House MD: Solving Complex IT Issues Using Differential Diagnosis

In this presentation I will explore how we as IT professionals can learn from the medical profession when it comes to diagnosing particularly complex issues.

The human body is complex, as are the applications and computer systems that we are responsible for. These systems sometimes experience “issues”. This can be diseases in patients or for us a site outage or slow-down.

Medical doctors have been fixing people longer than we have been tinkering with computers. The first medical diagnosis textbook was dated 1069-1049BC.

I will take you through how to manage the problem using “Differential Diagnosis”, which is a widely used mechanism for solving those particularly hard cases. It is particularly useful when trying to problem solve with a team.

We will touch on the culture that is needed to allow these methods to flourish in your organisation, as well as a few of the do’s and don’t when trying it out for yourselves.

I hope the audience will be left with an understanding of how to apply these processes to reduce your own TTR and make your boss smile.