Separating problem and solution is so powerful
Separate problem and solution
This is a very simple concept yet very hard to apply.
People want to provide solutions immediately when they hear a problem. It’s human nature.
Think about your last conversation. What did you say when a colleague tell you a problem? Did you search in your brain to give her a solution?
Challenges at applying
Find a restaurant to celebrate Mom’s birthday.
1) Take a solution as a problem
Is the problem “find a restaurant” or “celebrate Mom’s birthday”? The first reaction to this sentence is probably searching for a restaurant.
To make it clear, the problem is “celebrate Mom’s birthday.” “Find a restaurant” is the solution. One of the solutions to that problem. You can come out many solutions for that problem.
2) Forget the problem after dive in solutions
Say we go to the restaurant but the food is not good. Would you complain the food or would you enjoy the time with your mom, or maybe even telling her that no food is better than hers?
3) No other solutions
All restaurants are booked. No options. So we don’t celebrate Mom’s birthday this year. It sounds crazy but happens.
4) Too excited about the solution so you think it can resolve all the problems.
Solutions looking for problems. Go out for dinner cannot resolve all family issues.
5) Don’t dive in the problem.
Never ask what Mom’s really want. There is a assumption here that we normally think celebrate her birthday will make her happy. Maybe we did that few times and she did seems happy. It doesn’t mean that she will react in the same way forever.
6) Dive too deep in the problem.
If we have unlimited time and resource, we can go from how to make her happy to her wellbeing, her meaning of life…etc.
There are plenty examples you can ask GPT, e.g.
A small business owner wants to increase sales.
- Make solutions as problems: People may focus on launching a new marketing campaign, thinking that’s the problem, rather than understanding what factors contribute to low sales.
- Easy to forget the problem when executing the solutions: They might get caught up in designing the marketing campaign and forget the goal is to increase sales.
- No other solutions: If the marketing campaign doesn’t work, they might assume there are no other ways to boost sales.
- Too excited about the solution so you think it can resolve all the problems: Believing that the new marketing campaign will solve all sales issues without considering other factors, like product quality or customer service.
- Don’t dive in the problem: Not taking the time to analyze and understand the reasons behind the low sales, such as customer needs, market trends, or competition.
- Dive too deep in the problem: The small business owner may become overly focused on understanding every minute detail of the reasons behind low sales, leading to analysis paralysis. This could result in a delay in taking action or implementing solutions, as they constantly seek more information and never feel they have a comprehensive understanding of the issue.
A team is having communication issues that are impacting their productivity.
- Make solutions as problems: People may focus on implementing a new communication tool, thinking that’s the problem, rather than addressing the underlying communication issues.
- Easy to forget the problem when executing the solutions: They might get caught up in learning and using the new tool, forgetting that the goal is to improve communication.
- No other solutions: If the new tool doesn’t work, they might assume there’s no other way to address the issue.
- Too excited about the solution so you think it can resolve all the problems: Believing that the new communication tool will magically fix all issues without addressing the root causes.
- Don’t dive in the problem: Not taking the time to analyze and understand the reasons behind the communication problems.
- Dive too deep in the problem: The team might become overly focused on dissecting every aspect of their communication issues, spending excessive time analyzing past interactions and conflicts. This could result in neglecting their ongoing work, further affecting productivity, and potentially causing even more communication issues as they lose sight of the need to find and implement practical solutions.
Apply to product management
It applies to many aspects. Though I got this concept from Opportunity Solution Tree, it can apply to many things.
For PM work, I used to spend more time on the how to this feature, what’s the spec, how to break things down so the team can work parallel..etc. I though I was resolving the problem but I actually executing the solutions.
And sometimes, when I tweaked something during development, I deviate the goal, the problem.
How to deal with the challenges
Since here you see 6 challenges, hope these help you identify if you are in one.
There are many problem solving frameworks you can try.
The key is to think a little longer to understand the problem before you jump in solutions. Make sure you know what stage you are. Are you dealing with the problem or articulate the solutions?
Retrospective helps, too. When I git out of the work, view the things in an objective way, it’s clearer and easier to see what challenges I were in.
This is a practice for me to lay out all the common challenges I did and I saw many times. Hope this help.
🤩 I’m happy to hear from you. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn Karen Hsieh or Twitter @ijac_wei.
🙋🙋♀️ Welcome to Ask Me Anything.
