Using 3Ps to debug difficult situations

Hey 👋 - Ilya here.

What's up and welcome to the Weekly One on One!

Here's one short tip on how to Level Up as a developer.

Today's issue takes about 2 minutes to read.

Enjoy

Feeling stuck sucks.

You don't know what brought you here and even less, how to get out of it.

Identifying the real problem is often the hardest part of it. The following framework may help you to quickly find the root cause. Plus it helps get going towards a solution.  

I learned this concept from Michael Bungay Stanier in his book "The Coaching Habit" and I absolutely love it.

The 3 P's

For a difficult situation, the root cause may be in one of the 3 P's:

1. Project
2. People
3. Patterns

1. Project

This is a problem with the project itself or some technical or professional part of it.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Are all requirements clear?
• Do I know the part of the codebase?
• Do I need additional knowledge?
• Am I missing some critical information?

2. People

Working with people is hard.

People never listen. People have their own, not accurate views. People seem to live in another universe.

But we don't work in isolation.

Working with people is about relationships.

We're not going to fix others. So it's best to focus on MY role in the relationship.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What am I contributing to the relationship?
• What is important to them that I can give?
• What is in my power to change?

3. Patterns

This part is all about my habits and behavior patterns.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Am I responding to certain situations in a certain way?
• Am I doing/not doing something consistently?
• What can I change?

Outside help

No matter how hard we try, we all have our blind spots.

Outside perspective is crucial:

• 1-on-1 with your manager
• professional coaching
• talking to a spouse or a friend

Before you go to someone with the problem, take aside 15 minutes to think about the 3 P's - for more clarity and even a possible solution:

1. Is it the Project?
2. Is it the People?
3. Are those my Patterns?

That's all for this One on One. 1 tip at a time to Level Up as a developer.

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See you again next week.

Cheers,

Ilya