How to Find Problems Worth Working On: a Staff Engineer's Guide to Strategic Thinking

Someone else had suggested blocking out time in his calendar to think about the bigger picture. He'd tried that, but hadn't found it productive, so he asked if I had any alternatives. People love talking about the problems they are facing: in meetings, chat threads, presentations and email.

They explain why their work is hard, complain about what slows them down and describe what they wish they could do. When something overlaps with my area, I start pulling on the thread. I might ask, If X existed, would it solve your problem? or point them at an existing feature in a product I own and ask how much of their use case it covers.

Users often ask for a particular solution instead of explaining their root issue.