What shape are you?

Today I wanted to share with you a very simple but powerful process that will help you shine bright like a diamond!

By shine, I mean helping you reach whatever goals you set for yourself, whatever vision you have, whatever future you want to create.

This process is called the Double Diamond process. It is a simple, but very powerful problem solving process that you can use when you are faced with complex problems, ambiguous challenges or ambitious opportunities you would like to pursue.

All you need to remember is the following shape, two diamonds juxtaposed:

The first Diamond focuses on the Problem. The second Diamond focuses on the solution. Each Diamond is then split into two phases:

1. divergent phase (Discover in the Problem Diamond / Develop in the Solution Diamond); and
2. convergent phase (Define in the Problem Diamond / Deliver in the Solution Diamond).

Divergent phase

A divergent phase invites you to gather as much information, data, and insights as possible from many different perspectives (Discover the problem on hand by immersing yourself into the problem / Explore and develop many potential ideas to solve that problem).?

Convergent phase

On the other hand, the convergent phase is about synthesis, connecting the dots, making sense of all the information you have on hand towards clear direction and focus (Define the problem and identify the root cause, the areas worth solving / Identify and Deliver the fit for purpose solution to this problem).

Now that you understand the basics, I want to use this simple geometric analogy to illustrate different scenarios visually about what generally goes wrong in our lives, in our work, in the way we approach problems and challenges we face or new opportunities we chase.

Scenario 1: you are a “Jump to the solution” type of person / leader / team / organisation

There could be several variations here: when faced with a problem, you barely discover the problem, form a view on what needs to be solved very quickly and jump straight to developing a solution you have in mind…it could resemble something like this:

Or another variation is a very quick attempt to discover the problem space and quickly define the root cause and then spend ages delivering an improbable solution, which would resemble something like this:

It is not difficult to foresee that the solution is unlikely to be fit for purpose and you are doomed to keep implementing solutions that do not really add value or solve any problem worth solving. You just miss the mark.

Scenario 2: you are a “Drown in problems” type of person / leader / team / organisation

On the other side of the spectrum the “Drown in problems” type of scenario is about spending endless time in the problem space, reviewing over and over the facts, data, every facet of the problem but never able to define a way forward and barely ever building any practical solutions to the problems you face or opportunities you are pursuing. This could look like this:

Or it could look like this second variation below indicates a divergent thinker who would constantly accumulate more and more data, information and experiences but never really makes sense of them, never gets down to the root cause, never extracts meaning to move forward to the convergent phase. This is a long dark tunnel of being stuck in the problem space with no hope of developing a solution.

Or it could look like this third variation below: the case of a convergent thinker, one who spends little time accumulating data but incessantly reviewing the available data on hand and taking a very long time to make sense of it.

In all the above scenarios, there is inability to translate any of this into any meaningful solution.

There are many other scenarios (overly divergent, overly convergent, hybrids, etc.) which you can explore the various permutations by playing around with the various shapes.

Now your turn: I invite you to look at yourself in the mirror: who are you? Look at certain problems and challenges you are currently facing. How long have you been drowning in the problem space? Are you quick to diverge and tend to overthink and take forever before making a decision when you converge? Or have you barely focused on the problem and have been engineering an improbable solution that seems to add no value whatsoever?

What shape are you? Take a piece of paper and a pen and draw: do you only have one diamond? Are you missing any phase? How tall (effort) and how stretched (time) is each phase or triangle?

Just visualising this will already be a great start and you can start working towards a better-balanced double diamond approach. Ideally it should look something like this:

A series of Double Diamonds, that help you go deeper, iteratively in uncovering the right solution to any problem you face. Think big, start small, act fast.?

Each new Double Diamond involves more time and more effort towards implementing the final fit-for-purpose solution.

It is all about balance, experimentation, iteration throughout the process.

Now that you understand this, reach out to me if you want to learn how to shine bright like a Double Diamond.