Safe defaults.

Safe defaults. by Will Larson.

When you first come to a problem and aren’t sure what’s possible, then I think it’s extremely effective to copy approaches from those around you. This will establish a floor for performance while you come to better understand the problem. In some cases, you may never need to understand the problem beyond that point, the copied approach is good enough.

It reminded me of the japanese Shuhari concept, used often in the agile community when you’re learning something new: (a) you start by following the teaching of the master (shu), then (b) you try to understand better what you’re doing (ha); and finally (c) you start creating your own approach (ri).