If you can write the problem down clearly, the problem is half solved.
No identifiable source despite very wide repetition. It survives because the underlying observation is sound: most of the difficulty in a problem is in stating it precisely.
In practice
- A team stuck three weeks on "the reports are slow" settles it in an afternoon once someone writes down which report, for which user, and at what hour.
- The defensible version is that most of the difficulty is in the statement: a support ticket that says what was expected and what happened is usually resolvable, and one that says "it's broken" is not.
- Standing
- No identifiable source despite wide repetition.
- Subject
- Decision-making & Reasoning
- Essay
- Paradoxes that broke theories, and sayings that outlived them