Enabling beginners to learn #

You have a problem in front of you that has a clear outcome but the steps to get there might vary, you can take many paths to solve the problem and there is no straightforward proven solution. On top of this, the problem you have to solve involves an entire system depending on your solution maintaining the correct functionality of the system.

What do you do? You start tweaking the system, making a small change here and there. You poke the system to see how it breaks or when does it run smoothly. You learn what is safe to change and what makes the system break. You do all of this without even consciously thinking about it, of course you can do this because you are an expert.

Will the beginners in your team be able to solve the same problem? Of course not. Will the other experts, without all the knowledge you have about the system, be able to solve the problem? Maybe.

To solve this you can take the easiest approach and make the watch you solve the problem but that’s like attempting to teach someone to ride a motorcycle by taking them on a ride in the sidecar.

Or you can let them attempt to solve the problem and gain expertise. To bridge the expertise gap you can provide a bullet list of changes, a checklist for their blind spots and an emergency cord.

The Bullet List #

A list of short sentences with the changes you expect that for sure need to be done. This provides both beginners and experts with a quick way to start working on solving the problem. 

The beginner will attempt to implement their solution within the boundaries provided and the expert will attempt to branch out and explore in order to implement a long lasting solution.

The Checklist for Blind Spots #

A list of short sentences to guide them when things go south because you can only anticipate so much based on previous knowledge of the system.

For the beginner, the list has to describe specific steps on how to check for success, how to avoid failure.

For the expert, the list has to describe how far to branch out and which systems are the dependencies and dependants.

The Emergency Cord #

Everyone runs into problems to which they don’t see a solution.

• Answer the following questions:Have you followed the guidance and reached a roadblock?
• Have you attempted to come up with an alternative solution outside the provided guidance?
• Was the alternative solution satisfactory but seems sketchy?

At every level of expertise, the answers might vary. The number of attempts might vary. What should not vary is the time spent and for that everyone must have a cord to pull and ask for help and guidance.