Assertions from Gause, Weinberg, Are Your Lights On?: How to Figure Out What the Problem Really Is, Dorset House

Jason, a colleague, recommended I read this book. I was not overly impressed to start with but a number of the points later in the book served as reminders of things I should considering, even if I am not always given sometimes the luxury of time to do so. And as Jeff De Luca once told me, "Anything written by Gerald Weinberg is worth reading".

• A problem is a difference between things as desired and things as perceived
• Don't bother trying to solve problems for people who don't  have a sense of humour
• Phantom problems are real problems
• Ask yourself: Whose problem is it?
• If a person is in a position to do something about a problem, but doesn't have the problem, then do something so they do
• Don't solve other people's problems when they can solve them perfectly well themselves
• If it's their problem, make it their problem
• If people really have their lights on, a little reminder may be more effective than your complicated solution
• Try blaming yourself for a change - even for a moment
• The source of the problem is most often within you
• Each new point of view will produce a new misfit
• You can never be sure you have a correct definition, but don't ever stop trying to get one
• You can never be sure you have a correct definition, even after the problem is solved
• 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
• Don't mistake a solution method for a problem definition - especially if it's your own solution method
• If you can't think of at least three things that might be wrong with your understanding of the prob elm, you don't understand the problem
• Don't leap to conclusions, but don't ignore your first impression
• Test your definition on a foreigner, someone blind, or a child, or make yourself foreign, blind, or childlike
• In spite of appearances, people seldom know what they want until you give them what they ask for
• Once you have a problem statement in words, play with the words until the statement is in everyone's head
• 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
• Not too many people, in the final analysis, really want their problem solved
• 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
• The fish is always the last to see the water
• This above all, to thine ownself be true
• Each solution is the source of the next problem
• The trickiest part of certain problems is just recognizing their existence