Five steps to help you plan out your approach to problem solving

[Approach the right problem and solutions in these steps]

It’s a fresh start for the new year, the business is gaining back momentum and about to kick start the ambitious plans. Looking back in hindsight at how we’ve planned out 2021 last year, I found that most of the time we find it difficult to plan out the correct projects because we are uncertain if we are dealing with the right problems. Here are five steps how I build up my thought process to arrive my OKRs accurately.

First, start from the “What”

You might often find something that is not working well. What is the observation and why do you think this can be a problem. This first step helps you come up with the assumption on what is not working, whether it’s the business, operation, teamwork, process. 

Second, ask yourself the “Why”

If you observed a pain point, why do you think it’s a pain point? Why is the business impacted by that pain point? It could be higher cost, less efficient, low quality, etc. Always try to find the associated business impact.

Third, find out the “How”

Now the fact has been clarified, we sorted out what is not working and why is business impacted at what scope. So we start to flesh out the solution, thinking of how we solve the problem. This helps us arrive at the solution. Note that the problem statements are facts, so it’s usually objective. In contrast, solutions can be creative, so they can be subjective.

You are almost there, set up the “When”

Running a project means achieving your objective within a given amount of time, resources. So understanding when it starts and planning out when it will end is essential. More importantly, breakdown those goals into smaller milestones, so you can measure the results while you work along the way.

Lastly, figure out the “Who”

Most of the time, if not, we don’t work alone. A project will involve other teams to a certain extent. Therefore, knowing who will be impacted by this project can facilitate the communication, can be especially helpful when driving consensus.

[Example and tips]

Let’s take a real-life example to walk through the thought process. Imagine that you recently open up a webpage, but the page traffic was lower than expected. You want to solve the problem desperately to bring awareness, however, you don’t know where to start. 

Here is how you arrive at the problem and solution in five steps

1. First, start from the what: What is not working? The webpage traffic is low. There could be multiple reasons behind the problem, it could be a low impression of the shop because it just started. (Low awareness of the business)
2. Second, ask the why: Why is no one aware of the page? Did we promote the page from different channels? (Limited action of promoting the site)
3. Then, list out the how: If we realized that the page is not getting enough awareness, how can we boost the impression? Do we use marketing buy? Or we set up a campaign? (Establish marketing campaign/ purchase ads)
4. Next, set up the when: The marketing boost for small businesses is unlikely to be an evergreen campaign, so set a timeline when the campaign will end. (The campaign will last for a week, with an amount of budget to promote awareness)
5. Lastly, identify stakeholders: Clearly, the marketing will be mainly accountable for steering through this initiative, but who else will have to know about the campaign? (Marketing, logistic, accounting)

Eventually, you will come up with the thought process as below:

1. What is the problem: Low awareness of the webpage, the page generates traffic less than 1,000 per day
2. Why is it not working: There is limited to no marketing actions, therefore, we only have organic views
3. How do we solve it: We will set up a once-off campaign to promote awareness, it will also require media buy
4. When do we close it: The campaign will last for a week, the cost will be $x dollars
5. Who needs to be involved: The campaign will drive traffic, increase sales, so the logistics need to be prepared. The accounting will want to know the budget

Important tips

?? Note that the thought process should be logical, the observation triggers off a problem statement, a problem statement correlates to a business impact, the business impact is associated with a solution, so on so forth. Only think reversely when you are validating if the approach is linear! (e.g. do I improve page traffic by media purchase? → does this align with my assumption of limited marketing actions? → does implement a campaign solve my problem of low page awareness?) 

? Do not start from the metrics! Do not start from the metrics! Do not start from the metrics! I know it’s easy to jump to a conclusion, but this is not encouraged. The reason being that this will narrow your observation or problem statement, hence, hinders your options of solutions. I have seen many times that people try to work backward from numbers to arrive at the problem statement but lose focus (The scope of the problem gets bigger and bigger, which leads to a complete irrelevant problem)

To summarize, fixing a problem isn’t difficult, we can fix tons of problems as long as we have the time. However, addressing the right problem and identifying the root cause accurately is hard. If you are caught up by multiple tasks and always felt that the tasks you deliver do not drive the expected result, try to take a step back, figure how the “what” then the “how” this will help you brush through your thought process and arriving OKRs more easily. Most importantly, dealing with the problem effectively and efficiently.