Gerald Weinberg is an American scientist, consultant, and author of several books on management psychology. He dedicated his life to studying how people solve complex problems. And he formulated one very simple but powerful rule, which he described in the book The Law of Raspberry Jam.

If you can't think of three different reasons for a problem, then you haven't understood it well enough. One version is an illusion of understanding. Three versions is real analysis.

Programmers tend to "fall in love" with the first cause of a bug they find — and this has cost teams enormous amounts of time.

The rule is applied as follows:
1. Don't stop at the first answer. The first idea is almost always the most obvious — and not always correct.
2. Write down versions. When thoughts are on paper, the brain works more accurately.
3. Use it in a team. Ask colleagues to name their three reasons — you'll get unexpected insights.

The rule of three has another interpretation. Weinberg described it in the book The Psychology of Computer Programming.

Three programmers organized into a team can only do twice as much work as one programmer of the same skill level — due to the time spent on coordination problems.

Same name, different meaning.

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