There’s a well known phenomena in providing support to others know as the XY-problem. Here’s a brief overview (quoted from the link, which you should absolutely visit and read) about what the XY-problem is:
The XY problem is asking about your attempted solution rather than your actual problem. This leads to enormous amounts of wasted time and energy, both on the part of people asking for help, and on the part of those providing help.
- User wants to do X.
- User doesn’t know how to do X, but thinks they can fumble their way to a solution if they can just manage to do Y.
- User doesn’t know how to do Y either.
- User asks for help with Y.
- Others try to help user with Y, but are confused because Y seems like a strange problem to want to solve.
- After much interaction and wasted time, it finally becomes clear that the user really wants help with X, and that Y wasn’t even a suitable solution for X.
The problem occurs when people get stuck on what they believe is the solution and are unable step back and explain the issue in full.
If you’re here looking for support, it’s helpful for everyone if you can avoid the XY-problem. It’s unlikely you want to spend more time than is needed completing your goal and it’s even less likely that someone attempting to provide support wants to expend a significant amount of their time chasing the wrong solution.
- Be clear about your true goal or intention.
- Try to avoid asking for support on something you’re trying to implement and instead ask about how to accomplish the overall goal/outcome.
- Explain your process so far. What have you tried? What have you ruled out and why?
- Provide complete examples when asked (or before being asked).