Problem Solving

Things are not meant to be perfect and neither you can make it.

Historically, there has been lot of inventions that have been made like fire, wheel, internet and now AI, these inventions have shaped the environment that we live in. Some of these inventions were by accident and some needed lot of iterations to arrive at the goal or solution.

As things evolved, the approach towards solving a problem also evolved and this in turn changed the way human thinks.

In this article, we will see who can be good problem solver, soft skills required to be a good problem, steps to practice become a good problem solver.

How does a good problem solver look? Take a guess.

Short answer is there is no particular appearance of a good problem solver. They don't belong to a particular race. You can't identify just by seeing them. Then who do we can a good problem solver.

According to me, they are someone who stick to the process of problem solving who can practice and improvise to make the problem solving process as their muscle memory. Another very important aspect of a good problem solver is working in group.

What is the problem solving process that we are talking about here?

The basic steps of problem solving can be:

1. Defining the problem
2. Structuring the problem
3. Analysis and Insights
4. Synthesize

Defining the problem:

This is an iterative process of defining your customer's problem. Problem is just not about the something which is told, it is also about untold or unseen. One of the main component within defining the problem statement is stakeholders. They are someone who can make or break your solution as a whole.

Other Important components of Problem Statement

Context, Criteria for success, scope, constraints

As a leader can you really outsource the work of defining a problem. Not really. You are at the forefront of the problem space and dive deep into that space and guide others.

Once your have defined the problem, the next step is:

Structure the problem:

co-creation of a product/solution is the theme in this step and in this step you have to ask lot of questions to all the stakeholders. There can be multiple perspective of problems and need to use the tool 5 why's.

This step is non-linear but it is cyclic, sometimes you may have also have to go back change the problem statement. If we remember what i said earlier, any innovation is an iteration process and this iteration can happen at different stages of finding a solution.

The output of this step is an issue tree or Hypothesis tree.

Analysis and Insights:

After you have generated the issue tree/ hypothesis tree, the next step would be analysing and generating the insights by testing those hypothesis.

Lot of ways are in the market to test like the A/B Testing.

Synthesize

This step involves giving solution. You have to give direct and straight forward solution which is backed by evidence that were gathered in previous step.

How do you structure further the problem solving process. There has be more practical way of solving a problem, that method which will be derived has to be simple and should lay another layer of foundation in strengthening the problem solving process.

After all that is said above, how do we create the problem solving mindset. I read about an McKenzie article which talks about qualities or soft skills required to adopt to become a good problem solver. Consider below:

1. Be Curious: A kid naturally asks a lot of questions and it is between 1 to 5 years lot of neurons are getting activated in a kid and during this time the kids learn lot of skills. As an adult our mind tries to make automatic sense and conclusions whenever there is a problem at hand. If we have an attitude of a kid to ask of questions we gain from it. This can open a lot of perspectives on the problem and solution.
2. Tolerate ambiguity and be humble: The core of the problem solving is about trial and error. During the process, a good problem solver should tolerate the ambiguity and be comfortable in estimating probabilities. You have to be challenge the solutions that imply certainty by asking questions like what are the assumptions.
3. Dragonfly eye view: By having a perception of super-forcasters (people without domain expertise who are best at forecasting events will help in creating more solution sets, change or widen problem definition. This can be done by gong through customer journeys with design thinking mindset.
4. Collective Intelligence: Brainstorming the ideas and giving respect to each of the idea is the the key here. Always having an assumption that the smartest people are not in this room. Surveys, crowdsourcing yields good solutions.

Conclusion:

In today's scenario i think that in software industry if you reach to a certain level or role in your organization, the expectations increases by two fold. One is your BAU stuff and another is understanding the business and their core challenges.

A good software developer not only works on his assigned tasks but also thinks from business perspective.

This holds good not only for a developer but also for anyone who is performing others roles.

Next Article: We will see how Design Thinking Approach can help in problem solving.