I was in architecture for years, and I would help anyone who came to me on one condition. They would need to go back to their desk, and write up a 3 paragraph d

I was in architecture for years, and I would help anyone who came to me on one condition. They would need to go back to their desk, and write up a 3 paragraph description of their problem, what they tried, and where they were stuck. It has a lot of benefits. 1. It weeded out the people who wouldn't invest anything. 2. It let a good 25% of the engineers "rubber duck" their way out of a problem. 3. When the problem got past the first two filters, the problem was much better defined when we worked on it together.