Getting it Wrong: Three Mistakes in Defining Problems
And how to get it right: the anatomy of a good problem
Good problems have a defined starting point and end goal for a specific group of people, with sufficient detail in between as to what friction they may be experiencing. They’re not always worth solving, but the structure makes it possible.
You may have witnessed the straight right-hand “what problem are we solving?” question getting thrown halfway through a briefing or project kickoff. Worse, someone describes “the problem”, but when read aloud, no one nods in agreement.
The problem is the real-estate between where someone is, and where they want to go. Describing the no man’s land between A and Z can make the problem good. And for reasons that will become clear, knowing who’s wandering in this area is required for the highest level of solving.
No problem definition is perfect. Defining problems for yourself, a business or a product is an ongoing, evolving process. The information won’t be complete. But even partial progress is meaningful. And puring it feels magical.
The first mistake is not defining the starting point and the ideal end goal
Without defining where someone is, and where they want to go, we can’t do much.
Defining the end goal is especially important. Knowing what they—this audience we’ll describe for our problem—want to accomplish, or where they want to be is essential. Allegedly, when Apple does this they ask, “What do you want them to feel?”.
Defining the start and finish, the green and checkered flag, the starting gun, and the tape that breaks as you run through it, makes the race more clear.
The second mistake is to avoid defining the audience of the problem
We’ve all heard someone say, “not my problem”. And while they may have been right, the problem was someone’s. For our problem sets, this person, or group of people, is important to us when we’re playing in the space.
An alarm clock company might describe their problem as “people can’t wake up in the morning”. Why can’t they wake up? Who can’t wake up? How did they get so tired? Did they drink their weight in burgundy wine the night before or did they just finish a double at the ER?
Maybe we learn, or decide, that the people we’re solving the problem for have impaired hearing. Now, instead of a digital bird shrieking 5 times a second, maybe we think of a physical intervention to help wake someone up.
Who experiences the problem is as, or more, important than the problem itself. It’s the foundation or base layer of the work. It’s the arena the problem plays in.
The third mistake is searching for the perfect problem, and not mapping the speed bumps
We never have a complete problem definition. The goalposts change, we get new information, or we learn more about our target audience.
Defining the problem is an active process. It takes work. Like sailing a boat in a busy harbor. The wind might still be blowing from that corner over there but now there’s a dingy in our path and it’s going to take a bit of manual labor to avoid a collision.
Between the start and the finish are little bumps in the road, friction that prevents the end from being reached, or the “forces” as we call them in the Journey Design Process. The goal is to define these speed bumps. As many and as objectively as possible.
This part of the problem definition is self-serving: it will come easily and help tremendously. The distinct, independent data points will reveal themselves. Documenting them will be easy, and addressing them will shape the solution.
If the problem starts with “it’s dark in the room” and an apartment resident would like it to be “well lit and comfortable”. The forces might be something like “there are no windows” or “the fluorescent light hurts the eyes”.
Structure for a struggling apartment resident…
🟢 It’s dark in the room
🔽 There are no windows
🔽 the fluorescent lights hurt the eyes
🏁 Well-lit and comfortable room
Bad problems…
are for anyone
or for everyone
don’t have a starting place
don’t have a finish line
don’t have any detail between the green and checkered flags
By defining where they started from—for any of these people definitions—where they’d like to be, and some steps in between, we’d have a good problem. And we give ourselves a shot at designing a solution.