There's also the XY problem problem, where some people expect that every of a complex or unusual question is an instance of the XY problem, even when the requester really does just need a solution to Y.
This is a good check on how good your help request is. Hopefully the problem statement includes a brief summary of the approaches already tried and why those were dismissed.
This is something I have known (but not by this name) since the early 90’s. A proposed feature a customer brings to you is almost never what they need. You must iterate with them to discover their real problem and move on from there.
I left a project once because the sponsor wasn’t letting us interact with the real customer to find the real need. That path only leads to doom and despair.
Asking about Y (or Z, or some other problem a few layers down) is common when yak shaving. Aka doing the thing that's needed to do the thing that's needed to do X. Not to be confused with the also-present problem of ADHD sequential distraction by some other unrelated problem (possibly one sighted along the way to eventually get X done).
It's a gross idealization that every problem can be directly solved, or is "shovel ready." In my world there are often oodles of blockers, dependencies, and preparations that have to be put in place to even start to solve X. Asking about Y and Z along the way? Par for the course.
There's also the XY problem problem, where some people expect that every of a complex or unusual question is an instance of the XY problem, even when the requester really does just need a solution to Y.
The YXY problem?
Not to be confused with the ABA problem*
I’ve also seen a similar phenomenon where I really want to try Y and people just keep telling me a different way to do X that I’ve already tried.
This is a good check on how good your help request is. Hopefully the problem statement includes a brief summary of the approaches already tried and why those were dismissed.
This is something I have known (but not by this name) since the early 90’s. A proposed feature a customer brings to you is almost never what they need. You must iterate with them to discover their real problem and move on from there.
I left a project once because the sponsor wasn’t letting us interact with the real customer to find the real need. That path only leads to doom and despair.
Asking about Y (or Z, or some other problem a few layers down) is common when yak shaving. Aka doing the thing that's needed to do the thing that's needed to do X. Not to be confused with the also-present problem of ADHD sequential distraction by some other unrelated problem (possibly one sighted along the way to eventually get X done).
It's a gross idealization that every problem can be directly solved, or is "shovel ready." In my world there are often oodles of blockers, dependencies, and preparations that have to be put in place to even start to solve X. Asking about Y and Z along the way? Par for the course.
https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/hoi.st/0/posts/2023-04-30-the-...