Analogies

I’m very fond of analogies when trying to explain something – even to my self. I find it much easier to grasp a concept when I can make reference to some other related concept, even when the relationship is very loose. In this context, stretching an analogy completely out of shape may reveal connections and interactions that otherwise remain hidden.
I am not someone who finds words easy – it does not map to the way I approach the world. It is always difficult to convert my thoughts into a single flow of information, especially one as slow as words. [This is, of course, a secondary reason for writing things done. It forces me to deal with words. I recognise that communication is an essential aspect of the world and that words, talking or writing, is a key part of this. It is a short-coming which I would like to overcome or at least mitigate].
I understand that the other major mental approach to concepts is visualisation. To see a representation of the concept in the mind’s eye. I guess this would be more common amongst artists and other right brain thinkers. The distinction between these two approaches has been illustrated by what flashes through one’s mind when the word ‘cat’ is said. Do you see the letters (of course you do – you are reading at the moment, but what if someone said it out loud) or do you have an image of a puppy appear in your head?
I do neither; instead it is more a ‘feeling’ or sense of pattern. Cat-ness as a sensation which encapsulates what I know about cats. In approaching a new area, I spend of lot of time trying to get a feel for the shape of the topic and how the different aspects fit within the whole. Hence analogies. A good analogy allows one to think about a new concept through the pattern of an existing, usually well understood, thought process. It gives a basic shape to a concept which can then be adjusted as more details become available and higher resolution becomes possible. There will always be aspects in which the analogy becomes tenuous and one must always be aware that derived detail is suspect. But an initial outline, a shape for the concept, provides a basis for understanding.

The IT industry has a great many similarities to the construction industry and the analogies have been pushed for decades - deliberately so mostly, such as referring to Software development as “Engineering”. Unfortunately pushing the similarities tends to hide the differences and expectations are set which cannot be met. Multiple analogies are required to provide different insights on the area and the areas of connection need to be highlighted to indicate where each is valid.
A quite different analogy is making its way through IT at the moment. It associates the new concepts of SOA and SaaS [I won’t attempt to explain these at this time. There is lots of information out there if you are really interested] with the manufacturing industry. Mostly this analogy is implicit but several years ago I saw a presentation which made the connection explicit (Microsoft’s “Metropolis” analogy). I don’t know why this approach hasn’t been followed since because I have seen many poor attempts to explain SOA which would have benefited from making the link to something that business people can understand.
Another very good analogy specifically for management of software projects was a connection to pathfinding in uncharted territory (there is a sport in Australia called ‘rogaining’ which is essentially this but I don’t believe it has yet taken off elsewhere). I don’t remember where I saw this description but it clarified enormously the trade-off between project needs and support needs. Do you waste time making a map of the territory to make it easier next time, or do you just race to the finish line for yourself?
Analogies in other areas include the concept of technical debt – linking maintenance costs to mortgage repayments. I have written articles on the association between knowledge bases and memory systems, corporate processes and instinctive behaviour. In a previous life in the fitness industry I found it useful to describe an analogy between body fat and personal finance (stored calories are like money in the bank – it even generates interest). There are some extensions to all of these which may prove enlightening – and potentially misleading.

Which leads to the major problem with analogies: getting too attached to one can easily lead to unconscious expectations when you reach an area where the analogy breaks down, or is incorrectly extended. You must always be aware that the map is NOT the territory.