Stop asking “What problem are we trying to solve?”

“What problem are we trying to solve?” is a smart question, but it usually gets us nowhere. Here’s a better way, and some better questions to ask.

I was in yet another planning meeting, when my colleague leaned back in his chair and said “Yeah, but what problem are we trying to solve?”

Silence followed.

We all knew why he was asking. We’d focused too long on what we were doing, not why. And, we all thought the same thing: we’d love to come out with a crisp answer to that question that would impress everyone, and unblock us, but couldn’t. And we’d rather say nothing, than say something lame.

So we went back to talking about what we were doing. Sigh.

The problem with talking about problems

What problem are we trying to solve? It’s the new black in the fashion of looking smart in meetings, when you’ve asked “Yeah, but will it scale?” a few too many times. It’s a smart question. It helps us to stop thinking about the solution for a moment.

But it’s also a confusing and reductive question. What do we mean by ‘problem’? It sure ain’t the solution. And it’s not a business goal. Is it an actual problem, as the dictionary says, “a situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome”?

Is it a problem statement? Because most problem statements don’t seem to be problems. Or statements.

Exhibit A: If this is a problem statement, what’s the actual problem?

Or is it a design challenge, like what the IDEO design kit talks about? (and by the way, there is no mention of ‘problem statement’ in this design kit).

The anatomy of a problem

Before we leap into some other smart questions, let’s dissect our common garden variety problem. Got your gloves on? Great. Let’s open the carapace, pin back the membrane, and take a look at the anatomy of a problem:

The elements of a (generic) problem space

This is a simplified, generic visual of the specimen, of course. But no matter the problem you try to articulate, it usually has all of these organs:

A person (user type, persona) has a goal in mind, BUT thanks to some kind of trigger, she encounters a problem in the way. This problem has one or more underlying causes. Experiencing this problem has one or more negative impacts on her. She might do a bunch of hacks and workarounds to deal with the problem, but it’s still a problem.

You can think of all of these elements together as the problem space; a space that not only contains the elements themselves, but your point of view about why it’s even a problem in the first place, and why it’s worth solving. If you’re familiar with the 4Ws problem framing technique, that’s what’s going on here.

Problems are connected to goals and opportunities

Any time you and your team think about some sort of problem to solve, that means that there must be something in it for you to solve that problem (e.g. increased revenue, increased market share), as well as for those with the problem. With this in mind, it’s good to think about the opportunity space that the problem space is connected to. What is the benefit to you/the business? What’s the cost of going after that opportunity? What’s the timeline like, to get to that value?

The problem space is connected to an opportunity space, a strategy space, and a solution space

Following this logic, an opportunity is only an opportunity because it serves specific business goals, which come from your strategy space. Understanding this can help you prioritise what problem to go after, and why, and when.

It’s important to sharpen up how you understand the opportunity (as well as the problem), because this is a better gateway to generate ideas. This is where you decide how ambitious you’ll be. In other words, it’s how you get to your design challenge in the solution space, i.e. a ‘How might we’ question:

It’s surprisingly common to miss this connection, and stampede into the solution space without checking in with this strategy/opportunity/problem equation first. If you and your team struggle with problem statements, brainstorming, ideation and whatnot, this might be why.

16 other smart questions to ask

So, the next time you’re in a meeting and the whiff of “I-don’t-know-what-we’re-doing-here” is in the air, try to avoid the temptation to ask “What problem are we trying to solve?” and instead use these four spaces as a way to unblock your team. This will simulate lots of smart questions, that will lead to a richer discussion. Questions like:

STRATEGY SPACE

• Which of our business goals does this advance?
• How will this move our goal’s metric to the target?

PROBLEM SPACE

• Who has this problem?
• How do we know it’s actually a problem for them?
• What is their goal?
• What do they actually need?
• What are their hacks and workarounds?
• Why does this problem happen?
• What’s the impact of this problem?

OPPORTUNITY SPACE

• Why should we solve it? Why now?
• What would it cost us to solve it?
• When should we solve it by?
• What value can we create here, for us and them?

SOLUTION SPACE

• How might we solve this for them?
• Does this fit the need/problem/goal better than what they have already?
• Would they change what they do now, to use this instead?

Whatever your context, the better we can articulate answers to these, the richer our team discussions will be, and the better we can put our finger on what we need to do, whether it’s to solve a problem better, meet a need better, or execute on an opportunity better.

As a facilitator at Bright Pilots, I unblock teams by getting them to understand their problems and opportunities better, so that they generate better strategies and solutions.

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• If you’re interested in this way of framing problems, you might like The problem with problems, and a better way to frame them visually.