Why this way?
I ask this a lot when I'm building something. Why are we using this workflow? Why is a marketplace the right model? Why does this step need to happen before the next one?
Sometimes I find an assumption worth changing. Sometimes I find out that the existing approach handles a problem I hadn't noticed.
That's the part I need to remember before deciding something is obviously inefficient. The people using it may have constraints that aren't visible to me yet.
What could the default be doing?
A familiar workflow can be easier for someone to use even if a new one looks better to me. A construction method might be easier to finance, inspect, or insure because people already know what to expect from it.
Those are possible explanations I'd want to check, rather than reasons to assume the current approach is good. I need to understand what it costs, what it handles well, and who ends up doing the extra work.
When I was thinking about Khaaloop, for example, it was easy to picture the transaction between a restaurant and a buyer. I also needed to understand what the restaurant already did with surplus food and why. A marketplace might improve that routine or make it more complicated.
The product being possible doesn't settle that question.
Questions I use
- Why is this the default?
- Who benefits from it and who has to do the work?
- What originally made it a sensible choice?
- Is that reason still relevant?
- What would happen if we changed it?
- What would convince me to keep the current approach?
I especially want to get better at the last one. If I can't give a decent reason for the existing choice, I may not understand the problem well enough yet.
It's not always worth changing
I like questioning assumptions, but I can get attached to my own alternative too. It's possible to spend a lot of time replacing something that was already good enough, or to remove a step and discover why it was there.
I want to understand the strongest argument for the current choice before building around a different one. Then I can make a more specific claim about what the change would improve and what it might break.
And if the existing choice turns out to be better, I'd rather find that out early.