A symptom of this missing reformulation is often when people focus on a particular solution to a problem that is implicit in their mind, often without realizing it. I often have an interaction like this at work, which can be summed up as “What problem is this solution for?”:
Technical lead: “What would it take to implement X?”
Me: “Why do you want to do X?”
TL, visibly frustrated: “To achieve Y”
Me: “What is a goal of having Y?”
TL, even more frustrated: “There is a customer request for Z, and Y is how we can implement it”
Me: “What problem is the customer trying to solve?”
TL, now exasperated: “I don’t know for sure, but the customer service asked for Z”
Me: “My guess is that what triggered a request for Z is that they have an issue with A, B or maybe C, and, given their limited understanding of our product, they think that Z will solve it. I am quite sure that there are alternative approaches to solving their issue, whatever it is, and Z is only one of them, likely not the best one. Let’s figure out what they are struggling with, and I can suggest a range of approaches, then we can decide which of those make sense.”
TL: “I need to provide an estimate to the customer service so they can invoice the customer”
Me: “As soon as we figure out what we are implementing, definitely. Or do you want me to just blindly do X?”
TL: “Just give me the estimate for X.” sometimes accompanied by “Let me run the reports and see what’s going on”
Me: “N weeks of my time” [well padded because of the unknowns]
Occasionally some time later, after some basic investigation: the real problem they seem to be facing is actually P, and it has multiple solutions, of which X is one, but it requires more work than X’ or X″ and interferes with the feature F for other customers. Let’s run the latter two by the customer, with a cost and timeline for each, and see what happens.
In the above pattern there were multiple levels of confusing problems with solutions:
The customer asked for Z without explaining or even understanding what ails them
The customer service people didn’t push back for clarification, and just assumed that Z is what needs to be done
The TL decided that Y will solve Z and that X is a way to implement Y
This may or may not be related to the question you are asking, though. Here is a classic example from physics after the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment that showed that the speed of light is constant: “What happens to the medium that light propagates in?” vs “What if we postulate that light propagation does not need a medium?”
A symptom of this missing reformulation is often when people focus on a particular solution to a problem that is implicit in their mind, often without realizing it. I often have an interaction like this at work, which can be summed up as “What problem is this solution for?”:
Technical lead: “What would it take to implement X?”
Me: “Why do you want to do X?”
TL, visibly frustrated: “To achieve Y”
Me: “What is a goal of having Y?”
TL, even more frustrated: “There is a customer request for Z, and Y is how we can implement it”
Me: “What problem is the customer trying to solve?”
TL, now exasperated: “I don’t know for sure, but the customer service asked for Z”
Me: “My guess is that what triggered a request for Z is that they have an issue with A, B or maybe C, and, given their limited understanding of our product, they think that Z will solve it. I am quite sure that there are alternative approaches to solving their issue, whatever it is, and Z is only one of them, likely not the best one. Let’s figure out what they are struggling with, and I can suggest a range of approaches, then we can decide which of those make sense.”
TL: “I need to provide an estimate to the customer service so they can invoice the customer”
Me: “As soon as we figure out what we are implementing, definitely. Or do you want me to just blindly do X?”
TL: “Just give me the estimate for X.” sometimes accompanied by “Let me run the reports and see what’s going on”
Me: “N weeks of my time” [well padded because of the unknowns]
Occasionally some time later, after some basic investigation: the real problem they seem to be facing is actually P, and it has multiple solutions, of which X is one, but it requires more work than X’ or X″ and interferes with the feature F for other customers. Let’s run the latter two by the customer, with a cost and timeline for each, and see what happens.
In the above pattern there were multiple levels of confusing problems with solutions:
The customer asked for Z without explaining or even understanding what ails them
The customer service people didn’t push back for clarification, and just assumed that Z is what needs to be done
The TL decided that Y will solve Z and that X is a way to implement Y
This may or may not be related to the question you are asking, though. Here is a classic example from physics after the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment that showed that the speed of light is constant: “What happens to the medium that light propagates in?” vs “What if we postulate that light propagation does not need a medium?”