Category «Approach»

The principle of recent change

Recently, I’ve been writing about hypothesis generators – techniques you can use to generate problem-solving ideas if you get stuck. The next hypothesis generator is the principle of recent change.   You can use this one if you are looking at system that worked at one time, but is not working now.   The principle of recent …

Make it look like this!

In my last article, I introduced the first of the hypothesis generators – techniques you can use to generate problem-solving ideas if you get stuck. The next hypothesis generator to consider is “Make it look like this”.   You can use this one if you have two separate deployments of the same software system where one …

Poke the box

The scientific method gives you a powerful framework for organizing your troublehacking activities.   When applying the scientific method, you formulate hypotheses and then your work focuses on proving or disproving the hypotheses. But just how do you go about formulating a hypothesis?   Sometimes all it takes is a few minutes of brainstorming, but what do …

Put your experience to work!

Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years experience in his craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience — twenty times. Trevanian in Shubumi:  A Novel. I genuinely enjoy problem solving.   But there is one thing I hate:   solving a problem more than once.    …

The scientific method

When a web site goes down, the trouble hackers tasked with bringing it back up are under tremendous pressure to act.  When the pressure is high enough, you may have to take actions before you really understand the problem.  Sometimes these actions uncover new information that leads to a solution, but sometimes, they just add …