Are Your Lights On?

Gerald Weinberg’s book Are Your Lights On? How to Know What The Problem Really Is begins as follows:

Chapter 1. A Problem

In the heart of Gotham City’s financial district stands the glistening new 73-story Brontosaurus Tower. Even though this architectural masterpiece is not yet fully occupied, the elevator service has been found woefully inadequate by the tenants. Some tenants have actually threatened to leave if the service isn’t improved, and quickly.

A few facts of the case are as follows:

The building primarily houses offices doing business during the weekday hours of 9am to 5pm.

Nearly everyone using the building is associated in some way with the financial world.

The occupants are fairly uniformly distributed over the 73 floors, and so is the elevator traffic.

The owner has invested heavily in advertising in an attempt to rent the remaining office space.

Discouraging words spread like lightning in the tight little world of the financial district.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT THIS SITUATION?

A number of ideas spring immediately to mind, such as:

Speed up the elevators.

Add elevators by cutting new shafts through the building.

Add elevators by constructing outside shafts.

Stagger working hours to spread the rush hour load over a longer period.

Move occupants to different floors to reduce total passenger traffic within the building.

Restrict the number of people entering the building.

Replace existing elevators with bigger cars stretching two or three stories.

Provide more services locally on each floor to reduce floor-to-floor traffic.

Reschedule the elevators with special local and express arrangements, as needed

Having followed our natural problem-solving tendencies, we have rushed right into solutions. Perhaps it would be wiser to ask a few questions before stating answers.

What sorts of questions? Who has the problem? What is the problem? Or, at this juncture, just what is a problem?

Consider the question, “Whose problem is it?” This question attempts to

determine who is the client—that is, who must be made happy

establish some clues that may lead to appropriate solutions.

Our first list of solutions, diverse as they were, all shared a single point of view—that the elevator users were the people with the problem.

Suppose we try taking the point of view of Mr. Diogenes Diplodocus, the landlord. With him as our client, we might develop a rather different list, such as:

Increase the rents, so fewer occupants will be needed to pay off the mortgage.

Convince the occupants that Brontosaurus Tower is a terrific leisurely place to work because of the elevator situation.

Convince the occupants that they need more exercise—which they could get by walking the stairs rather than riding the elevators—by posting walking times and calorie consumption estimates over well- traveled routes.

Burn down the building and collect the fire insurance.

Sue the builder.

Steal elevator time from the next-door neighbor.

These two lists, though not necessarily mutually exclusive, do show somewhat different orientations. This difference should arrest our natural tendency to produce hasty solutions before asking

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

I’m going to enjoy reading this book!

The book is actually by two authors, Donald C. Gause and Gerald M. Weinberg (referred to as “Don and Jerry” in the book).

Some lessons/quotes from the book (though they won’t make much sense, and in any case will be boring, to someone who hasn’t read the book):

Dedication

This book is dedicated to our loving wives, one of whom had to put up with us while the other had to put up without us during this relaxation. It isn’t clear which of them benefited more by the arrangement.

Preface

“Nobody reads the preface.”

PART 1: What is the problem?

Chapter 1. A Problem

Our natural tendency is to ask: “WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT THIS SITUATION?”

But first we should ask: “WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?”

The fledgling problem solver invariably rushes in with solutions before taking time to define the problem being solved. Even experienced solvers, when subjected to social pressure, yield to this demand for haste. When they do, many solutions are found, but not necessarily to the problem at hand. […]

Not every problem-solving group founders on lack of attention to definition. Some come to grief by endlessly circling around attempted definitions, never amassing the courage to get on with the solution in spite of definitional dangers.

Danger of solutions to the wrong problem. Shift from “problem solver” to “problems solver” (solver of problems).

Ask “WHO HAS A PROBLEM?”

and then, for each party, ask them:

“WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF YOUR PROBLEM?”

Chapter 2. Peter Pigeonhole Prepares a Petition

For Mr. Diplodocus, the problem may be abstracted to:

HOW CAN I DISPOSE OF ALL THESE BLANKETY-BLANK COMPLAINTS?

Also :-)

Up until now, neither party was willing to agree with the other’s definition. Or even to listen to it. Now, however, we can discern the signs of progress. When one party begins to feel pain in synchrony with the other, we know that the problem will eventually find its resolution.

And:

the problem still appears threefold:

How can we determine “What is wrong?”

What is wrong?

What can be done about it?

Chapter 3. What’s Your Problem?

“A PROBLEM IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THINGS AS DESIRED AND THINGS AS PERCEIVED.”

the ancient but effective method of “ignoring the problem.” This method is neither more nor less than turning down our sensitivity.

…

“PHANTOM PROBLEMS ARE REAL PROBLEMS.”

“DON’T BOTHER TRYING TO SOLVE PROBLEMS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR”

PART 2: What is the problem?

Chapter 4. Billy Brighteyes bests the bidders.

Thus, like most professional problem solvers, they skirted the moral issue. But, after all, they had never been trained to deal with such issues, so they concentrated on the technical aspects, which was their profession, wasn’t it?

“DON’T TAKE THEIR SOLUTION METHOD FOR A PROBLEM DEFINITION”

“IF YOU SOLVE THEIR PROBLEM TOO READILY, THEY’LL NEVER BELIEVE YOU’VE SOLVED THEIR REAL PROBLEM.”

“MORAL ISSUES TEND TO MELT IN THE HEAT OF A JUICY PROBLEM TO SOLVE.”

Chapter 5. Billy bites his tongue.

“DON’T MISTAKE A SOLUTION METHOD FOR A PROBLEM DEFINITION—ESPECIALLY IF IT’S YOUR OWN SOLUTION METHOD.”

Chapter 6. Billy Back to the Bidders

“YOU CAN NEVER BE SURE YOU HAVE A CORRECT DEFINITION, EVEN AFTER THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED”

“DON’T LEAP TO CONCLUSIONS, BUT DON’T IGNORE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION.”

“the question is never answered, but that it doesn’t matter, as long as you keep asking. It’s only when you fool yourself into thinking you have the final problem definition—the final, true answer—that you can be fooled into thinking you have the final solution.”

PART 3: What is the problem, really?

Chapter 7. The endless chain

“EACH SOLUTION IS THE SOURCE OF THE NEXT PROBLEM”

“Sometimes, we make the problems less troublesome by putting them in someone else’s back yard—or back end. This technique is called problem displacement, and is often very useful when consciously and conscientiously done. But…”

“THE TRICKIEST PART OF CERTAIN PROBLEMS IS JUST RECOGNIZING THEIR EXISTENCE.”

“IF YOU CAN’T THINK OF AT LEAST THREE THINGS THAT MIGHT BE WRONG WITH YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROBLEM, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM”

Chapter 8. Missing the misfit

The problem of displacement is compounded by the existence of designers—special people whose job it is to solve problems, in advance, for other people. Designers, like landlords, seldom if ever experience the consequences of their actions. In consequence, designers continually produce misfits. A misfit is a solution that produces a mismatch with the human beings who have to live with the solution. Some mismatches are downright dangerous.

“Most misfits are easy to solve, once they are recognized.”

[There’s a story about the speed limit being temporarily decreased to 55 for an energy crisis, leading to fewer accidents, then slowly climbing back up despite more accidents… according to Wikipedia this is disputed/unclear.]

“DON’T LEAP TO CONCLUSIONS, BUT DON’T IGNORE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION”

For one thing, to get a fresh point of view, we can call upon almost anybody as our “consultant.” Try to avoid the “expert” consultant, for he may be even more adapted to the status quo than we are. Try asking the man and woman in the street what they think of a particular design or problem definition. In explaining our approach to the uninitiated, we force ourselves into a fresh view of the matter—and so perceive new misfits.

When we travel to foreign lands, we inevitably experience “new” things as strange and awkward. The money doesn’t make sense. The street signs are in the wrong places. The toilet paper is all wrong. An even more useful experience, though, is to accompany a foreign traveller through your own country, for through the foreigner’s eyes you will once again perceive the strangeness and awkwardness of your own culture.

“TEST YOUR DEFINITION ON A FOREIGNER, SOMEONE BLIND, OR A CHILD, OR MAKE YOURSELF FOREIGN, BLIND, OR CHILDLIKE.”

Trying this exercise with a book:

For instance, Don came up with this list in a few minutes:

It was hard to keep the place when I put the book down.

Because I couldn’t take just part of the book with me, I had to carry the whole book even when I knew I would use only part of it.

The binding was too heavy for handling, but too light for long term wear.

It wouldn’t slay open without holding it open.

The pages ripped too easily.

Some of the pages were stuck together.

The pages were too glossy, so they reflected an annoying amount of light.

Because the lines on the page were too long, I occasionally returned to the same line, or skipped a line.

The margins were too narrow for making notes.

Without a handle of some sort, the book is difficult to carry.

If such an old, established solution can have so many misfits, what hope is there that our untested ideas will be perfect?

“EACH NEW POINT OF VIEW WILL PRODUCE A NEW MISFIT.

Won’t it be better to get these points of view before proceeding to implement a “solution,” rather than leaving it to a disaster to raise your consciousness?”

Chapter 9. Landing on the level

“HOW COULD WE CHANGE THE PROBLEM STATEMENT TO MAKE THE SOLUTION DIFFERENT?”

Problem 4: The figure shows a very unfamiliar object. What is it?

a great many people will refuse to venture any answer to Problem 4 […] felt their chances of “solving” the problem are so slight it’s not worth risking an error. […]

Problem 5: The figure shows a very unfamiliar object. Think of the most far-out thing it could be.

With this statement, few people have trouble coming up with some answer. Because we seem to be asking for their opinion, rather than the “right” answer, much of the threat is removed, Everyone has an opinion—or almost everyone does—and everyone is an expert in his or her personal opinion.

“AS YOU WANDER ALONG THE WEARY PATH OF PROBLEM DEFINITION, CHECK BACK HOME ONCE IN A WHILE TO SEE IF YOU HAVEN’T LOST YOUR WAY.”

Chapter 10. Mind your meaning.

“Nothing is too good for our customers.” So says the sign in the window, but what does it mean? Is it “There is no thing in the world that is too good for our customers.” Or does it mean: “Giving them nothing would be giving them something too good for them.”

“ONCE YOU HAVE A PROBLEM STATEMENT IN WORDS, PLAY WITH THE WORDS UNTIL THE STATEMENT IS IN EVERYONE’S HEAD.”

(Some such games / tricks for clarity in communication… too long to include here.)

PART 4: Whose problem is it?

Chapter 11. Smoke gets in your eyes.

“DON’T SOLVE OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS WHEN THEY CAN SOLVE THEM PERFECTLY WELL THEMSELVES.

Not only did the interested parties know and feel much more about the problem, but after creating “their” solution, they were ego-involved in seeing that it was carried out. The time they had invested—90 minutes out of a 45-hour semester—gave them another reason for wanting the idea to succeed.”

“One of our friends, an absent-minded professor of the first rank, frequently discovers, after a meal in an elegant restaurant, that he has forgotten his money. Upon such an occasion, he merely smiles at the proprietor and says, “We have a problem.” Can you imagine what would happen if he said, “You have a problem.”? Or even, “I have a problem.”?

IF IT’S THEIR PROBLEM, MAKE IT THEIR PROBLEM.

Chapter 12. The campus that was all spaced out

“IF A PERSON IS IN A POSITION TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT A PROBLEM, BUT DOESN’T HAVE THE PROBLEM, THEN DO SOMETHING SO HE DOES.”

“TRY BLAMING YOURSELF FOR A CHANGE—EVEN FOR A MOMENT.”

Chapter 13. The lights at the end of the tunnel

“ARE YOUR LIGHTS ON?”

“IF PEOPLE REALLY HAVE THEIR LIGHTS ON, A LITTLE REMINDER MAY BE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN YOUR COMPLICATED SOLUTION.”

PART 5: Where does it come from?

Chapter 14. Janet Jaworski joggles a jerk.

Under the circumstances, it was tempting to put the entire problem down to “bureaucracy,” which is another way of shrugging your shoulders and saying, “That’s just the way things are. It’s nature, or human nature, and there’s nothing to be done about it.”

Problems that come from “Nature” are the worst kind, for two reasons. First, we feel helpless to do anything about a problem that seems to come from so remote a source. Indeed, we often ascribe a problem to Nature so as to evade responsibility for doing anything about it. “It’s only human nature to overeat, to crave what you can’t have, and to pad your expense account.”

The second reason is Nature’s indifference. Whenever we can impute a problem to a human source, or to a real object or action, we have a toehold on a possible solution. By getting at the source, or understanding the source’s motivation for creating the problem, we may obliterate the problem or see what will alleviate it. But Nature, by her very nature, has no motivation.”

“WHERE DOES THIS PROBLEM COME FROM?”

Chapter 15. Mister Matczyszyn mends the matter.

Robert Burns:

With your honours, as with a certain king,
In your servants this is striking.
The more incapacity they bring,
The more they’re to your liking.

“Perhaps I, myself, am the source of the problem?”

Postscript: This has to be one of the most disappointing chapters in this book, so we’ve added a postscript to cheer you up. What a crushing blow to discover that the villain was the hero and the hero—you—was the villain. We’re sorry, but we had to do it to you, at least once. Based on Don and Jerry’s experience, the problem actually comes from the problem solver more than half the time, which certainly justifies having one moralizing chapter on the subject. Now that the morality is disposed of, you can go back to reading about how stupid other people are—a guaranteed road to moral uplift and well-being of the soul.

Chapter 16. Make-works and take-credits

“possibility of the problem-solving process, person, or institution becoming the problem itself”

“IN THE VALLEY OF THE PROBLEM SOLVERS, THE PROBLEM CREATOR IS KING, OR PRESIDENT, OR DEAN.”

“Your father’s father may have told you, “There’s two kinds of people in the world, those that do work and those that make work for others to do. Keep away from the make-workers and you’ll do all right.”

“Or, your mother’s father may have said, “There’s two kinds of people in the world, those that do work and those who take credit. Keep in the first group—there’s much less competition there.”

Either of these remarkable observations can be used to…

Also:

In grandfather’s day, the age of xerography had not yet dawned. In that simpler time, physical separation was sufficient to keep the administrators feeding their make-work to one another. In this more advanced age, when any fool with the key to the copier can become a widely-read author,…

Chapter 17. Examinations and other puzzles

How amusing that students complain that school doesn’t prepare them for the “real world”—whatever that is—and fail to notice that it doesn’t even prepare them for the world of final examinations!

In exams:

“WHERE DOES THE PROBLEM COME FROM?”

“WHO SENT THIS PROBLEM? WHAT’S HE TRYING TO DO TO ME?”

PART 6: Do we really want to solve it?

Chapter 18. Tom Tireless tinkers with toys.

“their unrelenting quest for problems to fit their solution—”solution probleming,” we call it. ”

“IN SPITE OF APPEARANCES, PEOPLE SELDOM KNOW WHAT THEY WANT UNTIL YOU GIVE THEM WHAT THEY ASK FOR.”

Chapter 19. Patience plays politics.

“NOT TOO MANY PEOPLE. IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS, REALLY WANT THEIR PROBLEMS SOLVED.”

Chapter 20. A priority assignment

“DO I REALLY WANT A SOLUTION?”

“We are trapped, quite often, because we’ve worked on a problem so long and so hard that we never really thought we’d solve it—so why worry about whether we want it or not? Conversely, the problem comes upon us too fast for us to consider much of anything about the problem, let alone whether we want the solution.”

“WE NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO DO IT RIGHT, BUT WE ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO DO IT OVER.”

“WE NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO CONSIDER WHETHER WE WANT IT, BUT WE ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO REGRET IT.”

“Yet we tend to regard “side effects” as the result of particular solutions. “They might not arise at all, and if they do, we can always refine the solution to eliminate them.” How often does this naive attitude lead us into disaster?”

Postscript

Quoted in full:

By becoming immersed in the problem, you, the resolver, risk yet another oversight. Fascinated with the problem-solving aspects, you may neglect to consider whether you would morally approve of a solution. One person’s sin is another’s virtue. We wouldn’t dare tell any reader that killing people is wrong, any more than we would dare tell a cannibal that eating people is wrong. Perhaps, even at some risk of appearing maudlin, we should quote Polonius in his advice to Hamlet: “This above all, to thine own self be true.

To be true to yourself, in this problem-resolving business, you must consider moral questions before you get close to a solution, or even a definition, and thereby begin to lose your sensibility. Such consideration will never waste your time, for problem-resolving can never be a morally neutral activity—no matter how much it fascinates its practitioners.