Principles from Large Jigsaw Puzzles

Over the years I have annually completed a large jigsaw puzzle or two (greater than 3000 pieces) only because the larger ones don't fit on my dining room table and may restrict access to the table for a longer period. I have always found this to be therapeutic and helped me organise my thoughts.

This year, I have thought about the principles for how I approach a large puzzle and how that translates into the work environment, and how I conduct my job. So here goes ...

1.??????Many problems faced in business are complex and cannot be solved all at once – one piece at a time. The problems could include: how to minimise opportunities for cybercrime, how to understand market trends, how to find more efficient means to get products to market, how to effectively improve customer satisfaction, how to reduce crime in an area, etc. Each has its own challenges with things that are obvious and things that are not. They all require a process and a methodology.

2.??????Knowing what the final state should look like is very important. Being able to visualise and know the desired end state is part of the challenge that enables the determination of the steps to be taken to get from the present state into the desired state. Understanding why “here” is not great and “there” is better allows for the planning of the steps to get there.

3.??????This is going to take some time to complete. Completing complex tasks and objectives that consist of many constituent parts will take time. One must prepare for it and know that you have the time and resources available to complete it.

4.??????Trying to complete everything at once creates chaos and takes longer. The law of diminishing return is true here as well. Trying to make sense of too much data and trying to accomplish too many things simultaneously is the least productive approach and creates frustration, and yet we try to do that all the time in real life.

5.??????Work through the pieces and sort out what you can into obvious areas. It is best to try to break things up into understandable chunks and work with those. It may not be complete as other pieces get misunderstood, but it is still one of the more efficient approaches.

6.??????Starting with the border contains the scope and gives you places to attach pieces. Different temperaments handle this differently, but almost all people will start with the edges or border. This gives you context for the placement and also provides meaningful places to start. This is probably the most agreed-upon stage.

7.??????Figure out what is most obvious and start there for some quick results. Try to find a collection of pieces that make the most sense to start with. This will provide a rapid start and evidence of progress and also the place to work with the less obvious regions of the puzzle. The same is true with problem-solving – start with what you know and have and see what’s missing.

8.??????Finish as much as you can with what you know and have. You may not have everything in the section of the puzzle but certainly will have sufficient to now look for the missing items. When you see them, you will quickly place them.

9.??????Some pieces stand out while dealing with the obvious; work with those even though they are not the focus. If you know where it goes, place it there. You may have sorted a piece that does not properly fit with the category selected, but if you can see where it should be, place it there. Deal with outliers.

10.??You will pick up a piece many times and cannot place it and then suddenly its place will be evident. So often we can pick up the same piece seeing something obvious, but yet cannot place it properly for a while, and then suddenly … we see it. Sometimes what seems obvious isn't.

11.??Sometimes you must step away to clear your mind. You can’t keep going. Stepping away and doing something different resets your focus and it's amazing how many times you are able to place pieces quickly after the break.

12.??As the pieces find their places, the difficult areas start to show more detail, and solving them becomes easier. Sky pieces, as an example, start to show more distinctive tones as you reduce the number of pieces to work with and have the area bordering the sky showing its base tone. The same for foliage (my two most challenging areas). The same is true in solving some problems and you may have to look for other things to provide meaningful context.

13.??Finishing the puzzle just opens the opportunity to tackle another one (or more).

Whatever you decide to do with your puzzles, when the task is complete, and you have a finished product. Giving up is always possible but the satisfaction of completing is uplifting. Some people want to mount and frame. Me … I like to take a photo, break it up again and place the sorted pieces in plastic bags to shorten the sorting process the next time. Templatise and re-use as required.

Doing one or more of these jigsaw-puzzles every year strangely helps me remember these principles and helps change the approach I take in dealing with the matters at hand, at work or in my personal activities. Varying degrees of complexity are evident in the different puzzles completed, with my latest being the KRKA Falls in Croatia (where we spent a day a few years ago). There are not many distinct areas increasing the complexity. Maybe we get braver as time passes and experience builds that allows us to take on things we would never have tackled before. While I can, this will be a regular activity, regardless of how “nerdy” this may be.