Do we have a term to describe the attitude which instead of solution, focuses on the problem. This attitude is encouraged in many places and there are some stories about it. Maybe the most famous story is "The Empty Soap Box".
I was thinking of Pluralism as a description for having many ways to get to one goal (not really relevant), or lateral thinking which is a superset of what I want.
What term is suitable?
Thinking out of/outside the box
is a metaphor that means to think differently, unconventionally, or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel or creative thinking. The term is thought to derive from management consultants in the 1970s and 1980s challenging their clients to solve the "nine dots" puzzle, whose solution requires some lateral thinking.
http://www.mycitysurat.com/images/article/puzzle_dotsnlines_ans.jpg
References
Previous answer, kept for relevance
When I first read the question I believed you were referring to the XY-problem which is referred at meta.stackoverflow.com
The X-Y Problem, as it is sometimes called, is a mental block which leads to enormous amounts of wasted time and energy, both on the part of people asking for help, and on the part of those providing help. It often goes something like this:
- User wants to do X.
- User doesn't know how to do X, but thinks they can fumble their way to a solution if they can just manage to do Y.
- User doesn't know how to do Y either.
- User asks for help with Y.
- Others try to help user with Y, but are confused because Y seems like a strange problem to want to solve.
After much interaction and wasted time, it finally becomes clear that the user really wants help with X, and that Y wasn't even a suitable solution for X.
There are many interpretations of this.
In contrast simply "focusing on the problem" (or at least dwelling on the negative aspects of it) could be construed as pessimistic.
There are various phrases using the term big picture
the entire perspective on a situation or issue —used with the
Two common phrases are
seeing the big picture
big picture thinking
There are numerous articles and books discussing the differences between people who tend to be big picture thinkers as opposed to detail oriented thinkers, such as this essay.
In the UK, we'd call this 'belt and braces' or 'check the basics'. No point in taking the computer apart to find out why it's not working if you haven't checked the power supply is functioning, or that the fuse hasn't blown in the plug - that's called a belt and braces approach. Not one word though, obviously...
UPDATE: mplungian: not so. 'Belts and braces' also refers to looking at a whole problem, with an overview, or a birds' eye view if you like, singling out the possible issues, and then deciding, by prioritising the identified possible causes, how best to resolve the situation. For interest's sake, in the Empty Box story, the reaction of the company to try to solve the issue would, in London colloquial terminology, be called half cocked (meaning off and running before looking properly, or only half ready).
