🤷 IDK
This is intended as a very loose guide for thinking through what to do when you don’t know what to do. This is primarily oriented towards support engineers and people who troubleshoot or provide technical support.
🗺 What to do when you don’t know what to do
🎗 Remember that it is OK not to know what to do
- Start with what you do know
- Add in what you could know
- Check the docs
- Ask a colleague
- Escalate to unblock
🪧 Make a plan
Keep track of what you have done so you know what things you have ruled out, so you can summarize the steps taken towards resolution, this makes it easier to get help or hand off to a colleague.
🙋 Ask for help
Remember: it’s OK to not know what to do.
- Be specific about what you need help with
- Know who to ask and how to ask them
- when to say less and when to say more
- Speak up
- Share your work log but make sure to summarize it, include the key questions
- You don’t have to know the answer but you do have to find the answer
👀 Check your assumptions
Your problem statement includes a set of facts, observations and assumptions. Check and verify your assumptions. How do you know that x is true? How do you know that y is happening?
🧪 Trial and error
You’ll need to come up with a theory and keep track of the evidence that you have and how it supports or works against the theory.
The ongoing cycle of confirming or refuting one or more theories forms the overall problem-solving process.
Eventually, the theory will be confirmed or refuted.
ℹ️ Information
A theory being refuted (proven wrong) can be discouraging but: it’s information. It is valuable to know “the problem is not that this version of TLS is not supported on the load balancer” or whatever. That information frees you up to pursue other theories.
👋 Be up front
Be up front about it: be honest. It’s OK to not know what to do.
- Clearly state what you don’t know: be specific
- 😿 “We are investigating the problem.”
- Confirm that you will find out
- Set a timeline for an update
- Leave the content of the update open: don’t promise something you can’t deliver on
- Follow up
There is a balance to be struck here. confident vs realistic
The goal is to get to a place where you can confidently and credibly say “I am not sure of the answer but here is how we are going to find out”.
🫁 Take a deep breath and get started
- Give it a go yourself
- …but don’t wait too long to ask for help
- It’s a tricky balance.
You’ll get it wrong sometimes. That’s OK. Own it. Take note of how you can do better next time. In most situations, it’s better to develop a plan and try than it is to simply do nothing. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. It will probably be hard. You will have learned something and you’ll be a better engineer and leader for the experience.