When people talk about ‘problem solving,’ it can sometimes seem like it’s just one thing, or a single-step process. After all, shouldn’t we just solve the problem directly? To problem solve effectively, there’s a little more to it than that.

The hidden sides of ‘problem solving’

When we are solving problems, or supporting others to do so, it’s useful to break problem solving down into different activities. Several distinct activities can be identified, but here I outline four of those that are most often overlooked. Be sure to include these in your problem-solving approach to bring about the best solutions.

1. How to Solve a Problem?

It’s not always the case that a problem is handed to us in a neatly packaged way, with a label on saying ‘solve me.’

Instead, we often need to find problems for ourselves. This requires us to be sensitive to messy situations, and see opportunities for change, disruption, or improvement. Creative work is therefore evident not just in how problems are solved, but also in how they are identified and pursued.

After all, many great inventions and innovations are solutions to problems that others didn’t even recognise as problems at all. For example, while many in an organisation might see a particular business process as inherently difficult, it only takes one person to recognise that some alternative is possible. That this possibility is worth taking responsibility for.

2. How to Frame a Problem?

Often, our first interpretation of a problem represents just one possible way to view it. We may have implicitly ‘framed’ the problem as being of a certain kind, or of requiring a certain form of solution.

But what if we reframed the problem as being of a different kind?

We can open up radically new opportunities for solving a problem if we are able to reframe it as being a problem of a different kind. For example, a certain technical problem might be expensive and time-consuming to resolve, but what if that problem can be reframed as social or organisational in nature?

Perhaps the same outcome can be achieved by entirely non-technical means, and possibly with less expense and greater satisfaction.

3. Problem Solving: Understanding and Characterizing Challenges

Some problems are more difficult than others, and some can seem entirely intractable.

Especially in group work, it can be important to characterise what it is about a problem that makes it difficult, rather than just calling it ‘hard’, ‘complex,’ or even ‘wicked.’ For this, problems can be characterised along several dimensions, such as the degree to which the causes of the problem are understood, the degree to which the requirements are conflicting and the degree to which solutions can be tested prior to implementation.

Characterising the problem along dimensions like these can help individuals, groups and organisations to plan and coordinate their efforts. For example, two problems might be superficially very different, but still might share many important characteristics that suggest similar levels of risk, or suggest similar processes should be followed.

4. Advancing Solutions: Problem Solving through Effective Development

Our initial understanding of the problem may set us off in useful directions, but we often only truly understand the problem when we are generating and testing ideas for solutions. As such, we shouldn’t remain fixed in the interpretation of the problem that we started with.

Sometimes problem iteration can be quite subtle, such as when we add minor requirements or identify additional stakeholders. However, in other instances, we might develop an idea that is really a solution to some other problem altogether, one that might be worth pursuing as an opportunity in its own right.

In some contexts (such as entrepreneurship), what is required is a good match between a problem and a solution, even if neither is what you started with. For example, we might develop a new smartphone app to address a specific social problem, but if people subsequently use it to effectively solve some other problem then we might just reorient our efforts to address that new opportunity.

Of course, there is much more to problem solving than just these four activities.

We also need to engage in problem definition, idea generation, and solution development, testing and implementation. However, while these often grab a lot of the attention, there are other, often quieter, activities that are just as important.

Professor Nathan Crilly is an expert problem-solver. His technical approach to problem-solving, idea generation and design thinking are all covered in Cambridge Advance Online(Opens in a new window)’s 6 week online course. Discover the course here: http://bit.ly/3JW4m8p(Opens in a new window)