Closely related to, but meaningfully different from, our obsession with singular correct answers is our tendency to jump to solution. Jumping to solution is the act of developing an attachment to the first proposal that satisfices. To satisfice means to basically addresses a problem and tick all of the essential boxes. Satisficing solutions are important. They are often the best place to start. But, our insistence on developing attachments to them, commitments even, is pathological. Satisficing solutions tend to be expensive, unscalable, and inconsistent.
In this chapter, we’ll look closely at the first obvious reasons we jump to solution. But we won’t let those early reasons satisfice. We’ll look at the reasons under the reasons, pull out that long taproot. And, I’ll leave you with some simple exercises that you can riff on to get better at diagnosis, prognosis, and prescription in design.
Yeah, that’s it. This chapter just has one big idea. It’s just different enough from the cluster of ideas that made up that last chapter that it merited a little space of its own.
And, if you’d like to see all of the practical considerations involved in this short chapter come to life, I’d encourage you to follow along by signing up for the sqglz newsletter. You don’t have to subscribe to the newsletter. You could follow me on Instagram. You could put an alert on your calendar to send me a message each month asking what’s going on. Or, you could just sign up for the newsletter because that’s probably the most sensible solution on offer. Think about it for a bit, and decide what will work best for you.
cheers.