Fall in Love with the Problem

Last year, Uri Levine published an amazing book titled, Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution! As I read the book, it reminded me of a struggle we often have with language; the story of Babel if you will. It made me think back to the time I asked the question, "if I asked 100 leaders to give me their definition of a business model how many answers would i get?" 100 or more was the common answer. So what if I asked those 100 leaders what does good problem definition look like? I have a sneak suspicion that the same confusion/lack of clarity would surface. So if I were asked to make sure that the company had a unified structure for problem definition, what would I do? These are three steps I would take:

1.???? Start with the agreement that a business model is the unit of analysis. For over 10 years I have used Alexander Osterwalder business model canvas that consists of four key parts

·????? Desirability: This is all about the consumer/customers

·????? Feasibility: I suggest this is about the operating model.

·????? Viability: this is the company’s economic model of revenue and cost.

·????? Adaptability: can you change quickly to consumers' and customers' desired progress?

2.???? Adapt a structured way of understanding and articulating the progress that consumers are trying to make. ?I use the Jobs to Be Done theory and methods.? A consumer is trying to make progress on three dimensions:

·????? Functional: what is the problem I am trying to solve or task to achieve?

·????? Emotional: how do I want to feel making progress?

·????? Social: how do I want to be perceived while making progress?

3.???? Define the operating model with the following elements in the business model:

·????? Key activities: things the organization needs to execute to deliver value

·????? Key Resources: the key resources needed to do the activities: people, equipment, etc.

·????? Key Partners: who might we need to partner with to deliver the value? This is also an area that I believe can be more robust within organizations from a playbook and rigor perspective.? Not from a contract negotiation approach, which I think orgs do well, but from an approach that leads to answering the question in excruciating detail, “what caused us to choose that partner?”

Establishing the answer to the question, “what does good problem definition look like?” Will be very important to the effective design of business modeling efforts, process improvement efforts, and the approach to deeply understand consumers.?