The Bouncy Sludge Problem Solving Framework
Playing Video Games to Improve Our Problem Solving Skills
Problem Solving 101.
- Talk through what you see.
- Attempt to use all available tools as many ways as can be used.
- Talk about the usage boundaries of current tools or resources.
- Dissect the goal into things that must happen, attempt to solve the things that must happen.
- Don’t freak out, fight or flight mechanisms get in the way of clear thinking.
Gabriel and I frequently play Portal 2.
In these sessions, we solve challenging problems related to robots, an industrial landscape and a weird ai that seems to enjoy tormenting us.
While solving these problems, we usually have to move through 3 dimensional space figuring out the objective and how to solve the objective as we go along.
In the below two videos we solve some particularly juicy problems.
Watch the videos, an addition to the fun of watching us time our bounces or use hard light to spary a corridor of bouncy sludge, notice how we approach problem solving. Gabriel and I just keep talking through what we are seeing, how we interact with it and what a good outcome would look like. Frequently, neither of us has a complete solution to the problem at hand, we just keep improving a small percentage and eventually we’ve solved the objective.
Product engineering mimics this above outlined solution and if you have ever worked with Startuplandia, you’ve hopefully witnessed a bit of this same magic. If you are thinking to work with us and these videos make you think we are 1. weird or 2. getting paid to play games (wtf!), then my friends, all I can say is “I love it when a plan comes together.”
Word to your Bot!
JD
