Quote of the day: When facing wicked problems, perhaps just try things out

I was reading "How
Strategists Really Think: Tapping the Power of Analogy," an
article from the Harvard Business Review
(semi-necessary disclosure: I also have an article appearing in
that magazine -- I said I've been busy!) and
was struck by this comment:

Trial and error is a relatively effective way to make
strategic decisions in settings so ambiguous, novel, or complex that any
cognitively intensive effort is doomed to fail. In altogether new situations .
. . . there may be no good substitute for trying something out and learning
from experience.

Tom again: I found the article especially useful for the
section on "How to avoid superficial analogies." The key step, as friend JK
pointed out, is assessing the actual similarity of the two cases, or, as the
authors put it, to "Actively search for differences between the source and the
target."

(HT to JK)