Ask the teddy bear

Title As the story goes, the computer science lab at Reed College has a rule that before you can ask for help with the programming problem you’re working on, you have to first explain that problem out loud to the teddy bear in the corner.

More often than not, explaining your problem to the bear is enough to help you find the answer for yourself. Aside from reducing the number of questions to the TA’s, this has some interesting benefits. Obviously the bear itself wasn’t doing anything interesting, other than being a good listener. The very act of explaining your problem out loud, along with all your assumptions and thinking, allowed your brain to work on it in a different way, and provided a solution that you might not otherwise have found.

#organizational-concepts #open-acceleration #disruptive-bypass

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