Analysis is essential when you are in the Engineering,Building and Using (evaluating) phases. Yet at other times, analytical thinking may interfere with the creative process. For example, during cycles of scanning and design, the overly analytical mind will judge and reject new ideas "up front," blocking the ability to explore the possibilities of a new idea.

Analytical thinkers: These are specialists, thinkers who typically work in-depth in one field (science, engineering, etc.). They employ "traditional" methods of analysis (e.g., dividing a problem into component parts and then studying each part). They are described as "left brain," thinkers, since researchers have found that for approximately 95 percent of the population, the left hemisphere of the brain processes information in a mode that is verbal, analytical, reductive-into-parts, sequential, time-oriented, rational, logical, and linear.

Global thinkers: These are thinkers who tend to work in multidisciplinary environments, with the ability to draw analogies and synthesize seemingly unrelated fields. These are the "right brain" thinkers, who rely strongly on the right hemisphere of the brain, which is nonverbal, visually and spacially-oriented, non-temporal (lacking a sense of time) and intuitive. These thinkers are apt to use analogy and metaphor to solve problems, and to think "holistically," recognizing complete patterns rather than parts.

Strategic thinkers: These are thinkers who are able to design processes (actions over time) to create new solutions, whether the problem is general (long-range, abstract), or specific (short-range, concrete). They are able to think temporally (how events are sequenced over time) and spatially (how parts fit together to form a whole), suggesting an integration of right brain and left-brain thinking.

Applying the solution box, executives and project managers may seek to involve individuals adept at these different kinds of thinking in the design of an idea or project, for all or part of the creative cycle. Project teams may seek out design processes and methods that promote a given mode of thinking, consistent with their stage in the creative cycle. Individuals may seek to increase their competence in each of the modes of thinking.

To increase analytical (left brain) thinking, seek out how other in your field- or in unrelated fields-would structure an analysis. To increase global (right brain) thinking, seek out exercises of imagination, visualization, graphic analogy, and synectics. [a graphic analogy involves choosing a physical object with which you are familiar (for example, a tree) and name all of the ways your problem (or condition) is like that object. Synectics is a series of techniques that use graphic analogy, metaphor and simile to develop new viewpoints. Several good books are available on these creative problem solving methods]. To increase strategic thinking, seek out methods (like the ANDmap® system) which emphasize the design of interrelated activities over time.