Many IT Professionals look at the same set of data and come to the conclusion that the raw data as it is represented at the time does not add any clue for a conclusion. That might be true, but if you know what to do, that same set of data could be transformed successfully into highly useful insights into a problem situation. The secret is to use a process that would allow the investigator to transform the data into useful information. How do we do that? Like I said, using a specific process such as the following:
You need to know what to look for and how to go about doing this, but once you know which questions to ask, it is fairly simple.
The golden rule is to ask the right questions from the right information sources at the right time to get the right answers that would provide a deep insight into the problem situation.
The following procedure would be highly helpful in getting the right answers. At Thinking Dimensions, we’ve been using these tools and techniques for at least 30 years and have helped hundreds of clients to get to better understand their problem situations. Following the combination of the process above and the tools below helped them to solve really vexing problems in a relatively short space of time.
- Insist on identifying the correct fault. More than 95% of the time, our clients were looking at the wrong problem, and it is because they did not concentrate on finding the correct fault first.
- Ask, "Who has the information?" Simple question, but powerful! One of two things we do differently than what the client tried before, is that we insist on having the right people at the session.
- Inquire, “What is it not?” This will create significant insight into the incident experienced. This question normally leads to a curious contrast of what is happening and what is not happening and why that would be.
- Question, "What is unique about this fault?" This will get you and your team to the core in minutes! Any fault that is normal would be solved with normal answers, because they’ve seen it before and know the resolution. However, a persisting fault is normally a fault that has never been experienced before and needs an extraordinary answer.
- Have a process. The secret to virtual collaboration is a common process. That process makes provision for organized inputs and the array of information in such a way that would stimulate unique answers to the problem experienced.
- “Think outside the box.” Is this a cliché or does it really work? It really works and it is probably the most difficult exercise for IT professionals used to working with hard facts only.
- Learn how to eliminate pet theories and born losers early. These theories are normally highly distracting and surprisingly tenacious. They keep on coming up and not adding any progress towards resolution.
- Discover how to develop a useful hypothesis and test its logic. Learn how to imagine “what could have happened,” and then be destructive in trying to eliminate it. This sounds counter productive, but it works.
I will cover each of these tools/factors and techniques separately in upcoming blogs, expanding on the “how to” so that you would be able to incorporate this into your own investigation approach, hopefully making you a savvier investigator!
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