A day solving the puzzle

On a Friday I took off and I continued to do a jigsaw puzzle. As there was no other priority, it was fully done in 12th hour of the day. There was a genuine happiness to finish the puzzle. I was fascinated with the fact that how come jigsaw puzzle could occupy the brain so much so that it eclipsed everything around and gives joy. This was incredible.

There were many learnings during making this puzzle. Surprisingly there was also a resemblance between jigsaw puzzle and project management. Let us look closely why is that.

• Breaking down and sorting

Many unpacked pieces gave a challenge. It was a big chaos at first, then a question arrived on how to approach. Holding some pieces at hands gave an indication that keeping similar colour pieces together may reduce the chaos. The second observation which appeared was on the shapes, which quickly helped to build the boundaries of the puzzle.

It is the similar as when we start working on a fresh project, we try to understand the system and its boundaries. Previous experiences, domain knowledge, hypothesis, market trends, competitions are some factors which can give some ideas to begin, structure and organise to progress. This is how it begins. When the sorting and initial boundaries are done.

• Observations and building small modules

?Some pieces give the clue to be put together to form shapes of the reference photograph. These small shapes give confidence that it was going in the right direction.

This is just same as team put together individual code, libraries and that would make some of the functionalities to work, to achieve intermediate milestones.

• Mixing of wrong pieces and fixing the right one

Sometimes it would appear that the piece is the right one because of the colour. The piece is pushed hard to fit in there. Later, as the puzzle progresses, re-evaluation is done and realised that it was the wrong piece. It was not needed. The wrong one needed to be replaced with right one, which is also flexible. Now, pieces started to match the reference photograph.

Just like that in our software debugging where a code is edited or new code is added to make the existing code work. Whatever workarounds or hardcoding was done, it was forced to be removed. Only a flexible and cohesive code is meant to be living.

The experience of pushing a piece hard to fix and replacing with a flexible one gave euphoria which was unmatched. It taught many things.

• The last bit

Although being careful with handling hundreds of pieces, it was just a coincidence that the last piece was missing, it took a while to find it.

In software many times we come across a bug which was found only on the last moment and then the team finds the fix and accomplishes the release.

At the end when puzzle is done, the journey makes more sense, you can derive best practices. The final jigsaw puzzle radiates beauty better than the reference photograph for some reason. It is the same as when you begin a project and finish it you get the same high feeling. Solving problems one by one, adding and removing pieces, experimenting, gives the alchemy of achievement and joy.