Scott Townsend welcomes back familiar guest Ben Townsend for a deep dive into why "a well-defined problem is half the solution" and how this principle applies across business and personal scenarios.
• Understanding customer needs beyond their stated requirements is essential for effective problem-solving
• In software development, where engineers cost $130-$250/hour, misunderstanding problems leads to wasted time and resources
• The "tree swing" example demonstrates how communication breakdowns between customers and solution providers create ineffective outcomes
• Problem definition requires asking deeper questions about what customers are truly trying to accomplish
• The mountain peak analogy: solving initial problems reveals new challenges that weren't previously visible
• Abraham Lincoln's wisdom about spending four hours sharpening an axe before chopping illustrates the value of preparation
• Detective work in solving problems resembles murder mysteries - requiring close observation and questioning assumptions
• Real-world application example of planning a home water softening system by understanding the complete problem first
Email scott@scotttownsendinfo.com to share your experiences with defining problems before jumping to solutions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show brought to you by
Pizza man Productions.
Hey, this is Scott Townsend.
Welcome back to the ScottTownsend Show.
And today I've got with me backfor the fourth time.
Maybe fifth time is BenTownsend.
Ben, what's going on, man?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
No, it's kind of been a busy week with my build and
everything.
I got another guy coming outthis morning to um check out the
place where he's going to putmy workshop.
So a lot of things going on,exciting stuff.
We've been in this littleapartment for a long time and
it's going to be great to umfinally move on, get into our
own place.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
So looking forward to it what did you have for
breakfast this morning?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
uh, I went with the two egg bandango this morning
and which means I added I addedan English muffin to my my two
egg setup, so it's a two eggbandango, two egg.
Nolan and Reagan came thisweekend I bought his breakfast
(00:59):
stuff and you know it was greatCause I cooked him a big
breakfast.
But you know, I tried to limitmy carb intake.
So I I limit two eggs which Ijust love, I mean, and you know
it's great because I cooked themwith a big breakfast.
But you know, I I try to umlimit my carb intake so I I
limit it to eggs which I justlove.
I mean, I like eggs and more,just like them, but now that I
have all this extra breakfaststuff now I kind of feel like I
got to eat it.
So then, then I can later, youknow, go on a calorie restricted
diet so I can get rid of theweight gain once again.
(01:22):
I don't know what my thinking,but what will it be next?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
the eggs, lollapalooza, or something you
know?
We'll see coachella, all right.
Well, uh, the reason why we'reback again today is because we
were having a discussion not toolong ago and ben mentioned
something about.
Uh mentioned this phrase.
Uh, let's see it was.
(01:50):
Uh, a good.
A well-defined question is halfthe answer well-defined problem
, oh half the solution oh, awell-defined problem is half the
solution.
Yeah, okay, see, I even got thatwrong.
So I kind of wanted to find outa little bit more about that
(02:11):
thinking and what that reallymeans, and maybe you know, do
you have any examples of whatthat might have looked like, any
anecdotes where that might havecome into play?
But what is that?
What does that mean?
Why was that?
Why is that so important thatyou felt like you had to, uh,
mention it again?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
because I found it to be a a truth, kind of like a
fundamental truth.
If you're trying to fixsomething or build something, or
you know, in my business andbasically I'll just call it
software development where I'm aproduct manager and I'm leading
a brand new idea for a datawarehouse business intelligence
solution for some business,we're basically, you know, I'm a
(02:55):
consultant and I have a team ofsoftware engineers and analysts
and stuff that are that areworking to breathe life into the
product that I define.
You know, super important tounderstand the needs of your
customer.
And this is in the businessworld.
But there's lots of applicationin your daily life, like
building, for example, even ifyou're just doing it yourself or
(03:18):
you're hiring it out, becausein the software world they're
famously high dollar assetsSoftware engineers.
They're going to run youbetween $130 to $250 an hour to
do what they do.
You're analysts.
(03:56):
I had a team of my budget kindof moved between like 1.3 and
just over $2 million a year todo it, you know, to run my
product and to, you know, hirethese resources to do the hands
on keyboard work based on therequirements that I gathered.
But you know, when you'reconsidering that kind of money
and a development timeline thatif you do it fast, you know
you're talking three monthturnaround time.
You know, and it's not uncommonfor things like that.
You know, when I left my company, we were working on moving our
data warehousing solution froman on-premises solution, which
(04:16):
just means you know all theequipment in the building, to a
cloud solution, which means thatwe're hiring somebody to store
all the data and the computingpower somewhere else.
So Amazon Web Services or Azure, microsoft, whatever it happens
to be, you're moving it from anon-premises.
So that's a long-term kind ofproject.
(04:39):
It's big, especially when youhave a product like mine where
we're moving a billion rows ofdata a month.
So if you don't understandexactly what you're trying to
accomplish and you've got atimeline with that kind of money
that's 12 months to 18 monthswe'll just say and you get it
(05:00):
wrong, you won't be in thatbusiness for very long.
You've got to get it right.
You've got to get it right.
You won't be in that businessfor very long.
You know, you got it.
You got to get it right.
You got to get it right.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
What's the question again?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So why do you do that ?
Why no?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
what's the what's the phrase A?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
well-defined problem is half the solution.
So when we go out, when I wouldgo out, and I would interview
customers, a lot of timescustomers would tell me they
have some sort of realrudimentary system to get data,
and hopefully information, outof all that data.
And so when I go, sit down withthem and try to understand
their business, I definitelywant to know what kind of
(05:39):
information they have.
Whether it's just off of Excelspreadsheets or access database
or SQL server, whatever it is,doesn't really matter.
I try to understand what theyhave.
It's helpful to know who kindof designed that, who helped
them with it, Because inbusiness a lot of times it's the
business, the management team,talking to somebody on their
(05:59):
team who happens to be an Excelguru or an access guru, and it's
great because they can developsomething for them they never
have before.
It's very valuable to thebusiness.
It's also very risky when youbuild your business based on
systems like that, user-definedapplications that can just kind
of go away in the blink of aneye if somebody hits the delete
(06:21):
key and didn't mean to do thatand you built your business on
that information and now it'sjust suddenly gone and now you
know you have to start all overagain.
You know if you can even do itat all.
So you know heavy dutyapplications, it supported
architected solutions.
You know you can't do that.
There's a whole bunch ofreasons why that's not really
(06:42):
possible.
Just to accidentally delete I'mnot going to say it's not
impossible.
It's highly unlikely that thatcan happen because it's
architected to prevent thosekind of things.
So you know, when you'reinterviewing the customer you
don't want to just know whatthey think the problem is,
because they're limited.
They're not subject matterexperts in business intelligence
(07:03):
delivery.
They're experts in how youengage with the customer to
understand what kind of doorsand windows they need to go in
their house, what the latesttechnology is in doors and
windows or whatever yourconstruction trade is, but
they're not experts in IT andhow to put it together from an
(07:23):
IT standpoint.
And so they're going tounderstand it in very, very
simple terms.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I want to know how many windows we sold this month.
I want to know how many doorswe sold this month.
What's the cumulative numberfor the year?
I'd like to cut that also byquarter and do the total by
quarter.
So they're going to know thosekind of things but they may not
know.
You know how to really build.
You know metrics that arereally valuable so that you can
kind of compare rates.
You know you all see metricsnot in terms really of numbers.
(07:52):
You do see them in terms ofnumbers.
It's more helpful, I think, tosee them in terms of rates
because it helps you understandbusiness at any scale you know,
and numbers.
You know numbers are important.
I'm not saying it's not, butyou really need in your, in your
key metrics, you really needrates anyway.
(08:13):
So so my, my expertise is notin uh, you know, selling doors
and windows.
My expertise is inunderstanding what the where the
customer is trying to taketheir business and what they see
as the issues preventing themfrom taking their business to
the next level, scaling up uptheir production, doing whatever
, just being able to producefinancials or understand, maybe,
how to tweak their orderingsystem to more efficiently order
(08:35):
the components they need toeither build those things or
sell them to customers.
So I could go in as a consultantand talk to somebody who sells
doors and windows and lots ofpeople do this, believe me, this
is more common than not forpeople who call themselves
consultants to come in and justunderstand what kind of metrics
you're looking at today and justsimply regurgitate those back
(08:57):
to you from a very expensivesystem.
So my job anybody's job in mymind as a consultant, whether
you're doing it or not, is to goin and understand as much as
you can about the problem thecustomer is trying to solve, not
just the metric or the measurethey're asking for You're asking
for.
What problems are you trying tosolve?
(09:18):
What problem are you trying tosolve in your business?
Because you may or may not havethe metrics currently to give
you insight into how you closeon that problem and how to
change your business and take itto the next level.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So you know if I'm a customer, I say I want to know
how much money I spent last yearon pencils, what you're saying
is you want to know why.
I want to know how much money Ispend on pencils.
That's exactly right.
I would say okay, you want toknow how much money I spend on
pencils.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
That's exactly right.
I would say, okay, you want toknow how much money you spend on
pencils.
That's pretty simple.
But what do you do next whenyou understand how much money
you spent on pencils?
What are you therefore thengoing to do?
What problem is that solved orwhat decision does that help you
make?
And you may say well, overall,we think we have a spending
(10:07):
problem in this XYZ buildingsupplier business and we're
trying to get a handle on that.
Okay, so it's not really justabout the pencils, because you
probably have a million productsin your business, so to speak
Paper clips, pens paper, office,supplies, expenses All that
(10:28):
stuff and people and shelvingthings, and then all your
inventory that's sitting on theshelf that you're trying to sell
, not just like consumables in abusiness, so all kinds of
things.
So you're really trying to getyour hands around, your mind
around.
Where is your spend going andis the spend on each one of
those things an appropriatespend?
And so I could give you thenumber you're asking for on
(10:53):
pencils, how much you spend onpencils, but then there's going
to be very, very quickly when Ideliver that to you, nine months
from now, six months from now,you're going to go okay, great,
we got the pencil.
Now I need to know how much you, how much was being on
paperclips.
Oh, wait a minute, you didn'tsay anything about paperclips.
You want paperclips too?
Okay, we're going to go back insix months later, come back to
paperclips and we find out.
(11:15):
you know that there's the realquestion 400 items ultimately
that you want to track, causewhat you're really trying to do
is get your mind around yourspin.
Where's it going?
That's a different question.
It's a different problem we'retrying to solve, and so, as a
consultant, my job is tounderstand your business as good
as you can explain it andhopefully almost as well as you
(11:39):
understand your own business soand then find out where you're
trying to take your business andbe very crystal clear on the
problem you're trying to solveor the decision you're trying to
make.
It's those two things, and Isaid it a million times as I
would go in and talk to peopleand it's not that I think I'm
smarter than they are but when Igo in and talk to somebody
about tires and I'm just totallypicking this out of the air I
(12:02):
know something about tires.
I know a little bit about tires.
When I go into a tire shop, Ican tell them I need new tires
and they can start asking mequestions about what kind of
driving I do and the latesttechnology in tires and the
latest design by all the tiremanufacturers.
I don't know that stuff.
That's not my business.
The tire guy down at the tirestore he is a subject matter
expert and so I know I needtires.
(12:22):
In this case he's theconsultant and I'm the customer
he's trying to please and he'sgot to deal with my rudimentary
knowledge of tires and he's gotto bring his subject matter
expertise to bear to give me thebest solution.
So I walk away a happy customer.
And so when I when I go in as aconsultant, when I went in as a
consultant, I was the tireexpert.
(12:43):
I'm not expert in your business, yet I wound up kind of being
an expert in the business butfundamentally I'm an expert in
how to deliver informationsystems to help you run your
business better, less expensive,more efficiently and be able to
answer questions.
We had a lot of this regulatorycompliance with stuff that they
(13:04):
never even thought of again.
It was kind of like a growingpart of their business that they
really didn't want to have anypart of, but they also didn't
want the government to put themout of business because they
were noncompliant.
So a lot of it was around thosekinds of things.
What problem are you trying tosolve?
Well, we're getting in troublewith the Consumer Finance
Protection Bureau and they'retelling us that we need to
provide a report that is this,this and this quarterly?
(13:26):
Okay, gotcha, that's rock solid.
That's they have hardrequirements.
You know now, if it's driven bysomebody else, like a regulator
, you know a lot of times wecould get to the requirements.
You go to some source documentthey have and say what kind of
reporting they expect and getexactly what you want.
If it's just business, a lot oftimes that gets a lot more
mushy because the businesses alot of times haven't gone to the
(13:50):
problem or haven't gone to theextent of really defining all
their processes and what theirmetrics are, and so a lot of
time I would wind up helpingthem develop metrics to drive
them and their business to wherethey're trying to go and then
deliver that, um, it's.
It's very, very difficult to getaway from the iterative nature
(14:12):
of problem solving and you knowtechnology changes.
You know I'm looking at rightnow hooking up a soft water
system to my new house when Iwas doing plumbing.
You know, way back in the day,um, for a summer job in college.
You know when we plumbed ahouse, you know, for all the
water supply it was copper,that's it, it was copper and
there's still a lot of copperbeing used today, but more and
(14:34):
more well, mostly they're usingwhat they call PEX.
It's a plastic piping system inhouses, and I really don't know
much about PEX.
I was doing some YouTube videosthis morning on PEX, but way
back in the day my problem is Ineed to plumb my house, so I
have water in my house.
Okay, well, the, the, theleading technology and what
(14:54):
everybody using the, the, thegold standard, was copper, and
so you put in copper.
But now when I, when I thinkabout plumbing a house, I still
think.
I still think about copper andnot PEX.
But nobody's using copperanymore.
It's too expensive, you know.
It's more difficult to put in.
You don't have the kind ofquick connection.
You got to do all the solderingand all that kind of stuff
which I used to do, but noweverybody's using PEX.
(15:15):
So you know, technology changeare things that you can't as
easily anticipate by its nature,because it's innovation, you
know.
So the things that you know wemay.
Whatever you're consulting on,you know you may have the best
way to do it today as a subjectmatter expert, but in two or
three years you're going to havesomething completely different,
(15:37):
a new technology that makes allthat old stuff kind of obsolete
or too expensive.
You know going forward and soeverybody's trying to change.
So you just can't get away fromthat.
It's going to happen.
That it's going to happen.
The other thing is withcustomer requirements.
They're running their businessand they're at a certain level
of efficiency I'll just say thatand they're trying to take
(15:58):
their business to the next level.
And the way I describe that toa customer is okay, you're
trying to go.
When you get your business tothis new state and you solve
this problem, you're describingthe mountain peak you can see,
based on the problems you havetoday with where you are, with
your technology, all this kindof stuff.
When I get you to that peak andwhen you go climb mountains,
you climb this mountain righthere, you get on top of this
(16:20):
mountain and from that mountain,all of a sudden, you see new
peaks that you couldn't seebefore, and so that starts
defining.
When I get you to this newlevel in your business, you're
just going to.
You're going to have morequestions that we can't really
anticipate right now, but you'rethey're going to be better
informed questions becauseyou're you.
You advanced your business, youknow to, to a new place and now
(16:43):
from that, from that vantagepoint, you start to see new
mountain peaks, that form, ohokay, well, now I'm here, now I
know I need to go there becauseI thought this was the biggest
mountain peak, but now that I'mhere, from my new vantage point,
I'm able to ask betterquestions and I'm able to
understand, once I've taken thatfirst generation leap in
(17:03):
technology and capabilitiesbetter word, you know now, now,
from, from that vantage point,now I can see, you know kind of
like what's next um, and so it's.
It's iterative by nature, butsome of that stuff is not
necessarily iterative um, it'sstuff that you can figure out
now if you just do a good enoughjob of understanding the
(17:25):
problem.
And when you, when, again, whenyou're spending two million
dollars and you spend 12 monthsto deliver something and
ultimately it's not what thecustomer needs, you're not going
to be in that business verylong.
So it's really important to getit right.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So if a husband and wife are planning to go on
vacation, they have two kidsdoesn't matter where they're
going.
A well-defined problem is halfthe solution.
How does this apply to a familypreparing to go on vacation?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well, what's the purpose of the vacation?
Is it just to decompress, justto go somewhere to just have fun
?
Is it educational for the kids?
Do we want to go to the GrandCanyon and explain to the kids
how the canyon was formedintroduction to geology for
their new homeschooling effortor is it something where they
(18:14):
want to go to disneyland andjust go have fun?
Just go ride the rides and justgo have fun?
I'm necessarily want to learnanything.
Um, do I want to go to a placethat's populated with lots of
people?
Is this a?
Is this an unplugging kind ofthing where I want to teach them
how to camp and cook on a dutchoven and be part of nature?
You know, what are you, what areyou trying to accomplish with
your vacation?
All those things, of course,are valid.
(18:35):
But to be intentional and toreally get the most out of what
you're trying to do with yourfamily, what you're trying to
accomplish, you know, even evenunderstanding at that level,
what problem you're trying tosolve is is pretty important.
And you'll see, like inbusiness, I saw this all the
time we get in and somebody,somebody would call a meeting
and we start talking about, youknow, some sort of some sort of
(18:57):
problem or have it, and peoplejump straight into solutioning
without really understanding theproblem.
And I'm sitting there I'm, youknow, a lot of times, you know
I'm not running the medium,sitting there and I would ask,
okay, because we'd have ideasthrown all over the place that
are solving vastly differentthings.
I'm like, ok, can I just ask aquestion real quick, like what
problem are you trying to solve?
And then you kind of see this,this mental, like well, you know
(19:22):
, and then they start trying tothink about that.
But you would.
If you don't have that, youhave completely unfocused
discussion and you have a wasteof people's time.
And when you have 12 peoplesitting around the room, uh,
average costs of a hundred ahundred bucks an hour, $120 an
hour, um, that's an expensivemeeting.
So, and I don't I mean I don'tlike to waste time I think
talking things out to somepeople defining the problem is a
(19:46):
waste of time.
They just want to jump straightinto solution, um, and that's.
And I think that's where peoplekind of like, naturally in a
way, naturally kind of want togo, but as somebody who is
trying to provide some guidance,to play the role of a
consultant, so you get whereyou're trying to go in the most
efficient way possible andexactly solve the problem for
(20:08):
the business.
That's the bullseye.
It doesn't get better than that.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
That's where you always want to be it reminds me
of Abraham Lincoln saying if Ihad six hours to chop down a
tree, I would spend the firstfour hours sharpening the axe.
You think, oh my gosh, that's awaste of time.
Well, okay, then go ahead.
And you go ahead and spend sixhours swinging the axe.
(20:33):
You know there's gonna be woreout who's gonna get the job done
quicker.
You might not even be able toget it done in six hours if you
don't stop to sharpen the blade.
You know so yeah it's uh,understand what you're doing and
then prepare for it as best youcan, and you might think you're
wasting time up front.
But man, you could really beheading in the wrong direction
(20:55):
pretty quick and waste a lot oftime, money and effort only to
realize that you're nowhere nearsolving the problem can I show,
can I share my screen realquick?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I was looking up.
I was looking up something Iused to use when I was doing my
work.
Oh, it says sharing is notturned on.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Hang on.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I see the leave button here.
You better get that turned onquicker.
Multiple can sharesimultaneously Huh.
I said I see the leave buttonhere too.
You better let me share or I'mgoing to leave.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
One participant can share at a time.
Multiple participants can sharesimultaneously.
Okay, can you share now?
Yes, multiple participants canshare simultaneously.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Ok, can you share now ?
Yes, OK, do you see my screen?
Ok, so this, this is somethingyou know.
This is specific to agiledevelopment, but you know you
can.
You can define a problem andyou can way over engineer
something.
So that's a problem, maybe asmuch as it is way under
(21:55):
engineering, but this issomething that people in agile
development will recognize.
So this first picture here ishow the customer explained it.
They explained I want to swingwith three seats on it in a tree
, how the project managerunderstood it.
And you can see he's got thelittle rope on two different
branches and the thing's notgoing to swing at all.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
That how he?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
that's how he explained it, how a developer
developed it.
So he's got a hole chopped inthe tree because the project
manager told him to put it ontwo different branches and
there's a trunk in the middle,and so he said well, we can't
have a trunk in the middle, Ineed to have two branches.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
The swing needs to go .
Yeah, the swing needs to beable to swing, swinging.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Swing and how the tester tested it.
I'm not sure exactly whatthey're supposed to represent,
but you can see it's seeingswing sitting on the ground, and
the last one here is what thecustomer actually needed.
So it's just an illustration tohelp people get on the same
page with why, when you getbeyond one person, communication
becomes an issue, and politicscomes into play when you get
(22:51):
beyond one person.
Communication becomes an issueand politics comes into play
when you get beyond one person.
So you have a customer whoneeds something, but you he's
got to hand that off to somebodyelse to build it for him and so
being able to kind of perfectthat communication to really
understand really and truly whatproblem the customer's trying
to solve.
He wants a tire swing that fit.
So he didn't need this big,expensive solution at all.
(23:12):
You know, he just needed a ropeand a tire yeah, you know, a lot
of times it goes the other way,where they're kind of
explaining I want a rope and atire, um, but then you know you
come to find out later on thathe wants a whole, you know, set
of playground equipment where ajungle gym and monkey bars and
all kinds of stuff anyway.
Anyway just an illustration tokind of show how people in agile
(23:36):
development world kind of helppeople understand the reason for
the need to take clearrequirements.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And understand the problem.
Define the problem as best youcan, spend some time
understanding the problem, stayaway from knee-jerk reactions,
and even then you're going tomake some mistakes, but at least
you're a way ahead of where youwould have been.
Like the doctor steven coveytalks about this uh couple that
(24:05):
had a baby and they called herdoctor because the baby wasn't
feeling well on the weekend andthe doctor was at a football
game.
And they said hey, our baby'snot feeling well, running a
fever.
Whatever Doctor said, hey,don't, no, no, no.
This doctor said I'm sitting infor your doctor and I'm on call
(24:27):
.
I'm the one on call and so,okay, so your baby's got a fever
.
Okay, give him two TylenolWe'll, I'm on call, I'm the one
on call, and so, okay, so yourbaby's got a fever.
Okay, give them a two tile andI'll see you.
You know, monday, monday morning, and uh, they hung up and the
wife looked at the husband andsaid does he realize our
daughter is two months old?
Don't you think that's wayoverdosing?
(24:48):
He didn't understand theproblem.
So they call him back and saidhey, just wanted to make sure
you knew our daughter is twomonths old.
He's like oh yeah, no, no, no,no, no, just give him this
instead, you know, and uh, yeah,glad you called back and
cleared that up, because itcould have been a big problem
(25:09):
yep, jumping straight into asolution without understanding
the problem right not askingenough questions, some some,
some basic good questions.
So yeah, it can, uh, but awell-defined problem is half the
solution, and if you don't taketime to understand the the
problem, well enough, you're uhgo at your own peril, I guess
(25:31):
and yeah, you'll deliver asolution, but will it actually
solve the problem?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
who knows?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I mean honestly you'll wind up with a swing.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah who knows it may or may not.
It's just kind of like shot inthe dark, but but really you
know it's.
You know, from from aconsultant standpoint, you have
to have a lot of patience withthe customer and the customer
has to have lots of patiencewith you because they don't
understand.
You know, they're like you know, you guys, you're all the same.
(26:04):
You know, you come in here youthink you're smarter than
everybody else and blah, blah.
It's really not that at all.
You, you know, um, you know Ihave academic background in
technology, but my, my realskillset is the ability to
bridge the gap between businesspeople and it organizations,
because it people, they want todo it speak, and that they, they
(26:25):
love to speak way over the headof their customers, and it's a
complete nightmare, and you know.
So, you, you know, I would tryto like kind of limit, um, the
amount of when I had to have myit people, you know, in a room
and there were some that werebetter than others, um, but you
don't want to get into it speak,you know, and confuse the
(26:45):
customer because it just ticksthem off.
It would take me off too,because you're you're, you know,
sometimes it just seems likeyou're just trying to talk over
my head and show how smart youare.
You don't know anything aboutmy business, though, and you're
not even taking time here tounderstand my business.
So it really helps to creategood relationships with your
customer and don't just come atthem with a bunch of your own
questions, but explain to them alittle bit the process, bit the
(27:12):
process, and I think showingthe picture of the tree swing
was one way to kind of introduce, you know, the kind of solidify
, the need for the process, youknow, to really have a clear,
very clear understanding.
I use the analogy of themountain peaks a million times,
you know and so through thisprocess of building
relationships and then when youdeliver something that just
really knocks their socks off.
(27:32):
Now you've gone beyondconsultant, now you kind of have
a, a, an insider kind of view.
Now you, you're, you're atrusted supplier, you know,
you're a trusted person in theircircle, and that's different
than being a consultant.
Now you have trust and they cometo you now with formative
(27:52):
questions that they have versussomething they already think
they have the answer to.
Let's get Ben, or whoever, inthe room here here's our new
problem so we can have him startthinking about how to solve
this problem with technology.
And so then that's when youknow you've made it.
When they ask you into the roomat that kind of formative stage
to help them from the get-go,they're thinking about you, they
(28:16):
understand the value that youbring, you know and they invite
you in early in that processbecause they trust you.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
It reminds me also.
This process reminds me a lotof murder mysteries.
Some of the best murdermysteries any any halfway decent
murder mystery is all abouttrying to understand the problem
.
Sherlock holmes comes in, hasno idea what's going on.
They tell him you know, here'swhat happened, based on their
experience, and now he's got totry to understand the problem.
(28:44):
Uh, and he's pretty good at it,uh, he's able to also see some
things that people overlook justbecause this is, uh, he's a
subject matter expert.
Colombo, aga, you know, herculeperot, agatha christie, uh, any
of these guys.
You walk into a problem.
You walk into a room and here'sa problem, as, and some people,
(29:08):
oh, it was a suicide.
Look, there's a suicide noteright there.
See, doesn't that explain it?
But, and we just watched, uh,the residents on netflix and
there's this guy laid out on thefloor and it looks like a
suicide, and so everybody's like, hey, the suicide.
So let's wrap this thing up,let's go, you know, let's get
out of here, and they're likewhoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, not so fast.
What do you mean, not so fast?
(29:28):
Well, I got to do my duediligence, I got to ask the
right questions.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Did he really shoot himself in the back of the head
Twice?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
So anyway, that kind of a thing that's also a good
kind of a not a word picture,but an analogy, I guess is where
any murder mystery, cop, show,detective, you know the whole
thrill of the show is to watchthe person try to come to a
(30:02):
better understanding of theproblem.
And there's going to be allkinds of people that try to get
them off track.
Understanding of the problem,and there's going to be all
kinds of people that try to getthem off track, especially the
bad guy.
There's going to be some peopleto get them off track because
they don't realize what they'redoing.
They just you know, they have noidea and so it's this uh
colombo type of guy that's gotto go get through the weeds here
and figure out what's right andwhat's wrong, and and, uh, and
(30:26):
it always uh, and they always doit in like 45 minutes.
That's really awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So, anyway, um yeah, you just can't jump straight to
a conclusion.
You can't jump straight intosolutioning.
You know, um, and you know, ata like, I told you about my my
plumbing thing, where I'm tryingto get a soft water system
hooked up, and I'm going to doit.
I mean, I've done plumbing butI'm not an expert in pex and my
house is plumbed in pex, and somy, my two problems were one I
(30:55):
need a water softening solution.
So I was researching thedifferent kinds of water
softening systems I could get,based on a water test that we
did.
That said, here's all the thing, cause we have a well, and so I
had it tested to.
I want to know what were thecontaminants in my water.
And, uh, turns out, my water ispretty darn good.
Uh, but we, you know it's it'swell water and so it it.
(31:15):
It may have things like a sandand stuff in it, so I need a.
I don't I may not need, like a,a super duper whole house
filtering system, but I do needa sediment filter before the
water moves on to the watersoftener.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Or else you're going to be trying to unclog your
shower head nozzles.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, and my soft water system itself and all that
.
So so I need, I wanted to get a, a sediment filter, you know
where.
I could just replace thatfilter every six months or 12
months or whatever it happens tobe, you know, before the water
then goes on to my soft watersystem because I don't want it,
I don't want to clog it up, Iwant it to do its job of
softening water.
And then I'm thinking, okay,but I do want to have one tap
(31:57):
where we can, like, takeeverything out of the water that
we don't want because we mayhave contaminants show up at
some point that we don't haveright now.
So I would love to take all ofour drinking water, have it go
through an RO unit.
So that's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to have a soft watersystem, I'm going to have a
sediment filter and I'm going tohave an RO unit at the
dispenser in the kitchen, at thesink, where I can get water.
(32:20):
That I know for sure.
If somebody comes over with ababy and they want to mix some
formula, I'm going to say go tothe ro unit and get your water
there, you know.
Um, it's less critical for, youknow, people, healthy people,
you know, if there's, you knowsome, some small something in
there where water really lookspretty good.
So, anyway, that's the problemI was trying to solve.
Then the next thing was I havepecs, you know, coming out of
(32:42):
the wall that I got to hook into.
Well, I don't know anythingabout pecs.
I don't know how it works.
I mean, uh, at a super highlevel.
I know how it works.
Water comes in there, it goesout there I don't know how to do
all the connections.
I don't know the tools, and so Iwas.
I was researching stuff todayand then I was diagramming.
I was diagramming, you know howthat peck system is gonna uh
look.
So I had something like this.
(33:04):
I didn't plan on showing this,but you can kind of see how I
have it kind of diagrammed out,because I went, when I go pick
this stuff up, I got to drivefrom here to curb hills 20
minutes away.
When I go pick up my stuff, youknow, I also got to pick up all
these fittings.
Well, how many do I need, youknow?
Do I need, do I need, threeelbows?
Do I need five elbows?
Do I want to use a little sharpbite connectors?
(33:26):
How many t's do I need?
How about a ball valve and thisthing?
So I'm planning out my systemso when I go, I can pick up
exactly the things I need, plusthe tools to work with pecs, so
I can do it, because I don'twant to bring it all the way
back here and then and then getall my stuff here and go oh well
, I need fittings to hook allstuff up now.
I Now I've got to go back toKerrville.
So if you don't plan it well,if you don't understand the
(33:49):
problem you're trying to solveand just a super simple example
you wind up wasting time andmoney, spend some extra time up
front.
And money it costs you.
My diesel truck is not the mostfuel-efficient marvel on the
planet.
It's not a Tesla on the planet.
It's not a tesla yeah.
So you know, going back it'snot a big deal, but you know it
(34:10):
takes time and money and maybemaybe you have time to do it
today and maybe I don't.
Oh, dang it.
I need to go back to kerbilland they're closed here in in 20
minutes so I can't even getthere.
So I got now instead offinishing today.
I got to go back tomorrow andhopefully finish tomorrow you
know so just a super simpleexample I just thought of in
what I'm actually doing rightnow in my non-work life just Ben
(34:31):
Townsend Inc.
Just doing my stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I know you have a hard stop so we'll let you go
here.
Thanks for spending the timeand glad you enjoyed your
two-egg Fandango.
That was good.
Glad you enjoyed your two-eggfandango it was good.
And thanks for explaining thewell-defined problem as half the
solution, and so anybody outthere listening, did this make
(34:59):
any sense to you?
Have you had experience withthis where it went bad or it
went well?
Let us know.
Send an email, scott, atscotttownendinfo, and uh, yeah,
I'd like to hear your stories.
So, all right, ben, have a goodrest of the day and uh, we'll
be talking to you okay, soundsgood, scott, see ya so for ben
townsend, this is scott townsend.
(35:19):
Thanks for listening to thescott townsend show.
Have a great day, everything'sbe all right and we'll talk to
you later.
The Scott Townsend Show is aDietz-O-Man production.
For more episodes, visit theScott Townsend Show YouTube
(35:41):
channel, listen on ApplePodcasts or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show brought to you by
Pizza man Productions.
Hey, this is Scott Townsend.
Welcome back to the ScottTownsend Show.
And today I've got with me backfor the fourth time.
Maybe fifth time is BenTownsend.
Ben, what's going on, man?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
No, it's kind of been a busy week with my build and
everything.
I got another guy coming outthis morning to um check out the
place where he's going to putmy workshop.
So a lot of things going on,exciting stuff.
We've been in this littleapartment for a long time and
it's going to be great to umfinally move on, get into our
own place.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
So looking forward to it what did you have for
breakfast this morning?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
uh, I went with the two egg bandango this morning
and which means I added I addedan English muffin to my my two
egg setup, so it's a two eggbandango, two egg.
Nolan and Reagan came thisweekend I bought his breakfast
(00:59):
stuff and you know it was greatCause I cooked him a big
breakfast.
But you know, I tried to limitmy carb intake.
So I I limit two eggs which Ijust love, I mean, and you know
it's great because I cooked themwith a big breakfast.
But you know, I I try to umlimit my carb intake so I I
limit it to eggs which I justlove.
I mean, I like eggs and more,just like them, but now that I
have all this extra breakfaststuff now I kind of feel like I
got to eat it.
So then, then I can later, youknow, go on a calorie restricted
diet so I can get rid of theweight gain once again.
(01:22):
I don't know what my thinking,but what will it be next?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
the eggs, lollapalooza, or something you
know?
We'll see coachella, all right.
Well, uh, the reason why we'reback again today is because we
were having a discussion not toolong ago and ben mentioned
something about.
Uh mentioned this phrase.
Uh, let's see it was.
(01:50):
Uh, a good.
A well-defined question is halfthe answer well-defined problem
, oh half the solution oh, awell-defined problem is half the
solution.
Yeah, okay, see, I even got thatwrong.
So I kind of wanted to find outa little bit more about that
(02:11):
thinking and what that reallymeans, and maybe you know, do
you have any examples of whatthat might have looked like, any
anecdotes where that might havecome into play?
But what is that?
What does that mean?
Why was that?
Why is that so important thatyou felt like you had to, uh,
mention it again?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
because I found it to be a a truth, kind of like a
fundamental truth.
If you're trying to fixsomething or build something, or
you know, in my business andbasically I'll just call it
software development where I'm aproduct manager and I'm leading
a brand new idea for a datawarehouse business intelligence
solution for some business,we're basically, you know, I'm a
(02:55):
consultant and I have a team ofsoftware engineers and analysts
and stuff that are that areworking to breathe life into the
product that I define.
You know, super important tounderstand the needs of your
customer.
And this is in the businessworld.
But there's lots of applicationin your daily life, like
building, for example, even ifyou're just doing it yourself or
(03:18):
you're hiring it out, becausein the software world they're
famously high dollar assetsSoftware engineers.
They're going to run youbetween $130 to $250 an hour to
do what they do.
You're analysts.
(03:56):
I had a team of my budget kindof moved between like 1.3 and
just over $2 million a year todo it, you know, to run my
product and to, you know, hirethese resources to do the hands
on keyboard work based on therequirements that I gathered.
But you know, when you'reconsidering that kind of money
and a development timeline thatif you do it fast, you know
you're talking three monthturnaround time.
You know, and it's not uncommonfor things like that.
You know, when I left my company, we were working on moving our
data warehousing solution froman on-premises solution, which
(04:16):
just means you know all theequipment in the building, to a
cloud solution, which means thatwe're hiring somebody to store
all the data and the computingpower somewhere else.
So Amazon Web Services or Azure, microsoft, whatever it happens
to be, you're moving it from anon-premises.
So that's a long-term kind ofproject.
(04:39):
It's big, especially when youhave a product like mine where
we're moving a billion rows ofdata a month.
So if you don't understandexactly what you're trying to
accomplish and you've got atimeline with that kind of money
that's 12 months to 18 monthswe'll just say and you get it
(05:00):
wrong, you won't be in thatbusiness for very long.
You've got to get it right.
You've got to get it right.
You won't be in that businessfor very long.
You know, you got it.
You got to get it right.
You got to get it right.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
What's the question again?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So why do you do that ?
Why no?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
what's the what's the phrase A?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
well-defined problem is half the solution.
So when we go out, when I wouldgo out, and I would interview
customers, a lot of timescustomers would tell me they
have some sort of realrudimentary system to get data,
and hopefully information, outof all that data.
And so when I go, sit down withthem and try to understand
their business, I definitelywant to know what kind of
(05:39):
information they have.
Whether it's just off of Excelspreadsheets or access database
or SQL server, whatever it is,doesn't really matter.
I try to understand what theyhave.
It's helpful to know who kindof designed that, who helped
them with it, Because inbusiness a lot of times it's the
business, the management team,talking to somebody on their
(05:59):
team who happens to be an Excelguru or an access guru, and it's
great because they can developsomething for them they never
have before.
It's very valuable to thebusiness.
It's also very risky when youbuild your business based on
systems like that, user-definedapplications that can just kind
of go away in the blink of aneye if somebody hits the delete
(06:21):
key and didn't mean to do thatand you built your business on
that information and now it'sjust suddenly gone and now you
know you have to start all overagain.
You know if you can even do itat all.
So you know heavy dutyapplications, it supported
architected solutions.
You know you can't do that.
There's a whole bunch ofreasons why that's not really
(06:42):
possible.
Just to accidentally delete I'mnot going to say it's not
impossible.
It's highly unlikely that thatcan happen because it's
architected to prevent thosekind of things.
So you know, when you'reinterviewing the customer you
don't want to just know whatthey think the problem is,
because they're limited.
They're not subject matterexperts in business intelligence
(07:03):
delivery.
They're experts in how youengage with the customer to
understand what kind of doorsand windows they need to go in
their house, what the latesttechnology is in doors and
windows or whatever yourconstruction trade is, but
they're not experts in IT andhow to put it together from an
(07:23):
IT standpoint.
And so they're going tounderstand it in very, very
simple terms.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I want to know how many windows we sold this month.
I want to know how many doorswe sold this month.
What's the cumulative numberfor the year?
I'd like to cut that also byquarter and do the total by
quarter.
So they're going to know thosekind of things but they may not
know.
You know how to really build.
You know metrics that arereally valuable so that you can
kind of compare rates.
You know you all see metricsnot in terms really of numbers.
(07:52):
You do see them in terms ofnumbers.
It's more helpful, I think, tosee them in terms of rates
because it helps you understandbusiness at any scale you know,
and numbers.
You know numbers are important.
I'm not saying it's not, butyou really need in your, in your
key metrics, you really needrates anyway.
(08:13):
So so my, my expertise is notin uh, you know, selling doors
and windows.
My expertise is inunderstanding what the where the
customer is trying to taketheir business and what they see
as the issues preventing themfrom taking their business to
the next level, scaling up uptheir production, doing whatever
, just being able to producefinancials or understand, maybe,
how to tweak their orderingsystem to more efficiently order
(08:35):
the components they need toeither build those things or
sell them to customers.
So I could go in as a consultantand talk to somebody who sells
doors and windows and lots ofpeople do this, believe me, this
is more common than not forpeople who call themselves
consultants to come in and justunderstand what kind of metrics
you're looking at today and justsimply regurgitate those back
(08:57):
to you from a very expensivesystem.
So my job anybody's job in mymind as a consultant, whether
you're doing it or not, is to goin and understand as much as
you can about the problem thecustomer is trying to solve, not
just the metric or the measurethey're asking for You're asking
for.
What problems are you trying tosolve?
(09:18):
What problem are you trying tosolve in your business?
Because you may or may not havethe metrics currently to give
you insight into how you closeon that problem and how to
change your business and take itto the next level.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So you know if I'm a customer, I say I want to know
how much money I spent last yearon pencils, what you're saying
is you want to know why.
I want to know how much money Ispend on pencils.
That's exactly right.
I would say okay, you want toknow how much money I spend on
pencils.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
That's exactly right.
I would say, okay, you want toknow how much money you spend on
pencils.
That's pretty simple.
But what do you do next whenyou understand how much money
you spent on pencils?
What are you therefore thengoing to do?
What problem is that solved orwhat decision does that help you
make?
And you may say well, overall,we think we have a spending
(10:07):
problem in this XYZ buildingsupplier business and we're
trying to get a handle on that.
Okay, so it's not really justabout the pencils, because you
probably have a million productsin your business, so to speak
Paper clips, pens paper, office,supplies, expenses All that
(10:28):
stuff and people and shelvingthings, and then all your
inventory that's sitting on theshelf that you're trying to sell
, not just like consumables in abusiness, so all kinds of
things.
So you're really trying to getyour hands around, your mind
around.
Where is your spend going andis the spend on each one of
those things an appropriatespend?
And so I could give you thenumber you're asking for on
(10:53):
pencils, how much you spend onpencils, but then there's going
to be very, very quickly when Ideliver that to you, nine months
from now, six months from now,you're going to go okay, great,
we got the pencil.
Now I need to know how much you, how much was being on
paperclips.
Oh, wait a minute, you didn'tsay anything about paperclips.
You want paperclips too?
Okay, we're going to go back insix months later, come back to
paperclips and we find out.
(11:15):
you know that there's the realquestion 400 items ultimately
that you want to track, causewhat you're really trying to do
is get your mind around yourspin.
Where's it going?
That's a different question.
It's a different problem we'retrying to solve, and so, as a
consultant, my job is tounderstand your business as good
as you can explain it andhopefully almost as well as you
(11:39):
understand your own business soand then find out where you're
trying to take your business andbe very crystal clear on the
problem you're trying to solveor the decision you're trying to
make.
It's those two things, and Isaid it a million times as I
would go in and talk to peopleand it's not that I think I'm
smarter than they are but when Igo in and talk to somebody
about tires and I'm just totallypicking this out of the air I
(12:02):
know something about tires.
I know a little bit about tires.
When I go into a tire shop, Ican tell them I need new tires
and they can start asking mequestions about what kind of
driving I do and the latesttechnology in tires and the
latest design by all the tiremanufacturers.
I don't know that stuff.
That's not my business.
The tire guy down at the tirestore he is a subject matter
expert and so I know I needtires.
(12:22):
In this case he's theconsultant and I'm the customer
he's trying to please and he'sgot to deal with my rudimentary
knowledge of tires and he's gotto bring his subject matter
expertise to bear to give me thebest solution.
So I walk away a happy customer.
And so when I when I go in as aconsultant, when I went in as a
consultant, I was the tireexpert.
(12:43):
I'm not expert in your business, yet I wound up kind of being
an expert in the business butfundamentally I'm an expert in
how to deliver informationsystems to help you run your
business better, less expensive,more efficiently and be able to
answer questions.
We had a lot of this regulatorycompliance with stuff that they
(13:04):
never even thought of again.
It was kind of like a growingpart of their business that they
really didn't want to have anypart of, but they also didn't
want the government to put themout of business because they
were noncompliant.
So a lot of it was around thosekinds of things.
What problem are you trying tosolve?
Well, we're getting in troublewith the Consumer Finance
Protection Bureau and they'retelling us that we need to
provide a report that is this,this and this quarterly?
(13:26):
Okay, gotcha, that's rock solid.
That's they have hardrequirements.
You know now, if it's driven bysomebody else, like a regulator
, you know a lot of times wecould get to the requirements.
You go to some source documentthey have and say what kind of
reporting they expect and getexactly what you want.
If it's just business, a lot oftimes that gets a lot more
mushy because the businesses alot of times haven't gone to the
(13:50):
problem or haven't gone to theextent of really defining all
their processes and what theirmetrics are, and so a lot of
time I would wind up helpingthem develop metrics to drive
them and their business to wherethey're trying to go and then
deliver that, um, it's.
It's very, very difficult to getaway from the iterative nature
(14:12):
of problem solving and you knowtechnology changes.
You know I'm looking at rightnow hooking up a soft water
system to my new house when Iwas doing plumbing.
You know, way back in the day,um, for a summer job in college.
You know when we plumbed ahouse, you know, for all the
water supply it was copper,that's it, it was copper and
there's still a lot of copperbeing used today, but more and
(14:34):
more well, mostly they're usingwhat they call PEX.
It's a plastic piping system inhouses, and I really don't know
much about PEX.
I was doing some YouTube videosthis morning on PEX, but way
back in the day my problem is Ineed to plumb my house, so I
have water in my house.
Okay, well, the, the, theleading technology and what
(14:54):
everybody using the, the, thegold standard, was copper, and
so you put in copper.
But now when I, when I thinkabout plumbing a house, I still
think.
I still think about copper andnot PEX.
But nobody's using copperanymore.
It's too expensive, you know.
It's more difficult to put in.
You don't have the kind ofquick connection.
You got to do all the solderingand all that kind of stuff
which I used to do, but noweverybody's using PEX.
(15:15):
So you know, technology changeare things that you can't as
easily anticipate by its nature,because it's innovation, you
know.
So the things that you know wemay.
Whatever you're consulting on,you know you may have the best
way to do it today as a subjectmatter expert, but in two or
three years you're going to havesomething completely different,
(15:37):
a new technology that makes allthat old stuff kind of obsolete
or too expensive.
You know going forward and soeverybody's trying to change.
So you just can't get away fromthat.
It's going to happen.
That it's going to happen.
The other thing is withcustomer requirements.
They're running their businessand they're at a certain level
of efficiency I'll just say thatand they're trying to take
(15:58):
their business to the next level.
And the way I describe that toa customer is okay, you're
trying to go.
When you get your business tothis new state and you solve
this problem, you're describingthe mountain peak you can see,
based on the problems you havetoday with where you are, with
your technology, all this kindof stuff.
When I get you to that peak andwhen you go climb mountains,
you climb this mountain righthere, you get on top of this
(16:20):
mountain and from that mountain,all of a sudden, you see new
peaks that you couldn't seebefore, and so that starts
defining.
When I get you to this newlevel in your business, you're
just going to.
You're going to have morequestions that we can't really
anticipate right now, but you'rethey're going to be better
informed questions becauseyou're you.
You advanced your business, youknow to, to a new place and now
(16:43):
from that, from that vantagepoint, you start to see new
mountain peaks, that form, ohokay, well, now I'm here, now I
know I need to go there becauseI thought this was the biggest
mountain peak, but now that I'mhere, from my new vantage point,
I'm able to ask betterquestions and I'm able to
understand, once I've taken thatfirst generation leap in
(17:03):
technology and capabilitiesbetter word, you know now, now,
from, from that vantage point,now I can see, you know kind of
like what's next um, and so it's.
It's iterative by nature, butsome of that stuff is not
necessarily iterative um, it'sstuff that you can figure out
now if you just do a good enoughjob of understanding the
(17:25):
problem.
And when you, when, again, whenyou're spending two million
dollars and you spend 12 monthsto deliver something and
ultimately it's not what thecustomer needs, you're not going
to be in that business verylong.
So it's really important to getit right.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So if a husband and wife are planning to go on
vacation, they have two kidsdoesn't matter where they're
going.
A well-defined problem is halfthe solution.
How does this apply to a familypreparing to go on vacation?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well, what's the purpose of the vacation?
Is it just to decompress, justto go somewhere to just have fun
?
Is it educational for the kids?
Do we want to go to the GrandCanyon and explain to the kids
how the canyon was formedintroduction to geology for
their new homeschooling effortor is it something where they
(18:14):
want to go to disneyland andjust go have fun?
Just go ride the rides and justgo have fun?
I'm necessarily want to learnanything.
Um, do I want to go to a placethat's populated with lots of
people?
Is this a?
Is this an unplugging kind ofthing where I want to teach them
how to camp and cook on a dutchoven and be part of nature?
You know, what are you, what areyou trying to accomplish with
your vacation?
All those things, of course,are valid.
(18:35):
But to be intentional and toreally get the most out of what
you're trying to do with yourfamily, what you're trying to
accomplish, you know, even evenunderstanding at that level,
what problem you're trying tosolve is is pretty important.
And you'll see, like inbusiness, I saw this all the
time we get in and somebody,somebody would call a meeting
and we start talking about, youknow, some sort of some sort of
(18:57):
problem or have it, and peoplejump straight into solutioning
without really understanding theproblem.
And I'm sitting there I'm, youknow, a lot of times, you know
I'm not running the medium,sitting there and I would ask,
okay, because we'd have ideasthrown all over the place that
are solving vastly differentthings.
I'm like, ok, can I just ask aquestion real quick, like what
problem are you trying to solve?
And then you kind of see this,this mental, like well, you know
(19:22):
, and then they start trying tothink about that.
But you would.
If you don't have that, youhave completely unfocused
discussion and you have a wasteof people's time.
And when you have 12 peoplesitting around the room, uh,
average costs of a hundred ahundred bucks an hour, $120 an
hour, um, that's an expensivemeeting.
So, and I don't I mean I don'tlike to waste time I think
talking things out to somepeople defining the problem is a
(19:46):
waste of time.
They just want to jump straightinto solution, um, and that's.
And I think that's where peoplekind of like, naturally in a
way, naturally kind of want togo, but as somebody who is
trying to provide some guidance,to play the role of a
consultant, so you get whereyou're trying to go in the most
efficient way possible andexactly solve the problem for
(20:08):
the business.
That's the bullseye.
It doesn't get better than that.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
That's where you always want to be it reminds me
of Abraham Lincoln saying if Ihad six hours to chop down a
tree, I would spend the firstfour hours sharpening the axe.
You think, oh my gosh, that's awaste of time.
Well, okay, then go ahead.
And you go ahead and spend sixhours swinging the axe.
(20:33):
You know there's gonna be woreout who's gonna get the job done
quicker.
You might not even be able toget it done in six hours if you
don't stop to sharpen the blade.
You know so yeah it's uh,understand what you're doing and
then prepare for it as best youcan, and you might think you're
wasting time up front.
But man, you could really beheading in the wrong direction
(20:55):
pretty quick and waste a lot oftime, money and effort only to
realize that you're nowhere nearsolving the problem can I show,
can I share my screen realquick?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I was looking up.
I was looking up something Iused to use when I was doing my
work.
Oh, it says sharing is notturned on.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Hang on.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I see the leave button here.
You better get that turned onquicker.
Multiple can sharesimultaneously Huh.
I said I see the leave buttonhere too.
You better let me share or I'mgoing to leave.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
One participant can share at a time.
Multiple participants can sharesimultaneously.
Okay, can you share now?
Yes, multiple participants canshare simultaneously.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Ok, can you share now ?
Yes, OK, do you see my screen?
Ok, so this, this is somethingyou know.
This is specific to agiledevelopment, but you know you
can.
You can define a problem andyou can way over engineer
something.
So that's a problem, maybe asmuch as it is way under
(21:55):
engineering, but this issomething that people in agile
development will recognize.
So this first picture here ishow the customer explained it.
They explained I want to swingwith three seats on it in a tree
, how the project managerunderstood it.
And you can see he's got thelittle rope on two different
branches and the thing's notgoing to swing at all.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
That how he?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
that's how he explained it, how a developer
developed it.
So he's got a hole chopped inthe tree because the project
manager told him to put it ontwo different branches and
there's a trunk in the middle,and so he said well, we can't
have a trunk in the middle, Ineed to have two branches.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
The swing needs to go .
Yeah, the swing needs to beable to swing, swinging.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Swing and how the tester tested it.
I'm not sure exactly whatthey're supposed to represent,
but you can see it's seeingswing sitting on the ground, and
the last one here is what thecustomer actually needed.
So it's just an illustration tohelp people get on the same
page with why, when you getbeyond one person, communication
becomes an issue, and politicscomes into play when you get
(22:51):
beyond one person.
Communication becomes an issueand politics comes into play
when you get beyond one person.
So you have a customer whoneeds something, but you he's
got to hand that off to somebodyelse to build it for him and so
being able to kind of perfectthat communication to really
understand really and truly whatproblem the customer's trying
to solve.
He wants a tire swing that fit.
So he didn't need this big,expensive solution at all.
(23:12):
You know, he just needed a ropeand a tire yeah, you know, a lot
of times it goes the other way,where they're kind of
explaining I want a rope and atire, um, but then you know you
come to find out later on thathe wants a whole, you know, set
of playground equipment where ajungle gym and monkey bars and
all kinds of stuff anyway.
Anyway just an illustration tokind of show how people in agile
(23:36):
development world kind of helppeople understand the reason for
the need to take clearrequirements.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And understand the problem.
Define the problem as best youcan, spend some time
understanding the problem, stayaway from knee-jerk reactions,
and even then you're going tomake some mistakes, but at least
you're a way ahead of where youwould have been.
Like the doctor steven coveytalks about this uh couple that
(24:05):
had a baby and they called herdoctor because the baby wasn't
feeling well on the weekend andthe doctor was at a football
game.
And they said hey, our baby'snot feeling well, running a
fever.
Whatever Doctor said, hey,don't, no, no, no.
This doctor said I'm sitting infor your doctor and I'm on call
(24:27):
.
I'm the one on call and so,okay, so your baby's got a fever
.
Okay, give him two TylenolWe'll, I'm on call, I'm the one
on call, and so, okay, so yourbaby's got a fever.
Okay, give them a two tile andI'll see you.
You know, monday, monday morning, and uh, they hung up and the
wife looked at the husband andsaid does he realize our
daughter is two months old?
Don't you think that's wayoverdosing?
(24:48):
He didn't understand theproblem.
So they call him back and saidhey, just wanted to make sure
you knew our daughter is twomonths old.
He's like oh yeah, no, no, no,no, no, just give him this
instead, you know, and uh, yeah,glad you called back and
cleared that up, because itcould have been a big problem
(25:09):
yep, jumping straight into asolution without understanding
the problem right not askingenough questions, some some,
some basic good questions.
So yeah, it can, uh, but awell-defined problem is half the
solution, and if you don't taketime to understand the the
problem, well enough, you're uhgo at your own peril, I guess
(25:31):
and yeah, you'll deliver asolution, but will it actually
solve the problem?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
who knows?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I mean honestly you'll wind up with a swing.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah who knows it may or may not.
It's just kind of like shot inthe dark, but but really you
know it's.
You know, from from aconsultant standpoint, you have
to have a lot of patience withthe customer and the customer
has to have lots of patiencewith you because they don't
understand.
You know, they're like you know, you guys, you're all the same.
(26:04):
You know, you come in here youthink you're smarter than
everybody else and blah, blah.
It's really not that at all.
You, you know, um, you know Ihave academic background in
technology, but my, my realskillset is the ability to
bridge the gap between businesspeople and it organizations,
because it people, they want todo it speak, and that they, they
(26:25):
love to speak way over the headof their customers, and it's a
complete nightmare, and you know.
So, you, you know, I would tryto like kind of limit, um, the
amount of when I had to have myit people, you know, in a room
and there were some that werebetter than others, um, but you
don't want to get into it speak,you know, and confuse the
(26:45):
customer because it just ticksthem off.
It would take me off too,because you're you're, you know,
sometimes it just seems likeyou're just trying to talk over
my head and show how smart youare.
You don't know anything aboutmy business, though, and you're
not even taking time here tounderstand my business.
So it really helps to creategood relationships with your
customer and don't just come atthem with a bunch of your own
questions, but explain to them alittle bit the process, bit the
(27:12):
process, and I think showingthe picture of the tree swing
was one way to kind of introduce, you know, the kind of solidify
, the need for the process, youknow, to really have a clear,
very clear understanding.
I use the analogy of themountain peaks a million times,
you know and so through thisprocess of building
relationships and then when youdeliver something that just
really knocks their socks off.
(27:32):
Now you've gone beyondconsultant, now you kind of have
a, a, an insider kind of view.
Now you, you're, you're atrusted supplier, you know,
you're a trusted person in theircircle, and that's different
than being a consultant.
Now you have trust and they cometo you now with formative
(27:52):
questions that they have versussomething they already think
they have the answer to.
Let's get Ben, or whoever, inthe room here here's our new
problem so we can have him startthinking about how to solve
this problem with technology.
And so then that's when youknow you've made it.
When they ask you into the roomat that kind of formative stage
to help them from the get-go,they're thinking about you, they
(28:16):
understand the value that youbring, you know and they invite
you in early in that processbecause they trust you.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
It reminds me also.
This process reminds me a lotof murder mysteries.
Some of the best murdermysteries any any halfway decent
murder mystery is all abouttrying to understand the problem
.
Sherlock holmes comes in, hasno idea what's going on.
They tell him you know, here'swhat happened, based on their
experience, and now he's got totry to understand the problem.
(28:44):
Uh, and he's pretty good at it,uh, he's able to also see some
things that people overlook justbecause this is, uh, he's a
subject matter expert.
Colombo, aga, you know, herculeperot, agatha christie, uh, any
of these guys.
You walk into a problem.
You walk into a room and here'sa problem, as, and some people,
(29:08):
oh, it was a suicide.
Look, there's a suicide noteright there.
See, doesn't that explain it?
But, and we just watched, uh,the residents on netflix and
there's this guy laid out on thefloor and it looks like a
suicide, and so everybody's like, hey, the suicide.
So let's wrap this thing up,let's go, you know, let's get
out of here, and they're likewhoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, not so fast.
What do you mean, not so fast?
(29:28):
Well, I got to do my duediligence, I got to ask the
right questions.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Did he really shoot himself in the back of the head
Twice?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
So anyway, that kind of a thing that's also a good
kind of a not a word picture,but an analogy, I guess is where
any murder mystery, cop, show,detective, you know the whole
thrill of the show is to watchthe person try to come to a
(30:02):
better understanding of theproblem.
And there's going to be allkinds of people that try to get
them off track.
Understanding of the problem,and there's going to be all
kinds of people that try to getthem off track, especially the
bad guy.
There's going to be some peopleto get them off track because
they don't realize what they'redoing.
They just you know, they have noidea and so it's this uh
colombo type of guy that's gotto go get through the weeds here
and figure out what's right andwhat's wrong, and and, uh, and
(30:26):
it always uh, and they always doit in like 45 minutes.
That's really awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So, anyway, um yeah, you just can't jump straight to
a conclusion.
You can't jump straight intosolutioning.
You know, um, and you know, ata like, I told you about my my
plumbing thing, where I'm tryingto get a soft water system
hooked up, and I'm going to doit.
I mean, I've done plumbing butI'm not an expert in pex and my
house is plumbed in pex, and somy, my two problems were one I
(30:55):
need a water softening solution.
So I was researching thedifferent kinds of water
softening systems I could get,based on a water test that we
did.
That said, here's all the thing, cause we have a well, and so I
had it tested to.
I want to know what were thecontaminants in my water.
And, uh, turns out, my water ispretty darn good.
Uh, but we, you know it's it'swell water and so it it.
(31:15):
It may have things like a sandand stuff in it, so I need a.
I don't I may not need, like a,a super duper whole house
filtering system, but I do needa sediment filter before the
water moves on to the watersoftener.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Or else you're going to be trying to unclog your
shower head nozzles.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, and my soft water system itself and all that
.
So so I need, I wanted to get a, a sediment filter, you know
where.
I could just replace thatfilter every six months or 12
months or whatever it happens tobe, you know, before the water
then goes on to my soft watersystem because I don't want it,
I don't want to clog it up, Iwant it to do its job of
softening water.
And then I'm thinking, okay,but I do want to have one tap
(31:57):
where we can, like, takeeverything out of the water that
we don't want because we mayhave contaminants show up at
some point that we don't haveright now.
So I would love to take all ofour drinking water, have it go
through an RO unit.
So that's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to have a soft watersystem, I'm going to have a
sediment filter and I'm going tohave an RO unit at the
dispenser in the kitchen, at thesink, where I can get water.
(32:20):
That I know for sure.
If somebody comes over with ababy and they want to mix some
formula, I'm going to say go tothe ro unit and get your water
there, you know.
Um, it's less critical for, youknow, people, healthy people,
you know, if there's, you knowsome, some small something in
there where water really lookspretty good.
So, anyway, that's the problemI was trying to solve.
Then the next thing was I havepecs, you know, coming out of
(32:42):
the wall that I got to hook into.
Well, I don't know anythingabout pecs.
I don't know how it works.
I mean, uh, at a super highlevel.
I know how it works.
Water comes in there, it goesout there I don't know how to do
all the connections.
I don't know the tools, and so Iwas.
I was researching stuff todayand then I was diagramming.
I was diagramming, you know howthat peck system is gonna uh
look.
So I had something like this.
(33:04):
I didn't plan on showing this,but you can kind of see how I
have it kind of diagrammed out,because I went, when I go pick
this stuff up, I got to drivefrom here to curb hills 20
minutes away.
When I go pick up my stuff, youknow, I also got to pick up all
these fittings.
Well, how many do I need, youknow?
Do I need, do I need, threeelbows?
Do I need five elbows?
Do I want to use a little sharpbite connectors?
(33:26):
How many t's do I need?
How about a ball valve and thisthing?
So I'm planning out my systemso when I go, I can pick up
exactly the things I need, plusthe tools to work with pecs, so
I can do it, because I don'twant to bring it all the way
back here and then and then getall my stuff here and go oh well
, I need fittings to hook allstuff up now.
I Now I've got to go back toKerrville.
So if you don't plan it well,if you don't understand the
(33:49):
problem you're trying to solveand just a super simple example
you wind up wasting time andmoney, spend some extra time up
front.
And money it costs you.
My diesel truck is not the mostfuel-efficient marvel on the
planet.
It's not a Tesla on the planet.
It's not a tesla yeah.
So you know, going back it'snot a big deal, but you know it
(34:10):
takes time and money and maybemaybe you have time to do it
today and maybe I don't.
Oh, dang it.
I need to go back to kerbilland they're closed here in in 20
minutes so I can't even getthere.
So I got now instead offinishing today.
I got to go back tomorrow andhopefully finish tomorrow you
know so just a super simpleexample I just thought of in
what I'm actually doing rightnow in my non-work life just Ben
(34:31):
Townsend Inc.
Just doing my stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I know you have a hard stop so we'll let you go
here.
Thanks for spending the timeand glad you enjoyed your
two-egg Fandango.
That was good.
Glad you enjoyed your two-eggfandango it was good.
And thanks for explaining thewell-defined problem as half the
solution, and so anybody outthere listening, did this make
(34:59):
any sense to you?
Have you had experience withthis where it went bad or it
went well?
Let us know.
Send an email, scott, atscotttownendinfo, and uh, yeah,
I'd like to hear your stories.
So, all right, ben, have a goodrest of the day and uh, we'll
be talking to you okay, soundsgood, scott, see ya so for ben
townsend, this is scott townsend.
(35:19):
Thanks for listening to thescott townsend show.
Have a great day, everything'sbe all right and we'll talk to
you later.
The Scott Townsend Show is aDietz-O-Man production.
For more episodes, visit theScott Townsend Show YouTube
(35:41):
channel, listen on ApplePodcasts or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
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