The Methodical Experimenter
How to learn as a Theorist-Pragmatist: the methodical experimenter method
The Methodical Experimenter likes to understand the principle and see it work, in that order and without skipping stages. In the Honey and Mumford model, this is the Theorist and Pragmatist combination, that of people who want rigor and results. You turn theory into procedure, which is why you tend to be the checklist, quality and training person. The blind spot shows up when there is neither time nor method: improvisation stalls.
The plan below takes advantage of your natural cycle of theory, practice and adjustment and adds two things: a record of the times the method breaks and regular improvisation training. Style is stated preference, and the evidence that teaching only in the preferred style improves learning is weak (Pashler and colleagues, 2008), so it pays to exercise what is weakest.
Take the quizAction plan
Study in three beats: principle, example, exercise
Structure each topic into a fixed sequence: read the principle, study a worked example and soon do a similar exercise without looking. The order respects your need to understand and to see it work. If the material does not come in that order, rearrange it: open the exercise first, go back to the principle, solve it again. In an hour you close the whole cycle of a topic.
Turn each concept into a checklist
When you understand a procedure, write the steps in a checklist of five to eight items, with the done criterion for each. Test it three times on real cases and note, with each use, which step broke or was ambiguous. This is your continuous improvement method, and the final checklist is something others can use without needing your explanation.
Record where the method breaks
Keep a list of situations in which your procedure did not work, with the probable cause. This turns a method into a real tool, because it delimits the ground where it holds. Review the list once a month; the patterns that appear show which theory is still missing and where your checklist needs a branch.
Train improvisation in small doses
Once a week, solve something without a prior method and with limited time: twenty minutes to plan a trip without researching an itinerary, a logic problem without checking the answer, a conversation without an agenda. The goal is not to get it right, it is to get used to the feeling of acting with incomplete information, which is your greatest discomfort.
Share the method with people who improvise well
Show your checklist to an Activist or Pragmatist colleague and ask them to use it without explanation. Watch where they shorten, skip or change the order: those are the points where your method is too rigid or poorly explained. In return, notice how they decide quickly, and copy one of their strategies.
Common pitfalls
Turning everything into procedure
Some conversations and relationships need to happen without a step-by-step. Recognize when a checklist is too much.
Waiting for the perfect method to begin
Start with a draft method and improve it in practice. The second use almost always reveals what the first one hid.
Frequently asked questions
The pure Theorist tends to be satisfied with the model; those who join both want to see the model working in a real case. The second combination tends to be more delivery-oriented, giving speed without giving up rigor.