First principles thinking
"If I had an hour to solve a problem, I would spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes on the solution." ~ Albert Einstein
What is it?
We're making decisions every single day of our lives. Be it a small or big one. We all used different kind of reasonings which allow us to weigh benefits and disadvantages of two or more courses of action before choosing the one with most benefit or the one suits our needs. The most common one would be a reasoning by analogy which involves the use of past experiences to solve problems that are similar to problems solved before. It may be the fastest way to solve problems but definitely not the most certain.
The one I wanted to discuss here is a reasoning by first principles, also called first principles thinking.
"We get through life by reasoning by analogy, which essentially means copying what other people do with slight variations. And you have to do that. Otherwise, mentally, you wouldn't be able to get through the day. But when you want to do something new, you have to apply the first-principles approach." ~ Elon Musk
Often times, when we faced with difficult problems, we tend to fall back on our pre-existing beliefs and opinions. With first principles thinking, we can break out of this herd mentality, think creatively, and create some unique solutions to very common problems. Thus, make our valuable contribution in any field like IT, daily life etc.
It's sort of like 'boiling down to fundamental truths and reasoning up from there".
In some simpler terms, it's a fact or premise or conclusion that is the only conclusion, regardless of your perspective. And It's a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. It also means establishing a fundamental fact or conclusion that you know is true, deconstructing it down to its core elements, and working up from there.
How to do it?
One way is to use Socratic questioning method. There're so many methods out there. There's no hard and fast rule. There's a popular method like fish bone tool for root cause analysis. Google it if you want to learn further.
The sample process looks like this.
Clarifying questions like 'What do you mean by Microsoft Teams is slow?" Questions like (5 Whys, what, How) can help to break down the question, idea, thought or direction to the most basic truths.
Challenging assumptions like "Why do you think it's related to network or endpoint?"
Looking for evidence like "Are there event/audit/diagnostics logs to support this idea?"
Considering alternative perspectives like "How do I know I am correct?" and "What might other experts think of this?"
Questioning the original question like "Why did I think that?", "Was I correct?"
What's in it for me?
There're many. It may take time compared to reasoning by analogy but there're tons of benefits.
Problem solving becomes fun.
You automatically improve your knowledge with every problem you solve.
You learn what is important and what's not.
You can drive innovation.
You feel smart LOL!
Thanks for reading my blog.
References: Google, Elon Musk, past mentors and my father.