How can you reflect on your problem solving experiences to improve your decision making?

1 Why reflect on problem solving?

Reflection is an important tool for improving problem solving, as it encourages self-awareness and self-regulation, develops metacognitive and learning skills, and expands creativity and innovation. Through reflection, you can recognize your emotions, biases, assumptions, and habits that influence your decisions. You can also assess your problem solving process, methods, tools, and results to identify what went well and what needs to be improved or changed. Furthermore, reflection can help you generate new ideas, insights, and solutions by applying your experiences to new problems. It can also push you to think outside the box and experiment with different approaches and perspectives.

2 How to reflect on problem solving?

Reflection is not a passive or random activity, but a deliberate and structured one. To make reflection more effective and meaningful, you can use various models, frameworks, and techniques to guide it. For example, the STAR method is a popular technique for answering behavioral interview questions that can also be used for reflection. This method involves describing a specific problem solving experience and analyzing what you did and what happened. Additionally, the Gibbs reflective cycle is a model that helps you reflect on your experiences in a systematic way, by following six stages: Description, Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis, Conclusion, and Action Plan. Furthermore, a journal or portfolio can be used to document and organize your problem solving experiences and reflections. This tool allows you to track your progress, challenges, goals and achievements while also helping you review your problem solving experiences over time.

3 How to get feedback on problem solving?

Feedback is an essential element of reflection that can help you improve your problem solving and decision making. It is the information or response you receive from others or yourself about your problem solving performance and outcomes. Feedback can validate your strengths and achievements, identify areas of improvement and gaps, and suggest action steps and solutions. It can also boost your confidence, motivation, and satisfaction as a problem solver and a decision maker. Moreover, feedback can highlight your weaknesses, errors, and blind spots as a problem solver and a decision maker. Furthermore, it can provide advice, guidance, and recommendations on how to improve or change your problem solving process, methods, tools, or results. Additionally, feedback can offer alternative or better solutions to your problems.

4 How to seek feedback on problem solving?

Obtaining feedback on your problem solving is not always straightforward, especially if you work independently or remotely. To seek feedback, you should communicate with your stakeholders, such as clients, customers, managers, colleagues, partners, or suppliers. Setting clear expectations and listening actively to their opinions is important. You can gather feedback from your stakeholders through surveys, interviews, focus groups, reviews, ratings, or testimonials. Furthermore, you should connect with peers or mentors who have similar or more experience in the same field. Platforms such as online forums, social media, blogs, podcasts, webinars, or courses can help you reach out to them. Finally, self-assessment and self-evaluation tools and techniques can help you give feedback to yourself. Checklists, rubrics, criteria, standards or benchmarks can be used to assess your problem solving performance and outcomes. Dashboards, analytics, reports or metrics can be used to measure or monitor your problem solving performance and outcomes.

5 How to use feedback on problem solving?

Feedback is a useful tool for improving your problem solving and decision making. It's important to process and act on the feedback you receive or give yourself in a constructive and positive way. Acknowledging and appreciating the feedback provider, whether it's someone else or yourself, is key. You should also review and analyze the feedback carefully and objectively, looking for key points, themes, patterns, and trends. Comparing it to your own expectations, perceptions, and reflections can help you gain clarity. After understanding the feedback, you should apply it to your problem solving and decision making by identifying action steps and solutions. Setting goals and timelines for improvement or change is also important, as well as monitoring and evaluating the impact of these changes.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?