The Value of a Mental Model

Those of us who are career IT folks know that you constantly have to learn and keep up your skills on new technologies, trends and methodologies. It can be a daunting task depending on what your specialty is in the IT field. The pace of change in IT and the resulting effort it takes to keep your knowledge and skills current (and marketable) can bring about a "change fatigue" that can be tough to overcome if you're not ready for it.

Something I've found useful over the years is what I call my "Mental Models". It's not rocket science for sure and really for me they are nothing more than frameworks for thinking about certain things. I've found that if the ideas and/or concepts are distilled down into something akin to an L1 or L2 architectural diagram it saves me a huge number of mental cycles when tackling new problems or assimilating new ideas.

Many of these mental models are not my own creation of course since there are so many good ones already out there. (Nothing new under the sun right?) For example, I find certain ITIL practices of to be great mental models when thinking about how to run operations in IT. Additionally, I find SAFe to have some excellent mental models for quickly delivering business value.

My point is not to sell you on any particular framework or methodology, but to underscore how helpful it is to develop a set of mental models that apply to your specific area of IT. Once you have a set that work for you, then you can apply them to new problems, new ideas or new technologies and it seems to really speed the thinking and analysis process.

On a final note, for the rare occasion when you just can't find an existing model that helps you in your specific scenario don't be afraid to sketch out your own mental model. Even if you find you need to update it over time it could still serve you well by clearing the fog on a particular topic.