The Solution Fixation Trap
Shout out to Nicole McCoy Diel , founder of JourneyFinder.ai for bringing this to my attention!
If you have ever worked with us, you know that we are proponents of Design Thinking, and one of the pillars of that is empathy for the user. Empathy is seeing the world through other people’s eyes. For a product team, it’s learning about their problems, pain points, and unmet needs.?
Our mantra is “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution!” We have seen far too many products and startups crash because they failed to do this fundamental thing.
But up to now it’s always been something we’ve known from experience, but (as far as I know) it was never studied scientifically. The Harvard Business Review has just published a great article titled Is Your Team Caught in the Solution Fixation Trap? that does just that.
This article illustrates extremely well the behavior of higher performing teams versus lower performing teams. In their experiment, they had 28 teams with 169 participants using a methodology they developed to measure the effectiveness of finding a solution to a moderately complex problem.
There are four phases solving problems that they identified:
The result of the exercise demonstrated that low-performing teams that found the worst solution spent far more time on the solution. High-performing teams that found the best solution spent far more time on the information gathering.
The five stages of Design Thinking line up very well with their methodology.?
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To correlate Design Thinking and the Harvard study methodology, The Empathy and Definition stages of Design Thinking are essentially the Information Processing phase of their study.
Empathizing and Definition = Information Processing
Ideation = Solution Exploration
Prototyping = Asking for Confirmation
Test = Executive Action
Design Thinking differs a bit from their Information Processing phase as it breaks this process into two pieces. First, you do the discovery, learn what the problems and pain points are, and then crystalize it into a Definition statement that’s clear and concise.
The takeaway is that the path to building great products begins in solving problems. Ideas are easy things to come up with, but if they don’t align with what people need and want, they have a poor chance of success.
Product Design and Insight Leader | Creating Customer-Centricity | Setting Product Vision | Executive Thought Partner | Building Vibrant Teams | Measuring UX Impact | Former Google, Ideo and Stash
1 年Nice post Ken Mocabee - agree that a clear understanding of the problem is critical to deriving the high-value solution. IMO it's less about having a consistent process for uncovering and describing the problem, but rather the team's confidence that they have a shared understanding of what it is. The side benefit of knowing the true problem is that it allows the team much more flexibility in solving it.
4x Founder | CEO @ Parux | Chief Product Officer (MIT Certified, 8 Certifications) | Product Designer & Technologist
1 年You captured the essence of empathy and how our studio does it differently than various other teams. While it is a simple strategy that works, it requires discipline, open communication and trust. Too often, these factors also play a role, which is why heads of product need to balance more than just technical skills. They need to create a safe ecosystem and leverage soft skills so everyone is heard, and everyone can deeply care about outcomes for the user. Thanks for your diligent post, most people will resonate with your smart connection of dots. Great stuff!!!
Coaching CEOs to Scale Up & Leaders to Win | Top 100 St Louisans to Know 2023 (SBM) | Innovative Differentiation, A-Player Recruiting, High-Performance Teams, & Rewarding Exit Strategies | Better Lives By Better Business
1 年This is a great article, Ken! As a strategic business coach, it is often my role to get people to step back and gather more information that especially includes empathy towards both the end beneficiary and those who will support the execution of the plan (often employees and other stakeholders). Without empathy, people often miss critical needs that can decrease the quality of the results!