The model you're talking about here is a little different from what I had in mind. I'm more interested the succession of ideas, motivations, new data, insights

The model you're talking about here is a little different from what I had in mind. I'm more interested the succession of ideas, motivations, new data, insights etc. that caused him to 1) decide that the problem might be worth looking into in the first place 2) choose various approaches in the course of solving the problem. So any particular 'model' might just be one step in this larger activity.