logoalt Hacker News

devmoryesterday at 5:14 PM4 repliesview on HN

"What problem are we trying to solve?" is a question I have to ask constantly in corporate development environments, and rarely does anyone presenting the task to be done actually know the answer!

It's very frustrating.


Replies

hathawshyesterday at 6:40 PM

I try to remember to say something like this: "This is an interesting solution, but I'm not confident we have a shared understanding of the problem we're solving. I have a few guesses, but I don't want to bias the discussion, so please restate the problem without suggesting a solution. If it's too difficult to explain, I can suggest what problems I think you might be running into." I wish I always remembered to say that. :-)

show 2 replies
robertlagrantyesterday at 6:00 PM

It can be the case that people don't want to accidentally mis-state the problem, or get into a debate about the problem because they know people will chime in about nonessentials. I would recommend "Have we written down the problem we are trying to solve? I'd like to understand more." And get it written down if it isn't already.

show 2 replies
natdavidsonyesterday at 7:57 PM

I wouldn’t ask that if you want to keep your job.

show 3 replies
win311fwgyesterday at 7:30 PM

Reverse engineering the problem from someone's solution is the job. If you find it to be frustrating, you might be in the wrong profession.

show 1 reply