Saw a great link here on HN recently with different tricks for decisions making or problem solving: https://untools.co/

Also if its about personal problems that involves your own values or considerations, I would suggest the WOOP method. Read "rethink positive thinking"; its a slow read but important to fully understand the purpose.

I think you've got a good approach, and realistically collaboration can be accomplished after you reach a stopping point, with other individuals having their own diverse approaches too.

There's something to be said about mindless increases in observation and familiarity even when focused mindful action is fairly urgent.

Either way you will often come to the same conclusions but if not, the relatively mindless session will sometimes yield ideas that you could not come up with any other way.

>How do you solve big, complex problems?

The most direct thing I try to do is have straightforward simplifying solutions that are no more complex than necessary. And that will lead to further simplification if possible.

Looking at all the variables at once may make things seem unsurmountable, but there is no other way to get the big picture even when nobody will ever fully understand it at first glance.

Edit: this is basically what AI is supposed to do, come up with worthwhile conclusions by just staring at the data. If you're also a living breathing subject matter expert and you do this in parallel that should be even better.

The "break it down" approach is good,but sometimes it does take too long. What I have seen work is to just start implementing a partial solution that struggles with some of the corner cases. Your team is no longer stalled waiting for you to finish, and can jump ahead to other problems while you stick with continuing to look for the full solution. Plus, seeing a suboptimal solution in action can help make the best solution pop out andlook obvious.

I take a stoic approach. Everything has to be in line with natural law, otherwise what you create is an abomination. To give an example: if I'm not physically or mentally capable of programming, I won't do it. Some people just do it anyway regardless of circumstance, but end up creating buggy half-baked pieces of crap, and deem their work a masterpiece, but when peer reviewed, it's not all that great. It also won't stand the test of time, since it's code that is high maintenance and subject to tech debt. So get yourself right and everything else will follow.

Generally by hacking them into smaller, less complicated problems. Note, I didn't say microservices!

See Livingston’s Have Fun At Work and Friends in High Places.

I understand Have fun at work...but Friends in high places seems like an odd one. Curious what was your motivation behind recommending this one. Appreciate if you can share.

Livingston's Friends in High Places is a sequel to Have Fun at Work.

I think it's a bit more positive in outlook but it has a chilling description of the scariest way high-tech projects go wrong... By approaching an asymptote.

When your solution is not adequate to solve the problem you can keep investing in it and feel you are getting closer and closer and closer but you never get there. It's a high risk in modern AI projects, and it was also amusing to see in people who tried to fly before the Wright brothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw_C_sbfyx8

In particular people thought the problem of flying was about getting thrust and getting lift. It's really about controlling the motion of the plane in 3 linear degrees of freedom and 3 rotational degrees of freedom. You need each and every control surface on a plane so you don't tumble. If you arrogantly presuppose 5 degrees is enough you could keep improving your machine... you might even get off the ground but you will encounter it again very quickly.

Thanks for the recommendation. These books are surprisingly hard to get a hold of in Europe.

Very carefully.