Problem Solving 101 summary

Now that you’ve drilled down to find your actual problem, you have to work out why it’s a problem. In other words, what’s causing it? This is step two of the problem-solving method.

To determine the cause of your problem, first list all the possible causes you can come up with.

So you’ve completed step two and found the cause of your problem. The next step is to perform the analysis that will help you generate the best solutions.

Start by asking yourself: What information do I need to analyze the situation? Going back to the Apples and Oranges example, the band shared surveys and conducted interviews with a small sample of students at their school. From the information they gathered, they realized that they needed to both raise awareness and entice people to come to their concerts.

Many of us like to dream big. Some of us think about becoming professional figure skaters or famous actors. Often, however, because these dreams seem so big and impossible to reach, we never act upon them, and they stay dreams forever.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

What do you do when you notice a hole in your sock? You work out how best to sew it up. Similarly, you must create ways to close the gap between your current situation and your goal.

You can achieve this by making a list of all the possible solutions before choosing the best one, which will become the hypothesis for a potential solution.

So, you’ve nailed down your problem, you know the root cause and you’ve created a hypothesis to solve it. You’re pretty much ready to take action.

But first, you need to analyze your hypothesis to work out how exactly to implement it.