REPEATABLE READ

Camping presents a unique insight into problem management, and can also present a powerful metaphor about how people solve problems.

If you've done much real camping, i.e. out in a semi-wilderness area as opposed to being in a groomed state-run/private campground, you've had to figure out how you're going to keep your fire going; and this is where our metaphor begins.

Humans, at least this human, are lazy creatures. As such, firewood during camping presents the problem: how do I get enough wood to keep my fire burning all night?

If you're REALLY lazy, you'll just implement what I call the scurry method: You'll go grab some sticks, bring them back to the fire and throw them on as needed. Only... as night draws on, and as it gets darker and darker you become forced to scurry farther and farther, wider and wider, to find more sticks to bring back to the fire.

If you're SMART and LAZY (nobody's saying lazy is bad), you'll scout around, find a dead tree... knock it over, smack it around, etc. and lug it back to camp. Then you just start your fire under one end of it (effectively), and just keep pushing more of it into the fire as the night goes on.

The difference between these two approaches can easily be likened to Incident Management and Problem Management in software development/operation. Thinking in terms of problems is where success happens. Problem: we need enough wood to keep the fire going through the night. Incident: Crap, we're out of wood again.

Question is, when it comes to Software: Are you knocking down logs and dragging them back to camp? Or are you scurrying around and picking up sticks?