Problem finding: what it is and what it means

Problem finding is the active search for problems before they show up with a cost: noticing and naming a deviation while it is still a minor, recurring fact, on your own initiative and not in reaction. It is the act that precedes every method of analysis, because it notices that the problem is there without yet measuring it or explaining its causes, and in the sequence find, set, solve it comes first. It is practiced on small, repeated anomalies below the complaint threshold, at shift change or when a job is closed, in the time it takes to write a line. Every problem has two dates, the one when it starts producing effects and the one when someone gives it a name: where the act is missing, problems arrive from outside, with a cost already attached.

Distinctive: active search for problems before they show up with a cost
Distinctive: on your own initiative and not in reaction
Essential: the act that precedes every method
Essential: notices that the problem is there
Essential: small, repeated anomalies below the complaint threshold
Constant: find, set, solve
Constant: two dates

Glossary

Problem finding

The practice of noticing that a problem exists before it shows up as damage, without yet measuring it or explaining its causes.