story
(a) discussing an open problem with a colleague, and
(b) explaining what's going on in my mind as I'm attempting to solve the problem single-handed.
I'm very effective at (a), and it's a skill that I've used many times as a software developer and/or grad student.
But (b) is more typical in psychoanalysis sessions.
I often have to explain a problem to my coworker and vice versa. It's also really helpful when pair programming. Just curious about your experience.
There's no back and forth -- you're not actually trying to help them solve anything -- it's someone who already knows the answer judging how much of it I can reason out in half-an-hour. I can't take 5 minutes to think it through, I can't stop talking for any significant amount of time without being told to narrate what I'm thinking about, etc. That's nothing like a workplace situation, where they'd be expect to hold up half the conversation, be providing input and thoughts on the problem, and I could just tell them I'd be with them in 15/this afternoon/tomorrow/etc.
It would be more realistic if the interview didn't get to see the question before the interview, either. (And why I think design questions work better than coding questions -- you can do something they're not expecting in the design, ask more kinds of questions about the spec, etc which cause an honest back-and-forth.)
