Plans vs Heuristics

How do you decide what to do next?

How do you navigate through a jungle?

In our rapidly evolving, interconnected world, the ability to navigate complex environments has become critical. You can begin to understand this by comparing the structured predictability of a city to the unpredictable chaos of a jungle.

While the city, with its streets, signs, and traffic lights, offers a well-mapped environment where plans can be executed with reasonable certainty, the jungle presents a very different reality.

The City

Imagine the city as a domain of order, where systems and structures provide a clear framework for navigation. Here, tools like Google Maps can predict travel times with reasonable accuracy, accommodating factors like traffic and public transportation schedules.

The city's layout and rules, despite occasional unpredictable elements like road work or erratic drivers, generally offer a legible and manageable environment. This predictability allows for detailed planning and strategy, akin to the design approach in problem-solving, where steps can be methodically laid out and followed.

City navigation is algorithmic: you follow steps to reach your destination. Think of how simple it is to map out how to get somewhere in New York City once you learn the grid system. Although your journey may be complicated by some of New York City's famously insane drivers and pedestrians, the route itself is a matter of matching streets and avenues.

The Jungle

Contrast this with finding yourself in a dense, disorienting jungle, as the lone survivor of a plane crash. The usual rules and tools for navigation are irrelevant. There are no paths, no signs, and no predictable structures to guide you. In such an environment, rigid planning not only becomes futile but potentially dangerous.

Imagine if you found a map in the wreckage, but you weren't sure what it was a map of. All you see when you look around is trees, bushes and wildlife. Your best bet for survival is to toss the map, because following it may send you deeper into the jungle and further from a happy ending.

The situation calls for a heuristic approach—one that involves continuous sampling, adaptation, and adjustment. This method is about making short-term decisions, assessing their outcomes, and then recalibrating based on the new information gathered. It's a continuous cycle of action, observation, and adaptation.

Instead of expecting a map to save you, the better method is to walk for a while, stop, gather data about your surroundings, and then assess what to do next. It's adaptive rather than algorithmic, since you have no idea what to do ahead of time. As you move and learn, you may come up with some basic rules, such as "keep the river on your left."

While there are no guarantees you'll make it through the jungle, this heuristic-based approach is far more likely to get you where you want to go than a rigid, city-like navigation system.

City Solutions for Jungle Problems

There's a tendency to approach problems and decisions as if they were in the orderly confines of a city. This approach can lead to strategies that are ill-suited for the complex, dynamic nature of today's challenges.

In a jungle, the best plan is the one that evolves in response to the environment. It starts with a bit of randomness, a willingness to explore, and an openness to change direction based on new information. This approach mirrors the principles of Darwinian evolution, where survival hinges on the ability to adapt and where the most successful strategies are those that are continuously refined and reshaped by the environment.

In applying this to your problem solving processes, it's crucial to recognize when a situation calls for a jungle approach rather than a city approach. While structured planning and predictable models have their place, there are many scenarios where a more flexible, heuristic method is needed.

This involves being observant, responsive, and willing to change course as new information and circumstances arise. It's about developing strategies that are not rigidly predefined but are instead dynamic and responsive to the complexities of the environment.

Likewise, there are situations when it makes sense to operate as if you're in a city. Algorithmic solutions do exist, and it's wise to take note of when to apply them. While adaptation is a good default, don't reinvent the wheel—unless that's what you want to do.

Recognizing when to employ a city approach and when to adopt a jungle mindset is key to effective decision-making in our increasingly interconnected and complex world.