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startupProblemSolving.md

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XY Problem

The XY problem is a communication problem encountered in help desk, technical support, software engineering, or customer service situations where the question is about an end user's attempted solution (X) rather than the root problem itself (Y or Why?).

The XY problem obscures the real issues and may even introduce secondary problems that lead to miscommunication, resource mismanagement, and sub-par solutions. The solution for the support personnel is to ask probing questions as to why the information is needed in order to identify the root problem Y and redirect the end user away from an unproductive path of inquiry.

Elon Musk's 5 step process

Elon Musk on problem-solving

First priniples critical thinking

Whatever the people at the front-lines are doing, try to do it yourself a couple of times.

1. Ask the right question

Question the requirements. Make them simpler.

No matter how good the requirements are, they are still dumb to some degree.

You start here because you can get the perfect answer to the wrong question.

Try to make the question the least wrong possible.

2. Try to delete the process

If you're not forced to put back 10% in, you are not deleting enough.

People think they've succeeded by not being forced to put things back, but in fact they are overly conservative and kept things in that should have been deleted.

People are afraid to do this because they remember the last time they had to put things back, but what happened was they over-corrected by leaving too much stuff in and over-complicating things.

Deliberately delete more than you should.

3. Optimize/simplify it

Go back to step 1 and try to improve the process.

The most common engineering mistake is to optimize something that shouldn't exist.

4. You can always speed things up

No matter how good the process it, it can always be done faster.

Even if you don't change the process, you can use better machines, people...

5. Automate it

Find a way to automate the process.