Everyday Reflections

Problem solving is rooted at the heart of making anything successful. It really has nothing to do with any field but sheer ability to look at problems and providing solution through combination of people , process & technology.

Through years ( not so many but still ) , I have tried various ways to look at problem solving. Traditional way was to define scale of the problem before proposing a solution. This always led to complexity definition , which generally tends to drain lot of energy as we are trying to use assumptions and not facts to make a hypothesis. Creates lot of inter-locking and leads to consensus before we get down to problem solving.

The other way to look at problem solving is to reflect on it as a puzzle. Puzzles usually come with various blocks that need to be arranged properly in order to achieve defined outcome. The complexity of problem would entail that you have many pieces to build out the puzzle before you could achieve end result. Things could wrong if you started with an approach that way-led you into different arrangements with a perception of a solution. Ever done problems in Mathematical integration 😉 , one step goes wrong and catches you unaware only to continue in an end-less direction of multiple integral steps !

Off-late I have started to try my hand using the Lego style. There are three specific reasons to it:

• My kid endlessly keeps doing something with his Lego parts.
  He first solves what Lego tells him and then mixes all parts with other Lego pieces to start creating his own master piece. !
• My company which adopted micro-services coupled with already existent agile methodology
• Self , as I don’t like same way to look at things.

The Lego approach actually provides lots of freedom in thinking process and decouples complexity analysis from solution proposal. As compared to puzzle solving , where-in you did imagine to design specific blocks , Lego provides with free form connectors and other pieces which help cross-link blocks. These three things help you to look at problem solving with new mindset that focuses on

• Conceptualising – Defining the problem
• Implementing a working prototype – putting in place working solutions
• Optimising the prototype – developing new solutions  that scale

Defining MVP through this mechanism actually gives MVP a longer shelf life as it already is trying to solve end-state as opposed to iterating to end-state. There is a big difference in what the approach offers in terms of time-to-market. Optimization takes care to scale the process to support the outcome and replace MVP. The optimised version is design to be more replicable.

So with this brief , I wills top to write and allow everybody to get down to find Lego blocks in company and design solutions and remember People , Process & Technology all offer Lego blocks!

Happy Problem Solving!