Your team is rushing to find a solution. How can you ensure they fully understand the problem space?

There are always people in a team who have a unique perspective to a problem and the solution. It is important to create a collaborative culture in the team where everyone is engaged and actively contributing towards a solution. My role has always been to create a fearless culture in the team where everyone feels empowered to create problem solving regardless of their grade or position.

Begin by clearly defining the problem, including its significance and impact. Gather relevant data which illuminates the issue (including metrics, feedback, or any other info), and break the problem down into smaller manageable components for better understanding. Identify the core issues and understand their interrelationships by utilising visual aids (such as diagrams or mind maps) to represent the problem and its elements clearly. Engage all relevant stakeholders to gather diverse perspectives and insight into the issue. Finally, question ‘why’ to delve into the root causes and underlying issues. This structured approach helps to build a strong foundation for analysis by building a comprehensive understanding of the issue at hand.

To ensure my team fully understands the problem space before rushing to find a solution, I would urge them to take the following steps: 1. Establish Key Details: Clearly define the What, When, Where, How Many, and Impact of the problem. This helps in thoroughly understanding the problem's scope and significance. 2. Validate the problem by deriving clear goals from the defined problem: From the defined problem, derive specific goals, objectives, or targets. This provides direction and ensures that the potential countermeasures are aligned with the desired outcomes. It is important to confirm the identified issue is indeed a problem not a mere occurrence. Jumping into solution mode without a clear understanding leads to "firefighting."

I suggest taking a moment to pause and breathe. Break the problem into clear, manageable parts and use a story or metaphor to make it vivid. Ask insightful questions to uncover the core issue and encourage open dialogue and reflection. This approach helps us grasp the problem clearly and find a solution.

Once you know what you are trying to achieve, it's time to understand the problem. Could you draw it out, use diagrams, and let everyone share their thoughts? This helps you see the issue from different angles and find parts of the problem you might have missed.it's like putting together a puzzle- every piece is important.

Breaking down the issue into its key components, identifying the underlying causes, and defining the desired outcome. This process helps in understanding the complexity of the problem, determining the relationships between different variables, and developing a clear roadmap for finding a solution. By mapping out the problem, you can establish a strategic approach, prioritize areas of focus, and ensure that your efforts are directed towards addressing the root causes effectively. This systematic analysis and visualization can guide you in tackling the problem comprehensively and moving towards a successful resolution.

“If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it,” Albert Einstein said I typically conduct a quick brainstorming session with the team for all to share input about the problem to ensure covering all angles of the issue and considering all issues without focusing one part and missing another. From which we can pinpoint the cause of the problem and come out even with a set of possible actions latter to be checked for best option

Absolutely, clarifying goals and ensuring everyone is aligned is essential for effective problem-solving. This alignment helps: Prevent Miscommunication: Everyone understands the objectives and their roles. Focus Efforts: Resources and efforts are directed toward a common goal. Enhance Collaboration: Team members can support each other better when they have a shared understanding. Increase Efficiency: Clear goals help in making quicker and more informed decisions. Encouraging open communication where team members can ask questions and voice concerns further fosters a collaborative environment, ensuring that the team works cohesively towards the desired outcome.

Once goals are set, it's essential to map out the problem. Using visual tools like mind maps or flowcharts can help your team understand the issue's complexities and interconnections. Encourage contributions from everyone to uncover hidden aspects of the problem. This collaborative approach ensures a comprehensive understanding of the problem space and can lead to innovative solutions that might not have been considered otherwise.

A really smart person once said, "Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." By collecting and analyzing data, we base our decisions on facts rather than assumptions. This is especially important in human-centric solutions, where understanding people's needs, behaviors, and experiences is essential. This approach helps uncover the true root causes of issues, leading to prioritized and effective solutions. Additionally, ensuring data integrity reduces biases and supports data-driven decision-making. Ultimately, data gathering enables us to measure the impact of our solutions and make necessary adjustments, ensuring continuous improvement and long-term success.

I have found that most get stuck in trying to create the perfect thing. When in reality its always a work in progress. Every organization is consistently seeking to enhance its operations and impact in the markets. This is where Data Gathering is so powerful. Because it is the data that reveals the quantifiable results of the companies actions. We can clearly see which approaches add to the enterprise and which ones take away. Simple way of growing an organization is to use data as a mirror. This shows the company how its customers are interacting with it. Data refines if it is used in direction to the companies unified goal.

Gathering data is a crucial step in problem-solving as it provides the necessary information and insights to understand the current situation, identify patterns and trends, and make informed decisions. By collecting relevant data, you can assess the scope and impact of the problem, uncover underlying causes, and evaluate potential solutions based on evidence rather than assumptions. This process helps in gaining a comprehensive overview of the issue, refining the problem statement, and discovering key factors that may influence the outcome. Ultimately, data-driven problem-solving enables you to formulate effective strategies, mitigate risks, and increase the likelihood of achieving successful results.

Gathering data provides factual insights into the nature and scope of the problem, enabling your team to understand its root causes and potential impacts. This information guides the formulation of informed hypotheses and strategies for effective problem-solving. By analyzing data, your team can identify patterns, trends, and correlations that inform targeted solutions, ultimately leading to more precise and impactful decision-making.

One thing I found helpful is to first identify the source of data needed to solve the problem.as Agility source of data must always be from the end-user perspective.A team's solution must be valuable, relevant and impactful to the customer. So the Team must collect the data from the right source at all times.

One thing I found helpful is conducting a comprehensive stakeholder analysis early in the process. This involves identifying all parties affected by the problem and understanding their needs, expectations, and influence on the project. This helps ensure that the solution will be broadly accepted and meets the needs of those it impacts most.

You need to understand the context and situate each part of the problem vrs the possible solutions well. Context makes you under the supply or demand, the age gaps and barriers, the possible ways of entry and most of all the strength of the team

Understanding the context is crucial to effective problem-solving. Guide your team to consider external factors such as market trends, regulatory changes, or technological advancements that might impact the problem or its potential solutions. This broader perspective helps ensure that solutions are not only theoretically sound but also practical and adaptable to external constraints and changes in the environment.

As a platform engineer at one of the leading Financial companies, the problems you face are often complex and multilayered. Understanding the context in which these problems exist is as crucial as addressing the problems themselves. In the fast paced environments of a leading company, it's not uncommon for teams to rush towards solutions without fully understanding the problem space. It is crucial to guide the team to thoroughly analyze the context, look beyond the immediate problem and consider external factors such as market trends, regulatory changes, and technological advancements. This view can reveal underlying issues and potential constraints.

Context is the key i believe and most of them even if the problem is understood but if its in a different context then the solution which arises from the discussion is not legit or applicable to the problem. Hence Ladder approach always help you define the context at step 1 to 3.

With a solid grasp of the goals, problem, data and context, it's time for my team to build a short-list of goals using all the information we have gathered. Then, we play together with reframing the problem and solution. Reframing a finite set has always helped our teams ensure that ideation converges on a solution that everyone contributes to and undertands. Unstructured ideation may lead us to diverge on outcomes that we can't decide between. Call this "expensive context." Structured ideation asks, "Which goals work together? Can we sequence them? Whose problem would this solution solve? Ours? Our client's? Someone else's? Do we have all the data and context we need? If not, we have marching orders. It's not back to the drawing board.

When creative problem-solving is paramount, embracing unconventional approaches can yield remarkable results. To get our 18-month-old son into a highly selective daycare, I crafted a fully formatted, humorous resume for him, detailing his “Experiences” as a “Snack Connoisseur.” At the end of the tour, I handed it to the daycare director. She found it hilarious, shared it with her team, and a week later, our son was accepted and she mentioned how it had been a differentiator. This taught me to go beyond “thinking outside the box”, instead ask “is a box even what’s needed?” Unconventional differentiators can set you apart more than competing with the same tools everyone else uses.

With a solid grasp of the goals, problem, data, and context, it's time for your team to generate potential solutions. Promote an open and creative environment where all ideas are welcome, no matter how unconventional. Encourage your team to think outside the box and consider various angles. Often, the most effective solutions come from looking at a problem in a new light or combining elements from different ideas.

Articulating the problem is the primary step I will take. I will then inform my team of the areas I have analyzed and worked on. Next, I will share what has led to this problem and the goals I want us to collectively achieve. I am very fond of using SWOT analysis or Mind Mapping methods for their ability to organize information visually. Once my team and I have a grasp of the findings, potential solutions, and different perspectives, we will get to work while encouraging ongoing team input.

Bridging the communication gaps and smoothing different communication styles that come across as abrasive can create a space where ideas feel equally valued and where people feel comfortable sharing ideas. In the wake of a solution that fixed the problem, it would be frustrating to find that a team member had a solution that would have worked better but didn’t feel comfortable sharing it. If that happens, you didn’t effectively set the tone as a leader. Sometimes event “bad” ideas have elements that may be the missing piece that elevates a good idea into a great one. Encourage every idea to be heard when in this stage of solving complex problems and ensure that the environment fosters people to be comfortable contributing.

I test any solutions, strategies, etc. Before putting them into practice by use my breveted AI, VR, etc., tools to see all the possibilities in the testing process before starting to do each project in the real world for my company clients in each aspect they request. For example, we’re doing all the testing processes to develop medical dispositives, etc to be created with 4D printing materials that imitate the natural bones, cells, etc., from our bodies. So by doing this holistically testing process by using AI, VR, etc., tools, we can see how exactly we can create a great product, strategy, etc., plus to be able to use them in the real world when this dispositive can be used after we will have all the data and tests done in a few years.

Validate first stages with trusted customers. Validate impact, prices, and features. Show a mockup or a slide draft. It helps to save effort.

Testing assumptions is crucial before finalizing a solution. Encourage your team to challenge their ideas by asking "What if?" questions and exploring potential pitfalls. This process helps uncover flaws or oversights in the proposed solution. By rigorously evaluating assumptions, your team can refine the solution to address real-world conditions and enhance its resilience and adaptability. This critical scrutiny ensures that the solution is robust and more likely to succeed in practice.

I disagree with the idea that assumptions can be safely addressed later in the process. Delaying the testing of assumptions can lead to significant wasted effort and resources if the team discovers late in the project that their foundational assumptions were incorrect.

This is very important, make sure that you and your team are not just jumping into a solution, test it out, see if it can work. Sometimes someone might have had to deal with such a problem in the past, did it work, if not what could have been done to ensure that it works?

Einstein famously said that if he had 60 min to solve a problem, he would spend 55 min understanding the problem. While that may be an exaggeration to make the point, many problem solving experts have said that framing the problem in the right way is essential for arriving at the best solutions. I have studied 1000+ disruptors across vertical industries, domains.. I can say definitively that all of them look at the problem from a completely different viewpoint than the rest of us. I recently developed a technique which I call Differential Viewpoint Technique (DVT) which can help with looking at the problem/situation from different viewpoints to create better solutions. The most recent post in my newsletter covers this technique.

To ensure my team fully understands the problem space, it's crucial to articulate a clear and comprehensive problem statement. If a proper problem statement is made, it will illuminate the core issues and set the direction for the solution, effectively resolving half the problem. Encourage thorough exploration of the problem's context, impacts, and underlying causes. This helps the team avoid premature solutions and ensures a deeper understanding, leading to more effective and innovative solutions.

First things first, have your team put together a project outline. What's the goal? When does it need to be done by? Who needs to be involved? What are the major risks? Then, have them explain the problem to you. Ask "why" five times. This will help you gauge how well they understand the issue.

Its human nature to directly to the conclusion as our mind thinks 1,000 – 3,000 words per minute. So most important factor here is if you are the part of the group who is trying to solve problem be the one who makes sure that team has identified the problem and then moving forward gradually to solving the same.

Something that we should also keep in mind is the context of the problem we are trying to solve. We should consider the system. While band aides are undoubtedly useful, I think we can all agree that we want to solve the upstream issues that created this issue. Changes upstream will have their own consequences and new issues associated with them, so it's better to solve those upstream issues, and then fix the downstream problems. Otherwise, you're going to be wasting a whole bunch of time, effort, resources, and money. TLDR, make sure you're fixing the right problem.