> Looks insightful and gets good results most of the time though.

Yep, let me take a moment to agree fully and expand a bit:

This is why consultants and MBAs do so well. They have studied playbooks and seen so many case studies that they can quickly map situations onto known scenarios from their studies or experience, and almost immediately say, "This is called X, and the way to handle it is Y." It sounds good, comes off well in meetings, and to be fair is even often correct.

But as mentioned, it is not deep thought. It is pattern matching. In many standard business cases, it will work, but you still need the deep thought in the room to flag the situations that don't match and encourage new solutions in those cases.

This is exactly right. I find this most useful for asking better questions. People in X Situation typically experience problem Y so I know that "Have you tried Z?" is likely to be a good question that either provides a solution or new information.

The most important part of using this pattern matching as a substitute for deep thought is to be cautious of over fitting or otherwise getting it wrong.

Deep thought before and after a real time engagement is optimal.