On 04/6/24 at 5:09 PM -0600, Pete Kruckenberg wrote the following : >I'm working on trying to teach others in my group (usually >less-experienced, but not always) how to improve their >large-network troubleshooting skills (the techniques of >isolating a problem, etc)
I took a 5 day course in another era, fortunately for me at the beginning of my career, on analytic trouble shooting (Kepner Tregoe?). The 5 day course can be boiled down really to one concept that can be taught in 5 minutes... 'half-splitting'. (The other 4.95 days were spent making sure we understood the concept and learning to implement it, the length of time was overkill but the course vendor had to make money somehow :-) (In another discussion* it was pointed out to that that wasn't the correct name in the writers view... it was "binary search". Google may have proved the writer correct, but I still refer to it as half splitting as I spent a week learning to call it that :-) The point of this note is troubleshooting boils down finding the problem in the fewest steps. Half-splitting ensures the number of steps are at a minimum. The troubleshooters knowledge of the system and equipment provides the ability to devise tests at the half-splitting point. Half-splitting is a 5 minute concept. System/equipment knowledge is of course a lifetime endeavor. The reason I am writing this note is as I went through a career of troubleshooting I was surprised at the number of colleagues who had no concept of "half-splitting" and used "linear" or "random" techniques to determine test points/tests with a corresponding dramatic reduction in effectiveness. Cheers, Darrell *p.s., I just remembered where my previous discussion was; http://db.tidbits.com/tbtalk/tlkmsg.lasso?MsgID=15775 http://db.tidbits.com/tbtalk/tlkmsg.lasso?MsgID=15787 http://db.tidbits.com/tbtalk/tlkmsg.lasso?MsgID=15788 Searching with Google for "half-splitting" will produce some useful hits.
