XY-Problem

The XY problem is a situation when someone (e.g. end user, client, customer, …) ask for a solution to their problem (X) rather than explaining the source of the problem they try to solve (Y, Why).

Examples

• "How to create an excel macro to filter my emails" (X) rather than "What's the best way to filter my emails".
• "How to get the 3 last characters of a filename" (X) rather than "How to get the file extension" (Y). The file extension could be more or less than 3 characters.
• …etc.