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This sort of goes to something I learned as an auto mechanic. When you have a problem, describe the symptoms as objectively as possible. Don’t say, “I need my
by acranox 8y ago
This sort of goes to something I learned as an auto mechanic. When you have a problem, describe the symptoms as objectively as possible. Don’t say, “I need my tires balanced.” Or you might get your tires balanced but the problem persists. Instead say, “I feel a vibration when driving on the highway at 60mph.” This forces the technician to diagnose the problem.
That’s an overly simplistic example but that’s the point. Tell your doctor what your symptoms are, without including statements that suggest a cause, or otherwise limit the scope of the issue.
- sumanthvepa 8y agoThat would be the right thing to do with a competent technician or indeed your doctor. However, here in India where I live, mechanics and computer technicians are for the most part essentially illiterate. They have absolutely no experience with the kind of analytical and critical problem solving skill you describe. Very often I am the expert in the room, and the only thing preventing me from doing the repair myself is the actual tooling (Plus I don't want to get my clothes dirty :-) ). So I do the do the diagnosis, and tell the mechanic what to do and they do it. Works well for all of us. :-)
- acranox 8y agoThat’s different then. You aren’t asking for someone to solve a problem for you. You are just paying them to perform a task. I’m referring to the issue addressed in the article about problem solving.
- ggg9990 8y agoIndia has exceptionally skilled mechanics. I saw one resuscitating a worn axle by stick welding new metal onto it! (In the street)
- 1996 8y agoLet me guess... Puegeot branded car?
- kchoudhu 8y agoReference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50A9wjJ40Dk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50A9wjJ40Dk
- 1996 8y agoOops, forgot this funny add, yes too! Full context for the other readers: The puegeot 206 have a known axle problem, leading to breaking up right after warranty expires: http://clubpeugeotuk.proboards.com/thread/3298/faulty-axle-on-206-model http://clubpeugeotuk.proboards.com/thread/3298/faulty-axle-o... It can be solved by directly welding metal to the axes. Considering how popular the 206 is in India, I thouht the OP was also relating his personal experiences with having his Puegeot fixed
- walrus01 8y agoThere are situations, however, where you have to know specifically what you want in order to get it. Using my personal experience with automobiles in Pakistan as an example, maybe 1 in 50 places that's capable of changing a tire also has a good quality balancing machine. If you've just purchased new tires and you know you're going to need all four wheels rebalanced, you have to intentionally seek out that rare place which has a modern digital tire balancing machine and knows how to use it.
- AndrewKemendo 8y agoI don't think it's simplistic at all. In fact I think it's core to product/requirement management if you're doing it well. "Tell me what you want to do, not how you want it done."
- cwilkes 8y agoOr in business with knowing that customers don’t want 1/4” drills, they want 1/4” holes.
- whatsstolat 8y agoOr they want to feel proud their home and show off to friends. Which means getting modern art on their wall, hence requiring a 1/4" hole, and hence the corresponding drill bit.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoLet's briefly imagine the world where this thinking is taken to its logical conclusion. So business thought, why bother with drilling, let's invent Modern Art Affixer, because that's what people really want to do. (That we can vendor-lock them in this is just an added benefit.) Then I need a screen mounted on a wall. I can't use Modern Art Affixer, and it's something not common for regular consumers to do, but fortunately there are some (appropriately more expensive) Screen Affixing services that mostly service other businesses. Then I want to hang a DYI piece of equipment I made and I'm shit out of luck, because individuals doing DIY hardware are too small a market to justify dedicated products. Coming back from this nightmare - the point is, what happened with the concept of technology empowering people? That is, giving them means to solve their own problems, instead of trying to sell a ready-made solution to arbitrarily specific problem? It's not that I mind very specific solutions - but without more general, empowering technology, we'd be limited to only solving specific problems that affect large enough amount of people to justify a business around it. I worry this already starts happening at the intersection of hardware and software (e.g. most IoT products can be seen as solving overly specific problems to vendor-lock people). So big thanks to all businesses that keep assuming that what consumers really need are standard-sized drills.
- megaman22 8y agoYou have to either trust your mechanic or know enough to avoid getting flimflammed. An unscrupulous mechanic can cost you hundreds in superflous services easily.
- thrav 8y agoThis is an entire section of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
- Cyphase 8y agoSimilar to the XY problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
- paradite 8y agoThis is very much captured elegantly as XY problem: http://xyproblem.info http://xyproblem.info
- 725686 8y agoYou see this a lot in stackoverflow.com
- ebikelaw 8y agoWhat I see on SO is a lot of really annoying people refusing to answer simple questions because they believe, based on nothing, they know more about the question than the person who asked it.
- PascLeRasc 8y agoNever ask them anything about Linux networking. They get so excited to gatekeep the information and tell you that you don't know enough to be safe doing whatever you're doing.
- drusepth 8y agoI've actually been super curious lately what happens if you route a PC's localhost to someone else's IP, but I have no clue how to ask on SO without baiting out the obvious "don't do this" and the generic "stuff won't work". Obviously, I could do it myself and explicitly see stuff not working, but I'd like to find out what actually happens under the hood and why things break; SO seems like an awful place for these kinds of "what if" questions and I don't know a better place to ask.
- js2 8y agoYou're curious what happens if you add a route for 127/8 to somewhere other than the loopback interface? Or do you mean making it so that the hostname "localhost" resolves to something other than 127.0.0.1? Give it a try.
- blt 8y agowhat I see on SO a lot is people assuming your question is an instance of the "XY problem" when it's not.
- ranit 8y agoYes. Don't assume, describe the context and explain the reason for your request.
- duxup 8y agoFirst step of any technical support case, or just troubleshooting anything is "Define the problem" and that includes when it happens, the circumstances, the circumstances when it doesn't happen, and etc. One of my first real jobs I quickly became the favorite of some folks on the engineering team. The thing was I was not experienced, I didn't know much, but I followed a simple formula to write up problems, and they liked that. I often missed some basic steps and didn't have experience, but for whatever reason they liked how I gave them information. Also when they asked a question I was very clear and honest with "I don't know" and "I'll find out". Other smarter techs would make assumptions based on their experience, fiddle with this and then, and then present to engineering this rambling tale that was all about what they tired to fix the problem and didn't fix it.... all while missing what the problem was in the first place, when it happened, and so on.
- matt_the_bass 8y agoNot only tech support but also sales. When I attend trade shows, I often have potential customers come and ask if we sell a particular type of technology. I’ve discovered that really what they are doing is asking if we sell the think they they _think_ is the solution to what they _think_ is the problem. It’s my job to figure out what their problem _actually_ is and then figure out if we have something that can solve _that_ problem. One has to be quite diplomatic in these situations. They certainly know more about their domain, but I know more about technologies to solve their problem. So I need to pry out more information without sounding like I think I know more about their job than they do. I like that part of the job.
- wool_gather 8y agoNice; the generalized version of "if I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse".
- PeterisP 8y agoOn the other hand, the job often turns out to be knowing the set of problems for which you're selling a solution (which is quite large for some companies e.g. Oracle) and then convincing the potential customer that this is the real problem that they have.
- keerthiko 8y agoThis is true when giving feedback on games too when playtesting! As a designer, I love it when players say "I was frustrated when facing X, and had a lot of fun when doing Y interaction", rather than things along the lines of "I think X is too strong and needs to be balanced by doing W, but I think you should keep Y exactly as it is because it's just right." Goes for both video and tabletop games. In general it's good to be able to articulate your "root issues" and work your analysis of the experience from there (if that's your responsibility, otherwise leave it to the people whose responsibility it is, the root issues are the only information they need).
- jaclaz 8y agoYep, this is generalized as the "standard litany" for bugs reports/request for assistance: https://jdebp.eu/FGA/problem-report-standard-litany.html https://jdebp.eu/FGA/problem-report-standard-litany.html and if you don't provide that you risk to slip on a chocolate covered banana (or XY problem): https://jdebp.eu/FGA/put-down-the-chocolate-covered-banana.html https://jdebp.eu/FGA/put-down-the-chocolate-covered-banana.h...
- andai 8y agoThis often got me into trouble on IRC. Sure there might be a more elegant way to do it, but I'm learning here! Curiously I also regularly got into trouble for what I trying to do, not just the how.
- jaclaz 8y agoFor IRC, you need to go through the (only seemingly dated), a bit lengthy, but really exhaustive: How to ask questions the smart way ... (by Eric Steven Raymond) http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Sometimes a subtle difference in the wording of the question may make the difference from receiving one or more helpful/useful replies and getting some snarky reply.
- hyperpape 8y ago"subtle difference" To me, that's hazing. There absolutely are bad questions, but the things that make them bad are rarely subtle.
- jaclaz 8y agohttp://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#examples http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#examples >In the last question, notice the subtle but important difference between demanding “Give me an answer” and “Please help me figure out what additional diagnostics I can run to achieve enlightenment.”
- jacob019 8y agoGood luck with that when contacting Comcast or AT&T.