be able to stand even taller with more written work to learn from? But now we're back to the explore-exploit tradeoff because if I spend too much time exploring and learning mental models, I won't exploit what I already know to make an impact from that giant-level height.
And that's why, despite being so curious about meta-level mental models, I'm prioritizing my efforts in the coming quarter to focus on object-level impacts while getting my fix writing about thoughts here :)
Questions: What's you meta- vs. object-level balance of efforts? Where have you used the double diamond approach? Have you ever used an approach that contradicts this, and what was the context and result? [note: next week; I will move this to a platform which is more conducive for responses, likely Substack)
With thanks to: former colleagues in Creative Play Lab (global innovation organisation within The LEGO Group); too many authors to name
