Heuristic
Heuristic (originally known as heuristic approach, heuristic method, or heuristic technique; from Greek εὑρίσκω: to find, discover) is any approach, technique, and/or practice that utilizes one or more experiments to discover knowledge and/or to solve a problem.
Definition
According to Management by Robbins and Coulter (14th edition),
- Heuristic. A rule of thumb that decision makers use to simplify decision-making.
Usage
Heuristics are often used in situations when finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical. The result and, especially, the process of achieving this result may or may not be efficient, perfect, or rational, but, instead, sufficient for a satisfactory solution.
Popular methods
- Rule of thumb.
- Educated guess.
- Intuitive judgment.
- Guesstimate.
- Profiling.
- Common sense.
- Trial and error.
- Fail-fast.
- Learning through failure.
