Donnie's Blog

I am in the process of finalizing which PHP framework (in short, a web programming toolkit) for a project I was working on.

As I was researching the frameworks available, I was disappointed to note that there seemed to be a gazillion and one frameworks out there, each one of which seemed a likely contender. I wanted to select one of them and get cracking on the project, but I didn’t want to risk choosing one of them, and realizing later that I had made a mistake. This could have been for two reasons:

1. The option I had selected was not good enough: This could be because it was not allowing me to do something I was trying to do, or it was making it much harder to accomplish some goal. There could be some underlying flaw in the option that made it a bad (or totally infeasible) option. It could have failed some of my initial goals (more on this later), or it could have become a bad option due to a changing requirement that I had not foreseen. Real world example:

Problem: I wanted to build a house. I needed to select a building material to construct it with.
Options: Wood, Cardboard, Bricks
Selected option: Wood
Why is it not good enough: Fails one of my primary goals – safety – it catches fire too easily, which is something I hadn’t realized. Or maybe, it’s much harder for me to construct another floor because the wood isn’t strong enough.

2. There was a better option: This, for some reason, is what many people are more afraid of. As I’ll explain in one of the methods I’ve found for solving this problem, this isn’t really that scary a problem. This problem occurs when we realize that a better solution for our problem exists. By having chosen the other option that we did, we can no longer proceed with this one. Real world example:

Problem: Let’s take the previous example – building a house
Options: Wood, Cardboard, Bricks, and another new option on the market – Fiberglass (hey, gimme a break, I’m not in the construction business)
Selected option: Wood
Better option: Fiberglass – after I had gotten halfway through construction, I realized that fiberglass would’ve been a better option. Damn! Since I’ve already chosen wood, I can’t change to fiberglass now. I’ll keep kicking myself about this every time I enter my house!

To defeat these problems, I have developed a simple method that works well. The first step is to ensure that you have defined your goals. Sounds simple, but it’s something that’s quite difficult to do, and can be easily overlooked!

Goals need to be very specific – it doesn’t qualify to say that the building material must be ‘awesome’. Here are some sample goals:
1. The material must be safe
2. The material must be extensible – I should be able to add more floors, drill holes in it, hammer nails in it, etc.
3. The material must be easy to use and work with

Why the heck would I want to do this? U you define your goals, many infeasible options will appear to be plausible solutions.

By defining your goals, you have developed a kind of acid test for the options. You are able to quickly able to measure each one against your goals. You just select the one that satisfies the goals. Simple.

Sometimes, this is not enough. In spite of defining your goals, and refining them again and again, you are still unsure. You are still unable to select from a few of the remaining options.

Ok, now comes the more important part of my method – I call it the Nike approach. Just friggin’ do it!

It’s quite simple: You need to complete your project. Spending months and months of research trying to select the perfect solution doesn’t always work. Why? Because human beings are highly susceptible to suggestions.

You might have formed some preliminary opinions about an option, when some new input makes another option seem more attractive. This might be a colleague praising another option, or bashing your preliminary finalists.

You might have read something in an article somewhere, or some snippet of a conversation between two experts. You might have seen an ad for the other option that was just sexy (don’t underestimate the power of presentation – I account for it in all my decisions).

So where does that leave you? Unsure and slightly confused. This leads you to hover in a state of insecurity about any of the options. You would like to select one, but you’re not quite sure if it’s the one. This is in start contrast to the times when you are immediately able to identify what you want – like the time you wanted the iPod. You didn’t care what other alternatives existed in the market, and you weren’t the slightest bit concerned that you would ever regret your decision. When somebody pointed out a flaw in your decision, your confidence in your selection allowed you to advocate your choice, and argue about its merits. That kind of confidence feels good, doesn’t it? You can see how distant it is from the hesistance we’re talking about.

So what do you do? Of the remaining options, you select the one that your gut tells you to. Keeping aside the beliefs that your subconscious has weighed in many more of the options than your conscious brain realizes, there is another reason for this, which I’ll expand on below.

By selecting an option, you are freeing yourself from paralysis by analysis. This is a state where you are so immersed in the process of making a decision that you never move ahead in the completion of your goals. You can read up on this later (focus, man/woman, focus!).

Once you’ve selected an option, what about the above two conditions (option not good enough/better option)? You don’t care. That’s right – you don’t care. You have done your research. Your option has already shown itself to meet your goals. Any problems that arise will just have to be fought through. You do whatever is necessary to defeat the problems you’ve encountered and move ahead. You will make far more progress this way towards the completion of your goals. Rarely, if ever, will you find that the option you’ve chosen is so bad that you just can’t work with it. In that case, just select the next best option from your research.

Sometimes, though, even after defining your goals, there exist so many options that even after defining your goals, it would take way too long for you to boil down to one option. In this case, you can apply the new method I’ve discovered – the deal breaker.

It’s very simple. The first step is once again, defining your goals. Once you’ve done this, you go sequentially through each of the options, looking for the ‘deal-breaker’. Imagine that you received an annoying phone call from a telemarketer. You’re too polite to just hang-up the phone. What do you do? You look for an excuse. “…sorry, I can’t buy your credit card because I am currenly in jail’”, “I can’t avail of your long-distance calling plan, because I don’t have a phone!”, etc.

You do the same for these options. You pretend that your ideal option is the last one (though we’re just going through these options randomly, or alphabetically, or whatever). So each option, dressed in its best suit, needs to be given an excuse, why “it’s just not the one – it’s not you – it’s me. But can we still be friends?”. This way, you’re not trying to select the option, but reject it. This makes the decision so much easier. As you’re going through the options, some will be stubbornly good – but eventually they’ll falter. One of these will just continue to look perfect. This will eventually be the option you’ll chose! If there’s two or three which satisfy the criteria (more than three? you’ve screwed it up – be meaner!), you apply the Nike method.

The wisdom of my methods might not be immediately apparent, but think about it a bit, and apply it in practice. I’m sure you’ll be singing my praises in no time!