Keep Calm and Plan On
Spend the majority of your time defining what the problem actually is. We love this quote by Albert Einstein – “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem, and only 5 minutes finding the solution.”
Last updated March 2019
At ProteShea, we spend a lot of time defining a problem to develop the most optimal solution. We may not spend 91.67% defining the problem like Einstein, but it’s certainly over 50%. If you’re developing solutions, you have to understand why the solution is needed in the first place. What is the underlying problem that is motivating this solution? For example, think about some of your everyday tasks. Where do you see problems that need a solution? Think about some and try to define each one. I’ll define a simple problem to help develop a framework that you can use to find a solution.
The problem is my long commute time to and from work. Ultimately I want to shorten my commute time so how exactly do we get to the solution? By defining the problem more thoroughly. Why is my commute time long? Too much traffic. Why is there a lot of traffic? People are trying to go to work or drop their kids off at school. How do you avoid the traffic? Find a different route or change the time that you leave for work. You could go in earlier or later to avoid the traffic. With each solution, you have to consider consequences and/or practicality. Does your employer care what time you show up at work as long as you put in your 8 hour day? Can you wake up earlier to avoid the traffic?
Once you understand the problem, you can now implement a solution. Sometimes your solution will help you develop the problem even further. Maybe your solution addressed a new part of the problem that you hadn’t considered. You can now go back and forth to come up with a more redefined solution.
Let’s do a more complex problem. The problem is world hunger. To figure out why world hunger exists, define the problem by asking questions. Are there enough farmers? Is there enough land to grow crops or graze animals? Does the soil lack certain nutrients? Do the crops get enough irrigation, sunlight, or fertilizer? Is it the distribution? Getting the crops or meat to the customer. Is it the prices?
You see, there are many factors that can impact world hunger. To further define the problem, you have to do research into each question we identified above. Let’s take a look at the first question. After doing some research I found that there are six times more farmers aged 65 and older than there are farmers under the age of 34. Now we have to identify why that is. Are farmers able to make a living doing what they do? Are they provided with the necessary low-interest loans to purchase heavy equipment? I think you now realize that you have to keep digging deeper and deeper into the problem to figure out what the problem actually is.
What did we learn?
- Fully define the problem to develop an optimal solution.
- Sometimes your first solution can help you define the problem further which will help you create a better solution.