Over the years, coherts and bosses have shared many nuggets of wisdom with myself and others in the form of analogies.
There are enough articles already written about the power of analogies, so I don’t need to repeat the same information here.
Where I’ve found it helpful is relating a problem to something the audience can grasp if it’s outside their knowledge scope, or they’re stuck trying to understand the information. One could argue knowing your audience better before you present, but if you find yourself in that position, analogies can occasionally help get you past an obstacle.
Here’s one that I came up with. There are similar analogies out there related to the topic, but this one was based off of my own experience.
Last summer, I had to restore my 11 year old deck. It’s 10 ft x 22 ft in size. For the larger surfaces, power sanders were preferred. However, when it came to the railing rungs, the rungs were close together, and there were many of them.
Problem:
How to sand all the rungs, all four sides, in a quicker time with less physical effort?
Trialing a Solution:
I bought a multi-purpose tool with a right angle sanding head thinking the power would reduce time and effort, and the right angle would allow me to get in-between the rungs to sand. That worked for most spaces between the rungs, but not all because of placement or the wood warping. I also noticed the wood fibres were splintering while sanding. Too this, because of COVID, most people were at home… and many deck were being restored. Sanding pads were hard to source locally.
Alternate Solution Trial:
I found an 80 grit sanding sponge block at a local store, and tried that out instead.
Trial Conclusion:
Turns out it did the job better and faster.
Analogy:
“Sometimes a manual sanding block, and not a power sander, is the right tool for the job.”
If you’re building a product, not always is the expensive and complex solution the right tool for the job. Sometimes the simplest solution is all that is needed.
How did the deck look after restoring it? I’d say pretty good. 🙂
