Sources of Power

There are many things experts can see that are invisible to everyone else:
Patterns that novices do not notice.
Anomalies—events that did not happen and other violations of expectancies.
The big picture (situation awareness).
The way things work.
Opportunities and improvisations.
Events that either already happened (the past) or are going to happen (the future).
Differences that are too small for novices to detect.
Their own limitations.

Key Points

Most problems are ill defined. Most studies of problem solving use well-defined goals.
To solve an ill-defined problem, we have to clarify the goal even as we are trying to achieve it, rather than keeping the goal constant.
Experience is needed to make a variety of judgments, ranging from identifying opportunities to gauging the solvability of a problem.
Artificial tasks do not require domain experience to arrive at solutions, and classical accounts usually ignore opportunities.
Experienced problem solvers can distinguish genuine anomalies from transients. Artificial tasks give the problem to subjects, thereby ignoring the process of problem finding.
Structuring a problem is using a barrier or leverage point to construct a course of action, not organizing a problem into a space that can be searched efficiently.
Standard advice on problem solving is aimed at well-defined goals and can interfere with solving ill-defined problems.
Problem solving is a constructive process. Computational approaches to problem solving rely on procedures, such as searching through problem spaces, that have little psychological reality.

Even brainstorming, a method that has been around for decades, seems primarily a social activity. If the participants generate their ideas individually, the resulting set of suggestions is usually longer and more varied than when everyone works together. Mullen, Johnson, and Salas (1991) have documented the finding that brainstorming reduces productivity.

second application is to be less enthusiastic about creativity programs. A range of different creativity methods has been proposed: brainstorming, synectics, and permutations of elements.

One application is to be less enthusiastic about rational planning approaches. Certainly there is value in trying to envision goals more clearly in planning and preparation. Nevertheless, we must accept the limitations of our ability to make plans for complex situations. We can prepare to improvise as we redefine the goals midway through a project.

It seems as if there are two primary sources of power for individual decision making and problem solving:
Pattern matching (the power of intuition).
Mental simulation.
Pattern matching provides us with a sense of reasonable goals and their attributes. It gives a basis for detecting anomalies and treating them with appropriate seriousness. It helps us to notice opportunities and leverage points, discover relevant analogues, and get a sense of how solvable a problem is. The judgment of solvability is also responsible for letting us recognize when we are unlikely to make more progress and that it is time to stop.
Mental simulation is the engine for diagnosing the causes of the problem, along with their trends. It plays a role in coalescing fragmentary actions to find a way to put them together. And it is the basis for evaluating courses of action. The themes covered thus far in reviewing problem solving and decision making are the core components for my perspective on naturalistic decision making. The development and use of these sources of power are elaborated in the following chapters.

In order to define problems and generate novel courses of action, we need to draw on our experience to make judgments about:
Reasonable goals and their attributes.
The appearance of an anomaly.
The urgency of solving a problem (whether to take anomalies seriously or treat them as transients that will go away).
What constitutes an opportunity worth pursuing.
Which analogues best fit the situation, and how to apply them.
The solvability of a problem.
Each of these judgments is its own source of power.

Consider the following quotation: “What do you want to do with your life? Where do you want to be in five years, ten, or even twenty? What kind of lifestyle do you want to have? All of these questions need to be answered BEFORE you start pursuing a career focus and even before you decide on an education.” This advice came from a pamphlet designed for high school students (Federal Jobs for College Graduates). I wonder how many readers with advanced degrees could answer the questions.

Experience lets us recognize the existence of opportunities. When the opportunity is recognized, the problem solver working out its implications is looking for a way to make good use of it, trying to shape it into a reasonable goal. At the same time, the opportunity is shaping the goal by raising the level of aspiration and identifying additional goal properties.

People become problem solvers when they have to find a way to create a new course of action, improvise, notice difficulties way in advance, or figure out what is causing a difficulty. The concept of leverage points opens the way to think about problem solving as a constructive process. It is constructive in the sense that solutions can be built up from the leverage points and that the very nature of the goal can be clarified while the problem solver is trying to develop a solution. In rock climbing, there is no correct solution. The climber looks at the available holds and figures out what direction makes good sense.