A bug report often describes a symptom, not a cause. A user says a page is slow; the real problem may be an unnecessary request, a brittle dependency, or a decision far upstream.
Brand problems arrive in a similar disguise. “We need more awareness” may be true, but it can hide a vaguer proposition, an unconvincing proof point, or a product story that never reaches the actual decision.
Stay with the problem
Engineering taught me to resist the first plausible explanation. Trace the behaviour. Ask what changed. Look for the constraint that makes the failure repeat.
Both fields reward the person willing to ask one more “why?” before reaching for the fix.
People are not deterministic systems. But a system-minded curiosity can make the work more precise: identify the thing that is actually failing, then choose the smallest meaningful intervention.