The reflex
You learn from the people close to you. Their examples are available, their context is familiar, and you can ask them questions.
The builder’s reflex
“What other example could help me examine this choice?”
Why
An experienced colleague brings valuable knowledge of the ground. An outside reference can open another possibility: a way of laying out a quote, a clearer flow, an interview framework, an architecture suited to a comparable problem.
You can look for that reference in another department, a community group, a professional community, or published work. Fame and the size of the organisation do not on their own tell you whether the example will serve you. What counts is being able to examine a decision and what it makes possible.
Compare the constraints too. A team with more means can fund support you cannot offer. A service built for a stable connection can answer badly to use on an intermittent network. You can keep a way of reasoning without taking the whole solution.
That comparison can confirm a strength in your own work. It is there to widen your choices, including when your current solution stays the best one for the need. If you are starting out, a single annotated example can be enough to learn one move.
Try this
Pick a subject to go deeper on, and an example you can reach that handles a close problem. Put it next to your work and note one different decision, one different constraint, and one thing you want to keep.
Try a limited adaptation, or ask a peer for a review. At the next use, look at whether it helps the recipient. If it adds cost with no benefit you can see, go back to the previous choice and keep the reason.
From where you sit
- Product: compare the needs served before you compare the features.
- Design: try the flow under the real conditions of its users.
- Support: examine an answer that helped you, and the context that made it fit.
- Recruiting: compare the criteria in a framework, without assuming the author’s prestige validates them.
To discuss
Which outside comparison helped us improve, or confirm, our own way of doing things?