Finding the right problem
- solving the root cause of the right problem than makes the symptom (usually what people perceive to be the problem) disappear
- complicated - meaning something that is knowable and although it takes time, it can be understood
- complex - something that is not knowable and even broke for a can't easily tackle it
- see Complex adaptive systems - in a complex adaptive system the outcomes emerge from many independent agents interacting, so they can't be predicted from the individual interactions
- machines are complicated, people are complex
- complicated computation machines can bring complex implications
- Focus on JTBD
- "Framing is the process of breaking down a problem into a set of choices, trade offs, and options that enable a team to make a call and move forward." - Shishir Mehrotra
- Good framing helps produce "decisions that stick."
- https://coda.io/@shishir/eigenquestions-the-art-of-framing-problems/eigenquestions-3 help with this
- Usually followed by a "How might we ... ?" question
- would be nice to add also a second one to it "At what cost?" to balance out the ethical aspect
- it is a dance between curiosity (how might we) and criticality (at what cost)
- problem framing is a process for analyzing, understanding, and ultimately defining a problem or challenge in order to develop an effective solution - it sets the direction and scope of the solution design process so that effort goes at the core issues
- it is an opportunity to take a step back, assess the landscape of the problem and break down its root causes, then focus on a solution most likely to lead to the outcome you want
- The goal of problem framing is not what to do, but what not to do and to remove the distraction from the most efficient thing to do
Why framing pays off
- Common language - establishing a common language can facilitate better conversations and move teams forward
- Question prioritization - one of the critical disciplines of framing is to "find the right question", ie to find the right angle / lens to look at a problem
- Options enumeration - hard problems are rarely as simple as a "yes/no" on a single option
- Inclusion - good frames give a spine to the variety of options and opinions suggested by others
- Faster decisions that stick - a common complaint of structured decision making is that it is time consuming (why construct alternatives if one is already obvious?), but good framing is what makes decisions stick
- framing is both a right-brained and a left-brained activity - the left brain helps with analysis, logic and organization of a problem while the right brain aids synthesis, imagination, the ability to generate options, and the most effective way to communicate those options to others
- framing is not a solitary process - great ideas can come from anywhere
Eigenquestions
- the eigenquestion is the question where, if answered, it likely answers the subsequent questions as well
- great framing starts by searching for the most discriminating question of a set - the eigenquestion
Framing as choosing a lens
- when confronting complex problems there is a powerful impulse to dive straight into "solving" mode: gather a team, identify potential solutions - that's fine for challenges you've faced before or when proven methods yield good results
- by jumping immediately into problem-solving, teams limit their ability to design innovative and durable solutions
- exploring frames is like looking at a scene through various camera lenses while adjusting your angle, aperture, and focus
- a wide-angle lens gives a very different photo from a telephoto one, and shifting angle and depth of focus yields distinct images - effective problem framing is the same: looking at a problem from a variety of perspectives lets you uncover new insights and generate fresh ideas
Writing it down
The artifact this produces lives in Problem statements - what a statement should contain, the 5 Ws for gathering the facts, opportunity statements, and user need statements.
Framing with stakeholders
- YOUR NEW USER IS THE DECISION MAKERs
- YOUR NEW USER JOURNEY IS THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS
- **the goal is get everyone on the same page
- two halves
- the business wants to get to the outcome but only can see the output, our role is to help them see beyond outputs
- "for every 45 mins of a workshop I have a 45 minutes working out who should be there - the key is to identify the right people to have in the room" - Angela Arnold
- assumptions mapping is a tool how to mitigate different stakeholder perspectives or views
- assumptions are fine but mark them as assumptions - I'd rather know that assumptions are assumptions then being tricked by them later
- Decisions are made and tracked somewhere else
- don't mix decision making and tracking
- Storytelling gives problem a life and sustains it
Problem framing and strategy
- put really simply, our strategy is to get from where we are now (our problem statement) to where we want to be (our vision) - see Product Strategy and Product Vision
- after we've defined the problem statement, we can collect hypotheses about how we might solve the problem
- so 'solutions' are basically solution proposals that need further validation & testing to be (dis)proven - see Hypothesis and Experiments
- if we don't know where we are going, any road will take us there, but how do we know we've got to the right place? How do we know we have solved our problem or the problem of our users? - a great motivation for focusing on problem framing
- next time your team appear hesitant about your ideas of what they should build, think whether you have described effectively why they should build it - they may simply be asking, what is the problem we're trying to solve? Because there's no point in having the best solution to the wrong problem
"Pre-framing" a problem
- what if we want to frame a problem we don't have enough information about?
- then we can talk about framing a research plan and objectives