Technical life-learn to analyze the essence of things

Introduction to For R&D students, exploring the essence of things is the most basic, core, and first skill that needs to be mastered. There is no one.

Author: He Science

The first position of technology is not a post. It is more a mentality of suitable for all technical people who want to "know what they are and why they are better" in their daily work, with the help of theoretical tools. The guidance, combined with their own practical experience, realize their own gains, thereby accelerating the process of growth . There are thousands of great principles, and the true meaning of those who are predestined is practiced in their behavior rather than in the surface.

In the next period of time, Alibaba's middleware official account will continue to publish a series of articles, welcome to follow.

A series of articles on the methodology of technology one position in the past:

The first chapter of "Technology Life": What is the first position of technology?

background

All kinds of things happen at every moment in life, some are related to themselves, and some seem to have nothing to do with them. Regardless of the size of the matter, you always need to allocate a part of the energy, more or less, to deal with the matter. . In the process of dealing with these things, when in contact with certain people, I can always feel that their knowledge of things is deeper and more comprehensive. Listening to what they say is like enlightening, watching their actions wins reading ten years of books. Such a person often solves a problem with a sharp hit and gets twice the result with half the effort. When communicating with other people, they may feel that the other person’s perception of a certain thing is superficial, and the problem solving often fails to grasp the key point and does a lot of hard work. It is useless. So what caused the difference between the two kinds of people's cognition of things? Is there any way or way to eliminate this difference?

As technical R&D personnel, there are always various needs. There will always be predecessors who constantly emphasize the reuse of technology and the refactoring of the code, but often the inverted deadline forces the R&D to go online faster and temporary requirements. The chicken feathers on the floor are not clean, and the technical debt is left unfinished. Why do R&D personnel never seem to be able to keep up with the changing pace of demand in the face of business needs that are bound to change? Many times, people instinctively blame the product manager for not thinking clearly, so has anyone thought about what the product manager or operation staff with whom we cooperate every day hasn’t figured out clearly, which led to our R&D classmates who continue to rework themselves? What they didn’t think about clearly, did we never think about it? Should we think about these things, can we think clearly, are there any benefits? What skills do R&D personnel need to master to deal with the ever-changing business needs?

As a system architect, in the face of complex business systems, the start is often fierce, and the evolution is planned in three years and five years. However, after several years of construction, it is often only left behind many ancestral codes that have been tricked and dismantled. New requirements require Looking for "solutions" in the gaps of the old business logic, front-line developers not only have to avoid the various twists and turns of "pull the whole body", and even the architecture itself may have become blurred, not to mention. The evolution of the architecture. All of this will gradually get out of control until it reaches a critical point one day and another overthrown refactoring will bring the chaos back to the original point and start a new round of technical debt cycle. Of course, the system must be 2.0 or 3.0 (not seen yet) System over 4.0). But what about the scalability of the good architecture, and the high level of abstraction? What is the relationship between the architecture itself and the business, and what is the relationship between the evolution of the architecture and the development of the business? How can architects break the curse of "architecture design and evolution process being repeatedly beaten by reality"?

As the leader of the R&D team, he takes his own people to deliver the requirements, while resisting the urge to write code in person and having to do project management, at the same time the technical ability may be doubted by the people below; various deadlines for inverted It is like a red line lining up to collect debts. Seeing these brothers with black eye circles who have red circles around their team, they are smashing like cannon fodder in the pits, and they can only be like a large man. Outsourcing resource managers are also helpless in practical actions in this situation, and feel powerless in their minds except for the need to keep adding people. How can team members not be consumed like resources but increase self-value like assets in the process of doing business? How can we use the forecast of business development trends to break the law and make arrangements in advance, and master the initiative in strategy, so that we can make stable products before our opponents in the battle, and have enough time to polish the products to improve users’ Use experience?

Technical people of different roles, whether at work or in life, are facing this series of old-fashioned problems, perhaps they all hope that they can have a panacea, and they will be able to stay widely sung in the industry. The myth of man-month. However, under the current conditions of productivity, technicians have neither panacea nor silver bullets, and the myth of the human-month is always a myth. All things, all problems, to be solved, have to go back to the original point: what is the essence of this matter? In other words, the starting point for things in our daily work is not what tools to use to solve the problem, but to recognize the matter first-recognizing the essence of a matter is the prerequisite and basis for all follow-up actions. Whether it’s doing business demand analysis or architecture designing and drawing architecture diagrams, the choice of computer language and technology stack and the construction of related overall solutions are one aspect, and “business modeling based on the understanding of the nature of the business combined with business development "Continuous evolution" is another aspect that is extremely important but often overlooked.

In their daily work, many R&D personnel tend to focus on various computer languages and their technology stacks. Everyone spends time reading various technical books, exploring the principles behind various technical solutions, and then improving personal skills through business practices. Ability, all things that promote personal growth are almost centered on the word "technology", but, especially for students who have been engaged in business research and development for many years, do you realize that in addition to "technology", you also need to master "Business"-related knowledge, , among them, exploring the essence of things is the most basic, core, and first skill that needs to be mastered. There is no one. It is the basis for building a business map at the strategic level, the basis for arranging troops to launch key battles; it is also the basis for analyzing business requirements at the tactical level, the basis for architecture design, and the basis for business domain modeling. All the tools and methodologies that need to be mastered in the first position of technology are all starting points. All theoretical tools and methodologies are ultimately its application, projection, and simplification in a certain field.

What is the essence of things

The philosophical definition of the essence of things

Abstractly discussing the essence of things involves the philosophical level. At present, I do not have the relevant ability to carry out detailed theoretical demonstrations. Here I will directly extract the Marxist philosophy on the unity of opposites between the nature and phenomena of things, and look at things at the philosophical level. What is the essence of:

• Essence is the fundamental nature of things, and is the relatively stable internal connection between the constituent elements of things themselves. —— "The Principles of Marxist Philosophy" (Fifth Edition, by Chen Xianda and Yang Geng)
• Essence is the fundamental nature of a thing, a relatively stable internal connection between the constituent elements of the thing itself, and it is made up of the special contradictions of the thing itself. -- Baidu Encyclopedia
• The cosmological view of materialist dialectics advocates studying the development of things from the inside of things and from the relationship between one thing and other things, that is, the development of things is regarded as the inevitable internal movement of the thing, and the movement of every thing is related to it. Other things around him are connected and influencing each other. The fundamental reason for the development of things is not outside but inside things, and lies in the contradictions inside things. There is such contradiction in everything, which causes the movement and development of things. This contradiction within things is the fundamental reason for the development of things, and the interconnection and mutual influence between things and things are the second reason for the development of things. —— "On Contradiction" Mao Zedong
• Research problems should avoid subjectivity, one-sidedness and superficiality. The so-called subjectivity means not knowing how to look at problems objectively, that is, not knowing how to look at problems from a materialistic point of view. I have already said this in the article "On Practice". The so-called one-sidedness is not knowing how to look at the problem comprehensively. —— "On Contradiction" Mao Zedong

An Analysis of the Unity of Opposites between the Essence and Phenomenon of Things

1. Essence and phenomenon are the unity of opposites. Everything has two aspects: essence and phenomenon. There is no essence that does not appear as a phenomenon in the world, and there is no phenomenon that does not exist without the essence. The essence and the phenomenon are unified, but there are differences and contradictions between the two. Essence stipulates the nature of things as a whole and their basic development direction. Phenomenon expresses the essence from different aspects. Essence is composed of contradictions within things. It is a relatively single, stable and profound thing that can be grasped by thinking. The phenomenon is rich and changeable The superficial things can be perceived by the senses. The illusion expresses the essence of things from the negative aspect, giving people an impression that is completely opposite to the things, and concealing the essence. The existence of illusion obviously shows the contradiction between essence and phenomenon. Therefore, we cannot simply equate the phenomenon with the essence. -- Baidu Encyclopedia

2. The essence and phenomenon of things are united of opposites. This is objective dialectics. Applying this dialectics to the cognitive process of people requires people to neither talk about the essence of things without phenomenon, nor stay on the phenomenon of things. , But to grasp the essence of things through phenomena. (The author's this article: 160ae384b55b5b See the essence through the phenomenon, everyone knows this sentence, but how to do it is an attempt to give this article. )

For this reason, it is necessary to observe a large number of phenomena on the basis of practice and to occupy as much perceptual material as possible. This is the prerequisite for cognition to grasp the essence through phenomena. (The author's : 160ae384b55b79 This is the theoretical basis for "no investigation, no right to speak". ) When observing social issues, we must learn to distinguish between essence and phenomenon, and grasp essence and mainstream. This is one of them.

Second, having a large number of observed phenomena and possessing real perceptual materials does not mean grasping the essence of things. To grasp the essence through phenomena, it is necessary to understand a large number of phenomena, real perceptual materials, and them. To analyze and study the relationship between them, it is necessary to master scientific methods. (The author's comment: "Principles of Marxist Philosophy" does not explain what the scientific methods need to be mastered. This is precisely what the author of this article tried to give in combination with actual practical experience, the same as the previous comment. )

Third, the phenomena of things are intricate and complicated, and the essence of things has a process of gradual exposure and unfolding. Therefore, people’s cognition of the essence of things is not completed at one time, but a process of continuous deepening, which is a process from one-sided to comprehensive. A process from less profound to profound. —— "The Principles of Marxist Philosophy" (Fifth Edition, by Chen Xianda and Yang Geng)

After understanding the unity of opposites between the essence of philosophy and the phenomenon, some readers may ask, what does this have to do with business research and development? I will just cite an example that looks very small but actually has a big problem: the new retail business we do, the whole process covers different business participants such as suppliers, platforms, channel customers, partners, and consumers. The entire business can allow suppliers to settle on the platform and supply channel customers on the platform, so that the channel customers’ own users can purchase goods with points or points plus cash.

One day the product manager made a request, saying that he would "add a delete button in the supplier console to delete products that the supplier does not want to see". A seemingly very simple requirement, adding a delete button to the product list should be online soon, but in fact, the real business meaning and scenario behind the action of deleting a product is not a simple technical softening of product data. Delete, but "stop supply"-the supplier wants to delete the product most likely to have signed an online agreement and supplied to a certain channel customer at a certain price. At this time, if the R&D personnel delete the product data according to the demand without thinking , It will cause products that are already on sale or even participating in operational activities to suddenly be unable to purchase, causing loss to channel customers or triggering public opinion.

Therefore, when the R&D personnel had communicated their requirements to conduct a technical plan review, I was rejected and asked the relevant students to complete the analysis and discussion of the business scenario, complete the complete business process behind the delete button, and change the name of the "delete" button to " "Stop supply" button, and provide a separate filter item for products that are no longer sold in any channel, and no longer display by default in the supplier product management list. Therefore, the entire requirement was originally a one-day workload for a delete button. In fact, after analyzing the business scenarios and the real business meaning behind the product requirements, it became an online approval process and supply agreement updates involving the suspension of supply. The complexity of the technical solution is more complicated than the original, and the schedule is longer.

As the technical person in charge of the business, if you can’t grasp the essence behind the business requirements, situations like this will emerge one after another. All temporary solutions that go online quickly will eventually need to be reinvested in manpower and energy to redo as the needs deepen. The cost is often passed on to front-line R&D classmates.

Methods of exploring the essence of things

The abstract philosophical definition does not provide us with a practical method of seeing the essence through the phenomenon, but it points out the composition and key points of the essence of things. We can know based on the philosophical definition and the full text of "On Contradiction" and the special quotations in this article. If we want to analyze the essence of a thing clearly, we must objectively analyze the thing and sort out its inherent main contradictions and secondary contradictions. At the same time, it is necessary to sort out the interconnection and mutual influence between it and other things in its environment.

Internally, it is necessary to analyze and study the constituent parts of the target thing and the corresponding unity of opposites, so as to obtain the corresponding main contradiction and secondary contradiction, and clarify the main and secondary aspects of contradiction. It should be noted that the relevant analysis is based on a certain dimension of things, at a certain stage of the development of things, as things develop, the relevant analysis may change. The inner part of the thing determines the essence of the thing. As shown below:

Externally, it is necessary to analyze the interrelationship and mutual influence between the target thing and other things in a certain environment. The exterior of things influences the development of things through their inner relationships and influences. This point can be a simple question: an ordinary hammer can break an ordinary glass, the root cause is the hammer or the glass? Readers who feel that the root cause lies in the hammer, can continue to think: Can an ordinary hammer break tempered glass, can it break bulletproof glass, can it break steel? As shown below:

Through the above schematic diagram and corresponding analysis instructions, we can understand all the key factors in the process of analyzing the nature of the problem. Regarding the detailed operation steps and instructions, a template will be given in the fourth chapter of this article to facilitate your actual work. Use in life.

Analyze the necessity of the nature of things for the first position of technology

Business research and development, especially the research and development of complex business systems. The realization of the business requirements put forward by the product manager is only the appearance, and its true essential connotation is to use technical means to digitize the logic of solving a specific problem, and to use computer technology to digitize objective things. The modeling of, the operation of logic and data in a way that is as close to the essence of things as possible, so as to complete the mapping of reality and virtual, and solve the corresponding problems.

As the technical person in charge of the R&D team, if the starting point for business cognition is the product function document output by the product manager, the understanding of the business comes from the continuous business needs, and he cannot understand the essence of the business, and cannot see the future. Possible development trend, then such a technical person in charge can actually only respond to business needs, and will never be able to truly support business development in technical architecture and solutions, let alone use technology to drive business development.

This is also the biggest difference between "Technology No. 1" and "R&D Team TeamLeader". The former is the co-builder of the business. It uses technical background and professional skills to assist the business's No. 1 position to promote business development. Essentially, it is acting as a decision maker. The latter is only the coordinator of R&D resources and the controller of project progress, essentially playing the role of executor.

facing very complicated things, we need to be able to have reasonable theoretical tools to support ourselves, clarify the backbone of the complicated situation, and then analyze why it is like this now, what it was like in the past, and under what conditions , What will develop into in the future, and then analyze which key parts we can influence through actual actions, so as to guide the future development direction of things by influencing the key parts.

The following content is the basic analysis and operation process when facing complex problems.

Steps to analyze the nature of things

Internal analysis of things

1. Clarify the scope of discussion

It is very important to clarify the scope of the discussion. If the same thing is discussed in different scopes, the conclusions may be completely opposite. The reason is not that there is a problem with the theoretical tools we use, but the things discussed as the scope of discussion expands. The composition of itself and the interaction and mutual influence of the outside world will change, so there will be different or even opposite conclusions. So in order to solve a certain fixed problem, we must first determine what the scope of the problem is, what is its environment, and what is the scenario of the problem being discussed. These are the basis for all the analysis. If the content of this part is not aligned in the case of a multi-person discussion, it will be very easy to cause the arguments of all parties to be irrelevant during the discussion.

2. Analyze the internal composition of things and their forms of existence

After clarifying the scope of a good thing, we need to analyze the various components of this thing, and in what form each component exists.

3. Analyze the roles and responsibilities of the internal components of things

Every part of a thing plays a certain role in this thing. This role is an abstraction of the responsibilities and behaviors of a certain part, and all behaviors reflect the core interests of that part.

4. Analyze the core interest demands of each role under the limitation of responsibilities

After analyzing the roles of the internal components of the affairs, the next step is to analyze the core interests of the internal components of the thing under the requirements of the corresponding roles. It should be noted that when discussing core interest claims, it is necessary to combine the scenarios and clarify the scope of the discussion. Otherwise, the ultimate core interest claims of many things will be transitionally abstracted, but in many cases a problem is a specific and scoped interest. The appeal unfolds. Discussing only abstract interests in general is not convenient for analyzing contradictions and solving practical problems in detail. Therefore, when discussing the unity of opposites, it is clear that the core interests and demands must be limited in scope and scenarios, instead of just being abstract. , Only to look at the universality of contradiction and not the particularity of contradiction.

thing composition 1

• Core interests

Explain clearly what the core interest appeal of the thing constitutes 1

• Analysis of the origin of core interests

Make it clear why the core interest appeal of the matter 1 is like this

Thing composition 2

• Core interests

Explain clearly what is the core interest appeal of the thing that constitutes 2

• Analysis of the origin of core interests

Make it clear why the core interest appeal of the matter 2 is like this

Analysis of the interrelation and influence between things and the outside world

Based on the theory in Mao Zedong's "On Contradiction", if we want to analyze the essence of things clearly, we also need to analyze the relationship between them and other things in the outside world. Therefore, we will make a brief analysis of this part of the content.

What is the environment in which things are located

From the multiple dimensions that affect the thing itself, it is sorted out separately, so that a multi-dimensional portrait of the environment can be established.

What are the key events in the environment where things are located

Analyze the key events that occurred in each dimension. These events may have various internal relationships with things.

What is the impact of key events in the environment in which things are located

Analyze the internal impact of each key event on things.

What are the possible changes in the environment in which things are located in the future

Simply predict the possible future evolution of each key event in the big environment, and analyze the possible future impact on the thing itself.

Analysis of the Unity of Opposites within Things

Clarify the scope and scenario of the discussion

Once again, clearly discuss the scope of the unity of opposites within things.

Based on the core interests of all parties, analyze the unity of opposites between the parties

Based on the core interests of all parties in the previous analysis, we will conduct a pairwise analysis to analyze the unity of opposites between each two components of the time. When necessary, we can continue to analyze the unity of opposites between the three parties and the four parties. What we need to be clear is that all the unity of opposites revolves around the core interests. There are low-level and high-level ways to satisfy core interests. If the core interests of all parties are satisfied through low-level ways , Then it shows that the "unity" of all parties is at a low level; if the core interests of all parties are satisfied in a high-level way, then it shows that the "unity" of all parties is at a high level.

Based on the analysis of the unity of opposites, determine the main contradiction and the secondary contradiction at the current stage

Based on the clearly analyzed relationship of unity of opposites, clarify the main contradictions and secondary contradictions of the current affairs at this stage.

Based on the main contradiction and the secondary contradiction at the current stage, analyze the main and secondary aspects of the contradiction

After clarifying the main contradiction and the minor contradiction, it is necessary to look at the main and minor aspects of the contradiction, and provide solutions separately. And after determining the main aspects of the contradiction, we must give priority to solving the main aspects of the contradiction, rather than the simple first to solve which, or at least clearly what has been done to alleviate the main contradiction, otherwise it will give people a feeling: Solving the problem is itchy, not to the point.

1. Analysis and solution of the main aspects of the contradiction

2. Analysis and solution of the secondary aspects of contradictions

Prediction and intervention of the law of development of things

When we are faced with a very complex thing, why do we have to spend a lot of effort to analyze its composition and analyze its primary and secondary contradiction? It is to be able to see its possible future direction in a very complicated situation, so as to make some preparations in advance, and even take the initiative to do some things, so that things can develop according to our expectations.

1. Based on the analysis of current primary and secondary contradictions, analyze the solutions to primary and secondary contradictions

Analyze solutions and determine how to resolve major and minor contradictions. When resolving primary and secondary contradictions, we must observe at least one very clear principle: the primary and secondary contradictions of current things need to follow the evolution law of the primary and secondary contradictions in their environment.

2. Predict the evolution trajectory and the development trend of things, find the key points that can affect the development trend of things, and use the law to break the law

From the general rule of view, for any matter, if we expect unity to be greater than opposition and reduce the intensity of the opposition, then the unity of opposition of the entire affairs should develop from a low-level state to a high-level state, that is, from possible harm The state of a party’s core interests has gradually evolved to not harm the core interests of either party. On this basis, we will find reasonable methods and models to satisfy the core interests of all parties. In the entire evolution process, the unified model or form will play a decisive role at the beginning, but as the level of unification gradually increases, after the role of the model is exhausted, it is often necessary to start with productivity and use productivity. Upgrade to solve problems that the model cannot solve, or to make the model more refined, or to spawn a new model based on a higher productivity model, so as to continue to promote the evolution of the unity to a higher level.

As far as our daily specific things are concerned, we can mainly analyze the following points:

• predicts the development trend of things under the condition that the primary and secondary contradictions are not interfered, and judge whether the trend is conducive to the achievement of our expectations.
• look for the key points of things, judge the impact of changing key points on the development trend of things, and let things evolve in the direction we expect.

Case sharing to analyze the nature of things

The following content is a case of my analysis of complex business using this method.

1. Without doing any research, only relying on the words "flow monetization", combined with the e-commerce business that I do, to conduct a pure theoretical analysis that is divorced from the actual business. The main function of this analysis is to eliminate any business background and experience. For me, I can see the major context of business and technology evolution in theory, so as to provide overall directional support for subsequent research, architecture design, and final system landing. Why do you want to do this, because the future business is likely to be taken over without experience, how to do the business well, this is one of the foundations.

2. On the basis of doing a lot of research, continue to analyze the core interest demands of a certain business participant in the flow monetization according to this method, and disassemble the key business indicators according to the core interest demands, so as to develop the business process China uses this indicator and its dismantled indicators to guide the development of the business.

For details of the case, please reply to "Number One" in the backstage of the Alibaba Middleware Official Account for detailed information.

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