Truth 31
Every Solution Needs a Problem

When it came to raising problems, Joe was the king of the castle. Regardless of size or magnitude, if something was wrong, Joe would find it and let his colleagues know. "We need to fix how we schedule our production workers!" "We need to stop cutting corners and buy better computers for all of us!" "There are never any pens in the supply room!" "Management doesn't know what's going on!" The problems would go on and on. It also seemed that the latest problem Joe found was now the most important problem to solve, regardless of its impact or the benefit that would be achieved. Despite Joe's seemingly good intentions to highlight issues that needed resolution, the problems were so poorly articulated and prioritized that they were not actionable.

Getting a clear understanding of the problem you're trying to solve is the most important first step you can take to drive a valuable solution. Too often, our problem definition stems from frustration with the current state of affairs and, taken in its raw form, is an emotional statement rather than a factual one. For example, "Management doesn't know what's going on!" is an emotional response to someone's frustration with the status quo. You'd have better luck playing the lottery than trying to come up with a solution to this problem as currently stated.

Too often, a problem definition is an emotional statement rather than a factual one.

Coming up with a well-defined problem statement means putting the statement through a few paces:

• Dig deep to find root causes of the problem. Make sure you're solving a root-cause problem and not purely a symptom or a consequence of the root cause. Let's look at an example. Say your problem is "I can't seem to get my work done on time, and my boss is getting ticked." Let's ask a few "why" questions to dig into the problem:
  
  Why are your assignments late?
  
  Because I don't find out about them until last minute, and I have to rush to get them done.
  
  Why don't you find out about your assignments until the last minute?
  
  I find out about them from e-mail only a couple days before they're due.
  
  Why is e-mail the way you find out about your assignments?
  
  Because that is the only way I interact with my boss.
  
  Why is e-mail the only interaction with your boss?
  
  Because he keeps canceling our weekly one-on-one meetings.
  
  Why does he keep canceling your meetings?
  
  Because I never give him an agenda of things to discuss beforehand, so he assumes we have nothing to discuss.
  
  Ahhhhhhhhhhhh haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! So the original problem statement of "I can't seem to get my work done on time, and my boss is getting ticked" is only a consequence of the true problem of "My weekly one-on-one meetings keep getting canceled because I don't submit an agenda beforehand." A little bit of digging will unearth golden nuggets—just pull out a shovel.
• Write down the problem in concise, actionable language. If you can't put pencil to paper and clearly articulate the problem you're trying to solve, how can you expect to devise a solution? Take a few moments to write down the problem in clear, concise, actionable terms.
• Get some consensus on your articulation of the problem. Once you've written down your problem, ask a couple of colleagues familiar with your situation to cross-check you. Ask them to do some "why" questions on your problem to help you dig down and get to some root causes.
• Gain agreement that the problem is big enough to do something about. You may do a good job of articulating your problem, breaking it down to root causes, and getting some consensus on the problem's authenticity. Now you must decide whether it's a big enough problem to take action and resolve it. For example, our clothes dryer sometimes stops in midcycle for some inexplicable reason. Because it is so infrequent, and all you have to do is start the dryer again, we elect to just live with it. It's a problem, but it's not a big enough problem for us to do something about.

Good problem solving starts with a crisp and actionable definition of the problem you're trying to solve. Gaining a strong understanding of a problem's root cause and how important it is to solve the problem will help set you on the road to being an effective problem solver.