The Solution Space And The Multiverse Of Madness

The Solution Space is infinite. It is a multiverse of infinite possibilities.

But we are finite beings. We cannot do all things. We cannot be all things for everyone.

We have limited time. We have limited resources.

We have to make choices - often difficult ones. Otherwise, it's far too easy for us to fall into traps that will suck us into the infinite void.

These traps are mischievous and devious.

They distract us and deprive us of our progress, our purpose, and our goals. They temp us with false promises. They lure us with illusions of progress.

Only too late do we discover we've been caught in their many webs.

But if you know what to look for, they are easy to identify. Here are a few that I'm sure will ring familiar to you.

The Generalist

The generalist trap lures those who suffer from shiny object syndrome. There's always something masquerading as the silver bullet to your problems.

It may be a new industry trend. It may a big elephant prospect you are hunting.

There are no silver bullets, of course.

Trends are, by definition, short-term.

Catching that big elephant comes with a price. Elephants are big, hungry and demanding animals. You'll need to catch another one to cover the ongoing expenses of the first.

Before long, you've spread yourself a mile wide and an inch deep. The phrase "a Jack of all trades and a master of none" rings true for companies that fall into this trap.

Without a distinguishing value, your only option is to compete on price. It's a race to the bottom from here.

The Feature Treadmill

The feature treadmill is a phenomenon in which competing companies engage in a battle of feature escalation.

The product roadmap is a stream of feature ideas on the belief that each one provides a competitive advantage.

A Scrum-based development approach consists of an endless march of feature-driven sprints.

Products become complex and unwieldy. Development is expensive to maintain. Usability suffers as a result of cognitive overload and a surplus of options for end users to navigate.

Like the generalist trap, knowledge and resources are diluted. The value proposition of the company becomes murky.

The Agency

Are you running an agency that bills clients on a time for money basis?

If not, why on earth would you model your business like one?

The agency trap takes the generalist and feature treadmill traps to an extreme.

The agency trap outsources the product roadmap to clients to define. The result is a grab bag of disjoint product functionality - the union of all client requirements. There is no cohesive model of the domain. There is no prescriptive support of common business processes.

This is an agency model in denial. Only when zooming out does one realize how unsustainable it is to run a product this way. New client acquisitions fund the ongoing maintenance of the previous client solutions.

What you lose in every deal, you make up in volume.

A (Not So) Secret Weapon

If only there was a way to narrow the solution space to something manageable. Something finite. Something that can help avoid falling into solution traps.

You need a weapon.

What kind of weapon? The Thanos killing kind?

Star-Lord: Don't you think we all should have a weapon like that? Thor: No, you simply lack the strength to wield it, your bodies will crumble as your minds collapse into madness.

We live in the real world, not the multiverse of fantasy comics. We're not dealing with a Thano-level of existential threat and we don't need that kind of weapon.

But we do have powerful weapons to deal with the problem at hand.

And we have the knowledge and strength to wield them.

The weapons:

• A strategic business problem
• Decomposition by subdomains

The knowledge and strength to wield them:

• Insight into the problem and solution spaces of your Domain.

The Domain

The Domain refers to the specific industry or field in which your business operates. It represents the area of expertise, focus, or specialization of your business.

It helps to look at a domain as two spaces: the Problem Space and the Solution Space.

The Problem Space

The Problem Space is the strategic business problem. It is your vision and a set of goals you define to make it your reality.

Some goals are small and achievable. Others are large in scope and filled with unknowns and risks. You break these down into incremental objectives that move you towards the goal.

Rather than plot all these goals in advance, I recommend you focus on them one at a time.

1. This will avoid analysis paralysis. Getting started on the first objective will reveal a deeper understanding of the problem space. It will also inform the next objective in the path towards your goal.
2. You'll waste less effort trying to solve problems that you don't yet understand or may never come to pass.

Each objective will reveal problems to solve. These are your stories and use cases. Solving them is how you provide value to you customers.

The Solution Space

The Solution Space is a model of the problem space.

A model is a representation of a domain problem. It takes the form of business processes at the macro level and use cases as the micro level of design.

Technology enables innovation in the forms of business process automation and transformation. These more effective and efficient forms of a business process yield a higher value result.

For example, the printing press transformed the business processes of information distribution. This replaced handwritten duplication with far more efficient (and affordable) printed books. This had a profound effect on society by lowering the barriers of literacy and education.

The computer and internet ages have enabled further business process automation and transformation. The effects on society... game changing.

But here's the rub:

there is no such thing as a perfect, or even a correct, model.

All models are wrong but some are useful.

• George Box

The solution space is infinite. Every model is subjective. Every model is the result of decisions, trade-offs, and forces influenced by the knowledge and skills of its creators.

Here's another important fact to be aware of:

not all domains are equal. Some are larger in scope and more complex than others.

Many domains are sufficiently large and complex that they defy the capacity of any individual or team to comprehend and model. We call this the cognitive load of a domain.

Figuratively speaking, your bodies will crumble as your minds collapse into madness.

But now you have awareness - the first level of weapons to tackle the problem space.

In future installments, I'll share additional weapons and the knowledge and strength to wield them.

I'll share practices and patterns that will give you an edge when dealing with even the largest and most complex problem and solution domain.

In the meantime, thank you for reading.