I find it does, at least for some classes of problem, particularly where there are several details or a sequence of events in play, with some reliability.
When problem-solving I tend to jump about a bit, which is often efficient as it gets me thinking about the wider picture and seeing varied parts of it instead of getting locked into a particular detail. This sometimes leads me to missing something slightly obvious, that I keep missing as I rerun through things. Explaining to someone else forces me to organise the diagnostic process so far into a more solid narrative which invariable passes closer to, if not headlong into, the detail I've skipped past previously.
Sometimes just pretending I'm explaining to someone else helps the same way, but not always (and hardly ever if I'm a bit manic) because it is too easy to start skipping over bits again where actually talking to someone else (or writing things down) highlights when I'm doing that as the narrative ends up with a gap. Such a gap confuses a human, so they query the skip, or makes the grammar of a written explanation "rub wrong" either immediately or when I read it back.
> you don't know that you'll work out your problem in the process of explaining it
Of course this isn't 100%, it doesn't help if there isn't a clue to the solution in the gap that gets filled, but it works surprisingly often and usually the gap is because I've simply made an unsafe assumption (such as that a particular detail is not really relevant) and things become massively more obvious when that simple error is undone.
> you don't know that you'll work out your problem in the process of explaining it
But if you feel you've exhausted other current avenues, it is worth giving it a shot. It is highly unlikely to make the situation any less fixed, unless your rubber duck highlights a larger problem that the problem you think you are debugging is merely a symptom of…
I think a similar process is in play when I do the “going for some air” thing, come back, and very quickly see the new vital clue. Having taken the break, the process of getting my head back into the problem space becomes one of quickly re-explaining it to myself. This gives the feeling that the back of my mind, my autopilot, has come up with the answer while I wasn't looking.
When problem-solving I tend to jump about a bit, which is often efficient as it gets me thinking about the wider picture and seeing varied parts of it instead of getting locked into a particular detail. This sometimes leads me to missing something slightly obvious, that I keep missing as I rerun through things. Explaining to someone else forces me to organise the diagnostic process so far into a more solid narrative which invariable passes closer to, if not headlong into, the detail I've skipped past previously.
Sometimes just pretending I'm explaining to someone else helps the same way, but not always (and hardly ever if I'm a bit manic) because it is too easy to start skipping over bits again where actually talking to someone else (or writing things down) highlights when I'm doing that as the narrative ends up with a gap. Such a gap confuses a human, so they query the skip, or makes the grammar of a written explanation "rub wrong" either immediately or when I read it back.
> you don't know that you'll work out your problem in the process of explaining it
Of course this isn't 100%, it doesn't help if there isn't a clue to the solution in the gap that gets filled, but it works surprisingly often and usually the gap is because I've simply made an unsafe assumption (such as that a particular detail is not really relevant) and things become massively more obvious when that simple error is undone.
> you don't know that you'll work out your problem in the process of explaining it
But if you feel you've exhausted other current avenues, it is worth giving it a shot. It is highly unlikely to make the situation any less fixed, unless your rubber duck highlights a larger problem that the problem you think you are debugging is merely a symptom of…
I think a similar process is in play when I do the “going for some air” thing, come back, and very quickly see the new vital clue. Having taken the break, the process of getting my head back into the problem space becomes one of quickly re-explaining it to myself. This gives the feeling that the back of my mind, my autopilot, has come up with the answer while I wasn't looking.