Problem Solving

I was going to post this in Durch Technik but realised that I don't perceive problem solving as a purely technical thing, to me it's really more a state of mind.

(I'm paraphrasing Robert Pirsig again with a mix of my own perception)

How do we solve problems?

1) Identify the problem
- The light doesn't work)

2) Propose hypotheses to suggest a cause of the problem
- The light bulb has failed
- The wiring is faulty
- The switch is faulty
- The electricity has failed

3) Test each hypotheses to assess it's validity
- Try a new light bulb
- If it works we conclude that the light bulb had failed
- If it doesn't work we conclude that the problem lies elsewhere
(Be careful, there's a premise here that the new light bulb works!!)

4) Having found a valid hypothesis and reached a conclusion we achieve two things:
- We solve our problem (fix the light)
- We assimilate valuable data for the future (lights don't work when bulbs fail)

I'm going to extrapolate this into IT problem solving and see where we go....