Navrang Puzzle

The day began with Prof. Mandi bringing in a colourful cube, breaking it into 27 cubes and asking us to assemble the individual blocks back into the cube such that each face contained only one colour. Unlike a standard Rubik's Cube, the Navrang Puzzle can be dismantled and reassembled. We were challenged to find an algorithm or method to reassemble the Puzzle in order to reach the intended objective. After a few desperately minutes of thinking, a few students devised a plan which didn't work too well.

And then Prof. Mandi took over.

Prof.Mandi solved the Puzzle in about 2 minutes using a well-defined method. Sir had used a 3-step algorithm.

He explained to us how a lot of problems, both in life, and in organizations, are similar in nature, multi-faceted, unexpected, and with time constraints. How they all have smaller, individual elements to them that have to be solved for us to solve the complete puzzle. And how, with the application of the right principles of management, we can actually, pretty easily, solve them.

It is here we were introduced to two important concepts: (a) Organizational Structure and (b) Unity of Objective.

An Organizational Structure consists of activities such as task allocation, coordination and supervision, which are directed towards the achievement of organizational aims. An organization can be structured in many different ways, depending on their objectives. The structure of an organization will determine the modes in which it operates and performs. This of course leads us to the next idea. Unity of Objectives stands for the philosophy according to which every individual and every process in an organization should aim to fulfil the organization's Objectives and Mission Statement.

The key to solving any problem, is organization. You organize your problems, and their sub-problems in order, and that is half the job taken care of. The first step is to segregate the similar elements of the problem - the like-colored cubes - together. Once you have done that, everything else falls into place, and your coming out successful is simply a matter of applying simple logic and common sense in each level, and avoiding any mistakes while you do so.

Another key concept in all of this is the importance of effective communication.

 The better you are at communication (either way), the better you learn how to do things, and how not to do things. You can watch and learn from the experiences of your seniors, or the mistakes of your peers, and nothing can teach you better.

The most important step was to understand is that without an objective, this puzzle would never have been solved. It is the objective that determines the method in which we have to solve the problem. Any method we device, it must be capable of being easily replicated. Only then can we achieve economies of scale and get effective outputs.