Ask Like a Designer launched with an article about how six designers — Builder, Scout, Tinker, Facilitator, Traveler, and Pro — help you get better results with design-driven innovation. This article takes a close look at Tinker.

Tinker’s favorite question: What must I learn? Remember that kid who takes everything apart? And how about the kid who takes everything apart and then puts it back together, and… it works! Tinker is that second kid.

Tinker is constantly breaking down problems into smaller problems to learn how they really work. Tinker mines reports from Scout to find what it needs to learn about the problem, possible actions, and useful (and good-to-avoid!) options. The other five designers devour reports from Tinker that detail what they can learn to get better at what they do. When it’s time to create, Tinker guides Builder, and Builder restrains Tinker. It’s a tricky, necessary balance at which they excel.

• How might I break down the problem?
• What must I learn?
• How do I learn more?
• How might I adapt how I’m learning?
• How do I make learning automatic?
• How do I evaluate good ideas about the problem?
• How do I create possible solutions?

Internalizing Tinker sets us up for fast, effective, and focused learning. When Tinker’s questions become part of how we think and work, we find ourselves developing the knowledge and abilities we need just in time to apply them to the problem we’re trying to solve. Tinker makes wrestling with the unknown and creating the new easier by reshaping how we learn and create, by adapting to the challenges we face. Tinker also looks for ways to make learning automatic so we can direct more energy at problems, solutions and action.

How might I break down the problem?

As soon as Tinker sees the problem presented by Builder, it will start looking for ways to turn it into several smaller problems. Then Tinker will work to turn those smaller problems into even smaller problems. Tinker’s urge to break things down is unstoppable.

Even when Tinker can’t find smaller problems, Tinker will keep trying to satisfy its curiosity. Tinker’s relentless splitting and fracturing gives Builder discrete places to focus action. The tiny problems Tinker makes give Scout discrete places to search and help gives Scout a better sense of where and how to search for knowledge.

What must I learn?

If Tinker had a motto, it would be, “Stay curious.” Tinker wants to learn everything. To learn about the problem Builder frames, Tinker starts by taking it apart and breaking it down. Tinker looks at each piece and gets curious about knowledge and abilities. Tinker searches for what we must learn about the world to understand and solve. Tinker scans for abilities to polish or acquire that will help us understand and solve. Tinker passes these insights to Scout to expand what we know and to Pro, who guides how we acquire and refine abilities.

How do I learn more?

When Tinker identifies a body of knowledge or an ability worth learning, the planning starts. Tinker helps us teach ourselves. It helps us scan for learning resources, make time to learn, set the pace of our learning, judge how we’re learning, and gauge when we’ve learned enough. Tinker runs the learning system essential to seeing a problem, solving it, and acting on that solution.

How might I adapt how I’m learning?

Sometimes what we know and know how to do isn’t enough to make progress on a problem or challenge. When that happens, more learning works. But sometimes it isn’t what we know or know how to do. Sometimes it’s how we learn.

Tinker looks at how we learn with the same break-it-down approach it uses with problems. When Tinker spots an opportunity to improve our approach to learning, it helps us run a small experiment to see if the new way is more effective. Tinker also refines what is being produced by constantly questioning whether the outcome includes all of the feedback throughout the project.

How do I make learning automatic?

Tinker is the heart of a little machine. Tinker administers our learning system blueprints and enlists the other designers to make learning automatic. Tinker sends Builder things to do, points Scout at knowledge to acquire, identifies things to practice for Pro, asks Facilitator to fold learning into the work, and confers with Traveler about what to mine from hindsight.

How do I evaluate good ideas about the problem?

Developing good judgment is part of learning and part of what Tinker manages in our learning system. Tinker helps us ask what’s worth learning and determines if our way of learning works. Those tasks both involve judgment.

Tinker keeps track of our standards and ways of evaluating things. Builder makes things based on information from Scout. Tinker helps us sort the good from the bad and learn from our mistakes. Tinker helps Builder, Scout, Facilitator, Traveler, and Pro make all their judgment calls. Tinker watches for times when we don’t know how to decide and triggers learning system adaptation.

How do I create possible solutions?

This is where Tinker links arms between Builder and Scout to dance, dance, dance. Tinker’s deep look inside the problem by breaking it down lets Tinker suggest ways to respond to it. With the problem broken down, Tinker suggests things Builder might try with each aspect of the problem. Tinker feeds those results to Scout’s knowledge searching and mapping. As they dance, Tinker adjusts our learning system to incorporate new knowledge and abilities, and gauges how well what we’re creating solves each aspect of the problem.

Tinker helps make our problems digestible, learning effective, and judgment sound. Practice asking Tinker’s questions to develop the deep understanding of problems that helps us learn just enough to solve them well.