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March 16, 2003
Getting to the experience
Solving problems is a practical art, like swimming, or skiing, or playing the piano: you learn it only by imitation and practice. ... if you wish to learn swimming you have to go into the water, and if you wish to become a problem solver you have to solve problems. --George Polya (from Rich's blog)
One of my mentors taught me the value of being "in the space of the problem," and finding people who can speak from that perspective. Something about our human nature makes it hard to distinguish between thinking about doing something and actually doing it. We can so clearly see ourselves doing it, we often think that's the same as actually doing it.
About two years after starting my own company, after two of us had put all of our (very many) waking hours into getting the business off the ground, and had become very successful as a result, we had a falling-out with the third founder, who had stayed at his secure, high-paying job. In a last effort, we met once more to reconcile differences. In that meeting, the third founder told us that he could easily have done what we did, and probably better than we had. He could not possibly have comprehended how little he understood about what it took to accomplish what we had done. Needless to say, that only steeled our resolve. That was my first painful realization of the difference between thinking about doing something, and actually doing it.
Last week we talked to MOREnet about their experience with H.323 video and IP QoS. It was so refreshing to talk to someone who had actual experience with these technologies. Many of the things I've heard people theorize about H.323 and QoS turned out to be useless, impractical or just too complex in their actual experience. MOREnet implemented a simple design that has proven to be as effective as they need, without adversely increasing the complexity of their network. That one hour will probably save us months or more in time we would have wasted following the advice of people who could only tell us how they think it should be done.
With any project or new technology, I try to find people who have actual experience in that area. I try to move as quickly as possible to get experience myself. I try to engage the people who will use the final product early in the process, so they can experience it. I find that is the quickest, least-painful way to succeed. This often isn't intuitive, but I have learned it ... from my own experience.
Posted by pete at March 16, 2003 10:59 AM