Finding what’s hidden in plain sight

Back in the 90s I was involved with about 100 other people in a project to develop a new voice mail system – software, hardware and firmware. The hardware was a completely new design, and the software was about 70% new. Along the way we stumbled into something that improved our end quality in a way that can reasonably be described as stunning. What we discovered was how to ask questions in a way that brought important things that “everyone knows” (and are effectively hidden in plain sight) to the attention of those who can do something about it.