The ability to program in five languages, including one machine-level? Not it.
Project management skills, up to and including a PMP certification? Not that either.
Excellent oral and written communication skills, as noted on every job description ever? That doesn’t hurt, but can be learned.
All of the best IT professionals I have worked with have excellent problem solving skills.
That’s it.
We face problems in IT on a regular basis. From the help desk technicians who are asked, “Why am I locked out of my computer?” to the SAN administrators who have to balance the needs of different servers and workloads to the DBA who is asked, “Why is the server so slow?” we are all given problems to solve.
How we go about solving those problems is what sets the great professionals apart from the good or the average.
PROBLEM SOLVING METHODOLOGY
In high school, I was introduced to the scientific method. The process is:
Does this remind you of your server room?
- Formulate a question.
- Make a hypothesis.
- Make a prediction.
- Test the hypothesis. Measurements are emphasized.
- Analyze the results.
Can this be applied to your problems? Yes, it can.
Formulate a question – usually, the question is asked of you. “Why is the server slow?” “Why can’t I connect to the database?” “Why is this report execution timing out?”
Make a hypothesis – perhaps a patch was installed on the server or SQL Server the night before. Maybe a network cable could have been unplugged. Maybe a developer changed a line of code in the stored procedure. Make a list of what could affect the system in question, so you have items to test.
Make a prediction – take a guess at what your results will be. If this is an error or problem you’ve encountered before, you’ll probably have a good idea of what to expect. If it’s a new problem, use your past experiences and deductive skills to determine what changes you make will do to the system.
Test the hypothesis – make a plan, make a change, and check if the problem is solved. Don’t make three changes and wonder which one fixed it – fix one at a time. Know what success looks like. If a query is slow, know what performance was before the problem occurred, what performance is when the problem is happening, and what acceptable performance looks like. Metrics are important here. You must be able to measure if things improved, stayed the same, or got worse.
Analyze the results – check those metrics. Did you get the results you expected? If so, is the problem resolved? If not, what is the next item on your list to check? Continue to iterate through your list until the problem is solved.
ANYONE CAN DO THIS
It doesn’t require a PhD in computer science. It doesn’t require a master’s degree in chemistry. What it does take is a consistent approach to problems every time. It takes curiosity and an ability to see patterns.
With practice, this becomes much easier. Practice your problem-solving skills often. They will make you a great IT professional, and set you apart from the rest of the crowd.
reference：http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2013/07/you-need-this-one-skill-to-succeed-in-it/#comments