# Professional Lenses

> Look at a problem the way 25 different professions would.

Chapter III, Problem solving · 3.16 · Origin: Scott H. Young (2018) · Time: 15 to 40 min · Solo or group

**Use it when** you are stuck seeing a problem from only one angle.

Interactive workspace: https://kogu.tools/tools/professional-lenses

## Abstract

Each profession trains a habit of looking. An economist asks about incentives. A plumber takes the thing apart. These habits work well inside their own field and rarely get used outside it.

Scott Young collected 25 of them as thinking tools you can carry between fields. Here they're a deck of cards. You keep one problem in front of you, look at it through a few cards in turn, and write down what each one makes you notice.

## Method

1. **State the problem.** Write it as one concrete sentence, such as a number that dropped or a plan that stalled.
2. **Draw a few lenses.** Pick three at random, or choose the ones furthest from your own background. Those usually show you the most.
3. **Ask the question literally.** Answer as someone in that job would on an ordinary workday, and stay with it for a few minutes.
4. **Write what you notice.** Note every observation, odd ones included. If a lens gives you nothing, that's worth knowing too.
5. **Star the useful ones.** Go back over your notes and star the ones that would change what you do next.
6. **Pick a next step.** Turn the starred notes into one action or test to try.

## When to use it

- You keep coming back to the same explanation and want a different angle.
- Everyone on the team has the same background and sees the problem the same way.
- You want a structured way to brainstorm without a facilitator.

## Common pitfalls

- Only picking lenses close to your own job. The unfamiliar ones are where the surprises come from.
- Treating it as role play and not writing anything down.
- Skimming twenty lenses. Spend real time on three.
- Forgetting that every profession has blind spots. A lens gives you one more view to weigh.

## References

- Young, S. H. (2018, December 4). Twenty-five thinking tools. Scott H. Young. https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2018/12/04/25-thinking-tools/
- Epstein, D. (2019). Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Riverhead Books.