# Hamming Questions

> Guided introspection technique based on Richard Hamming's "What are the important problems in your field?" adapted by CFAR for life and career planning. Use when the user wants to: (1) identify the most important problem in their life or work, (2) find what's blocking their progress, (3) do a strategic life review, (4) practice deep introspection about priorities, (5) run a Hamming Circle with others, or (6) discover hidden bottlenecks. Triggers: "hamming question", "most important problem", "what should I work on", "biggest bottleneck", "life review", "strategic planning", "what's holding me back", "limiting factor", "CFAR".

- Skill: `equistamp/hamming-questions` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add equistamp/hamming-questions`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/equistamp/hamming-questions/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: EquiStamp (https://skillmd.com/u/equistamp)
- Updated: 2026-09-22
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/equistamp/hamming-questions

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# Hamming Questions

A guided introspection technique based on Richard Hamming's provocative question: "What are the most important problems in your field, and why aren't you working on them?" Adapted by CFAR for personal life and career strategic review.

## Three Modes

1. **Design Mode** — Help create a structured Hamming introspection session
2. **Practice Mode** — Walk through the question battery on a specific domain
3. **Execute Mode** — Run a full Hamming session to surface the user's real priorities and bottlenecks

## The Question Battery

Present these in sequence, giving the user time to reflect on each:

### Core Problem Identification
- "What's the biggest problem in your life right now?"
- "If you think about the gap between your current life and a better version, what would close the largest fraction of that gap?"

### Limiting Factor / Bottleneck
- "What's the limiting factor on your growth and progress?"
- "What's the key resource you have the least of?"
- "The speed of a chemical reaction is determined by the slowest step. What's yours?"

### Recursive Bottleneck
- "What's preventing you from solving that bottleneck?"
- "Is there a meta-problem whose resolution would unlock solving many other problems?"

### Suppressed Problems
- "What do you feel you're 'not allowed to care about'?"
- "What do you generally not think about because it feels too big or impossible?"

### Genre-Savviness
- "If your life were a novel, what would be the obvious next step?"
- "Where is the plot dragging?"
- "If someone isn't making major impact in 5 years, what would have stopped them?"

### Quantity-Sensitivity
- "Which problems have effects that are the largest order of magnitude?"
- "Where would a 10% improvement have the biggest impact?"

## Facilitation Approach

### Individual Session (30-45 min)
1. **Settle in** (2-3 min): Quiet contemplation, deep breathing
2. **Initial brainstorm** (10-15 min): Work through the question battery. Write freely, don't filter.
3. **Bottleneck exploration** (10 min): For the biggest problem, dig into what's preventing progress
4. **Suppressed problems** (5 min): Check for things felt to be "too big" or "not allowed"
5. **Synthesis** (5-10 min): What patterns emerge? What surprised you?

### Pushing Past Surface Answers
- When someone gives an answer, ask: "And what would solving that enable?" (upward)
- Ask: "What prevents you from solving that?" (downward)
- "Is there a more general pattern here?"
- When someone says "that's impossible": "What makes it impossible? Is that truly immutable?"
- "If you had unlimited resources, what would you do first?"

## Common Patterns People Discover

- **Alignment failures**: Working on expedient/safe problems rather than important ones
- **Suppressed dreams**: Things marked "impossible" that are actually addressable
- **Meta-level bottlenecks**: The constraint is belief about ability, not actual ability
- **Temporal blindness**: Prioritizing urgency over importance
- **Lack of reflection**: The biggest bottleneck is not having systematically thought about what matters

## Practice Exercise

1. Pick one domain (career, relationships, health, projects)
2. Work through the full question battery for that domain
3. Identify the #1 Hamming problem
4. Identify the #1 bottleneck preventing work on it
5. Generate 3 concrete next steps to address the bottleneck
6. Murphyjitsu those next steps

## Hamming Circle Format (Group)

Optimal group: 4 people, ~20 min per person:
1. One person presents their Hamming problem
2. Others listen, then ask questions to deepen understanding (not solve)
3. Focus on: "Is there a more general pattern?" and "What assumption haven't you questioned?"
4. Person summarizes what they got from the conversation

Recommended frequency: every 6-18 months.

## Integration

- **Goal Factoring**: Factor the Hamming problem into sub-goals
- **Murphyjitsu**: Stress-test plans to address it
- **Internal Double Crux**: When the bottleneck is internal conflict
- **Resolve Cycles**: "Just try to solve it right now" for 5 minutes