Don’t Know Where to Cut? Start Here.

“Break it apart” is great advice right up until you look at the giant problem in front of you and think:

Into what?

Fair.

Sometimes the hardest part of breaking a problem down is simply figuring out where to make the first cut.

You do not need to find the perfect one.

Different cuts reveal different things. Try one. See what happens. If the problem becomes easier to understand, keep going. If it doesn’t, cut somewhere else.

One useful cut is enough to start.

Three Places to Look

When you don’t know where to begin, try looking at the problem in one of three ways:

• Cut the Thing by What It Contains

  • Cut by Dimension

  • Cut by Actor

  • Cut by Time

• Cut the Thing by How It Works

  • Cut by Stage

  • Cut by Mechanism

  • Cut by Evidence

• Cut the Thing by What Changes the Answer

  • Cut by Goal

  • Cut by Condition

  • Cut by Comparison

Cut the Thing by What It Contains

Sometimes the problem feels enormous because several different things are hiding inside one word, question, or situation.

Look for:

• Dimensions: What different qualities or parts have been bundled together?

• Actors: Who is doing what? Who is affected?

• Time: Does the problem look different before, during, after, short-term, or long-term?

You are asking:

What is already inside this thing that I’ve been treating as one thing?

Cut the Thing by How It Works

Sometimes the pieces make more sense when you look at the machinery connecting them.

Look for:

• Stages: What happens first, next, and afterward?

• Mechanisms: What is causing what?

• Evidence: What actually happened, and what did you infer from what happened?

You are asking:

What is this thing actually doing?

Cut the Thing by What Changes the Answer

Sometimes you understand the situation well enough to describe it, but you still don’t know what matters.

Look at:

• Goal: What are you actually trying to accomplish?

• Condition: When is this true? When does it stop being true?

• Comparison: Better, worse, safer, harder, more successful—compared with what?

You are asking:

What would change the answer?

You Are Allowed to Try the Wrong Cut

This matters.

You are not taking an exam.

There may not even be one objectively “correct” way to break the problem apart.

You might cut by time and learn almost nothing.

Fine.

Try actors.

Still nothing?

Try mechanism.

The point of the first cut is not to prove how good you are at reasoning.

The point is to make the problem easier to hold.

You don’t need to dismantle the whole machine yet.

Here. Pick a cut.

FOLLOW THE WIRES