Book Review: "Winning The Brain Game"

"Winning The Brain Game: The Seven Fatal Flaws of Thinking" by Matthew May is a great book for bettering your analytical approach to various issues. It gives a number of common pitfalls analysts typically incur in their quest for understanding or for arriving at root cause, or as Matthew puts them, the seven fatal flaws. I listened to the book on audible for about ~$10-$15, at 4.5hrs or 218 pages. Overall I give it 6 / 10 stars because I feel the book gives analysts many tools to both recognize and overcome their own analytical biases. That said, I recommend this book to anyone doing technical analysis or even forensics. The book is riddled with good tips and tricks for helping individuals further analyze an issue, as well as many pitfalls they often experience in their analysis, be it logical fallacies or generally poor assumptions. These tips will help analysts recognize their own biases at play, and provides ample strategies for both detecting and countering these biases at work. The 7 fatal flaws that May highlights are laid out in the seven chapters themselves, but just to be clear they are leaping, fixation, overthinking, satisficing, downgrading, 'not invented here' syndrome, and self-censoring. That said, in my typical fashion, the following are the chapters of the book, which also include a chapter on each of the seven fatal flaws.

Acknowledgments
Preface: Mind Over Matter
Introduction: 7 Fatal Flaws
PART ONE: Misleading
Chapter 1: Leaping
Chapter 2: Fixation
Chapter 3: Overthinking
PART TWO: Mediocre
Chapter 4: Satisficing
Chapter 5: Downgrading
PART THREE: Mindless
Chapter 6: Not Invented Here (NIH)
Chapter 7: Self-Censoring
Appendix A: Solution to The Prisoner's Release
Appendix B: Solutions to Chapter 2 Insight Problems
Notes 

One of my favorite parts of the book is the strategies it provides for countering the seven fatal flaws. These are techniques one can apply to promote through, objective analysis and are great for avoiding or recognizing bias. Two of my favorite techniques are framestorming and prototesting (a more rapid and beta version of prototyping), techniques which can help you rapidly understand situations and test assumptions. The book is also packed with good quotes from thought leaders and texts on similar subjects, such as ample quotes from Albert Einstein and his approach to analysis and critical thought. Looking into some of May's other philosophies, which he extols in this book, "What appears to be the problem, isn’t. What appears to be the solution, isn’t. What appears to be impossible, isn’t." These are all paradoxes May poses his participants to get them to look for elegant solutions. Looking for the elegant solution is something May talks about often, it's at the core of this book and is essentially a solution that can have the greatest impact with requiring the least change or effort. The book presents some pretty interesting ideas at large, but at its core delivers in presenting solid tactics to combating common analytical mistakes. The following is Matthew May discussing his same philosophizes in his own words: