How do You Eat an Elephant?

The next creative technique from "The Thinker's Toolbox" is a word I'm not too happy about...reduce. As someone who has needed to drop a few (lies) pounds most of their adult life, I immediately equate reduce with diet. But wait! There's more. One of my favourite questions when talking about essays was, "How do you eat an elephant?" One bite at a time is the old answer. When we have a diificult problem or situation we need to break it down to bite sized chunks to enable us to get our mouths or minds, around the problem.

In his most excellent book, "99% Inspiration Tips,Tales & Techniques for Liberating Your Business Creativity", Bryan Mattimore describes Fermi problems. Named after Enrico Fermi, that fun guy who brought the world the atomic bomb, these problems never have enough information to solve them. You must reduce the problem down to a number of smaller areas and then make assumptions about the rest of the information. An example from the book.
You are travelling on your yacht across the Pacific Ocean and your Captain tells you that you are now over the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean. One of your guests, a clumsy gentleman, drops your Prize cannonball over the side. How long will it be before your cannonball hits the ocean floor?

Feel free to leave your answers. Solution tomorrow.