Feynman’s 12 Questions – an Exercise to Spark Your Curiosity
While this method comes from outside of product management, this is something I use in life and at work, and I find it worth sharing.
Richard Feynman was one of the most important scientists of the 20th century, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, and a unique, multifaceted individual (drummer, raconteur, teacher, and scientist).
Feynman had a framework called 12 Questions (or 12 Problems), which has become the heart of the work of many note-takers, digital gardeners (people taking (some) notes publicly to learn in public and share knowledge), Second Brain builders (people building note-taking systems using different tools), and overall curious people.
He once famously said, “You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, 'How did he do it? He must be a genius!’” (Rota 202) That’s the whole method. Seems very simple, yet it’s very transformative.
12 Questions and (Product) Discovery
While this method comes from outside of product management, this is something I use in life and I find it worth sharing. Even in terms of product management, I use a variation of this method at work, by being mindful of my main questions around a domain or a product I am working with.
In terms of discovery, this will help you identify connections between seemingly disparate subjects, train yourself to recognize helpful answers to your biggest challenges on the go and recognize the value of information and why it's worth retaining. It’s a way to consciously devote your time and attention to ideas that spark your curiosity.
P.S. You can take a look at my 12 questions here.
Rota, Gian-Carlo. Indescrete Thoughts. Birkhäuser, 1997
I’m a big fan of your newsletter and I really deeply enjoyed every single post that you published. Lots of them I go and re-read multiple times over the span of couple of weeks.
With that being said, I have to be honest, and that’s primarily because I love your work and want to keep seeing more of it. But I kind of felt this article is missing something.
I loved the premise and the intro. You opened up with some really good stuff. But the moment I expected it to go and provide more details on the matter, it somehow abruptly finished, leaving me a bit confused. Frankly, after the first read, I had no clue what 12 questions were. So I had to re-read again and only then did I get the idea that Feynman always kept 12 questions. But I still didn’t “feel” it for some reason :/
In all honesty, I somehow feel like this article was a bit rushed and that it could have profitted from some more examples and some personal stories of yours. You did provide a link, but I didn’t want the link. I wanted your story. The entertaining one as it always is :)
Keep in mind this is very personal opinion and it could be just me. Again, I love your work and really enjoy every single post of yours. But this one missed something :)