Product Managers might be confusing their problems - and slowing themselves down

Do you know the difference between a complicated and a complex problem?

Product managers are problem people - sometimes problematic people but mostly just people who love to and are accountable for digging into problems a company needs to solve for itself and its customers. Recognizing problems is an essential skillset for any product manager - and the differences between problems matter.

Roll with me as I pose a couple of offbeat example problems: trying to build a rocket and raise a child.

Setting out to build a rocket, you’ve got some clarity. You know you’re shooting for the moon (or low earth orbit, at least), and you know you’re going to use a lot of fire to get there. You might also want to try to save costs by, say, building a reusable rocket (hey, Elon.) The challenge in building that rocket is figuring out all the choices of fuels, systems, materials and people who get you from point A to point B. Rocket building is a complicated problem: clear start and endpoints, but many routes to success.

Raising a child offers no such clarity. You know where you’ll start (if not, I suggest some remedial reading), but you have no clue how success looks. You and your partner may have different ideas on who you hope your kid will grow up to be. Even if you have a model adult pictured in your head, who your child becomes isn’t ultimately under your control:

• That child will encounter thousands of people thousands of times. Some of those interactions will only turn out to be important in hindsight.
• You might try one parenting philosophy and find it has the exact opposite effect you intended.
• Your child has their personality and will make choices you’d never imagine making.
• You probably won’t even recognize the world they see.

With unclear goals and many uncontrollable variables, it’s safe to say raising a child is a complex problem.

Back to problems we can solve, what does this difference between complex and complicated issues mean for a product manager? Different situations require different approaches, and design thinking comes into play.

You can handle complicated problems with traditional analysis and project management. The process theoretically goes: 

• Break down and analyze each piece of the problem to clarify it until an answer becomes easier to see and requirements become clear
• Assign steps to each requirement and plan a timeline
• Execute on the plan, testing as you go, solving new problems as they emerge

It rarely works this simply, but this approach and these methods are exactly what we’ve built our companies to support, what they value as productive. Keep solving problems as they reveal themselves and profit.

Complex and complicated problems have in common the need to quickly find the best solution. Design thinking, at its simplest, is the habit and discipline of looking at more answers than you think you’ll need before settling on the one you’ll implement. That hunt for more options, more learning helps accelerate and perfect the end product.

Complex problems need the same sort of treatment, and design thinking fits the bill. Complex problems have too many uncontrolled factors at play, too many perspectives to consider if you’re analyzing each possibility. Where do product managers typically find these kinds of problems? Customers! People are complex. They say they need one thing, but they need another. They like a feature but don’t use it because they’re facing many decisions and priorities in a day. They make decisions on emotions and external pressures.

Analysis suits looking deeply into one problem. Trying to analyze complex problems leaves too many considerations to manage, commonly known as analysis paralysis!

Design thinking approaches to problem framing leave the framing/decision-making to later. Design thinkers insist on gathering a wide range of evidence beyond the initial and obvious problem. If your customer makes a feature request about emailing, you explore how they communicate through all modes. You talk about what they’re sharing. You look at what inspires them to speak. Because maybe it’s not about emailing at all.

Of course, you have to settle on a problem to solve eventually. Design thinkers will compare and contrast the relative value of all the problems they’ve found before settling on the one that will create the most significant, most valuable change.

Not every challenge is complex -- complicated problems are just as valuable. Not every question calls for design thinking, but not every problem can be managed traditionally. Knowing the difference can change the way you manage your product and the successes you achieve.