Art of Problem Solving
Yes, problem solving is an art! An art that can be mastered through sheer discipline and rigor. The secret lies in being able to dissect the problem at hand into manageable, logical pieces and then working on them independently. At the end, fit the pieces into a coherent whole that is nothing but one of the many practical solutions. There is no doubt that you need hard technical skills to work on the pieces, but there is no dearth of information and skills for that requirement. What really differentiates a good problem solver from bad is the beginning and the end.
Last year and most recently, I had the opportunity of attending a workshop organized by Prof. Patrick Noonan on ‘The Art of Problem Solving’. He reiterates the point of breaking down a problem (many times very ambiguous and convoluted) into smaller pieces. Say you are a part of a team asked to devise a long term strategy for a company. There are many ways to approach this problem – some good, some bad. One way is to assign team members to individually evaluate the company performance to date, industry performance, competitor analysis, and so on…Bad. Another way is to properly understand the main drivers of business, strategy of the company so far and its return on investments, awareness of macro/micro economic trends that can affect the business, forecasting outlook for the industry, reviewing current innovations and consumer behavior, and so on…much better. If you carefully compare the first approach to the second, you will see that in the former, each aspect does not contribute to the final solution. Whereas in the latter, each aspect has something to contribute. Understand that frameworks (the former method is a classic application of a classic framework) as taught in classes serve as guides, not as processes. There is a big difference.
The last step is collating information gathered in a coherent logical way. This is where creativity, gut feeling, and experience plays a big role. Every strategy developed should be tested in such a way so as to suggest some tactical approach that can be quantified and justified. And then there should be another question – what if? Risks associated with each approach should be outlined in as much detail as possible. How you present your solution to the client is yet another step that needs no exaggeration.
There are various resources available throughout the internet for you to read about different approaches and tools to help you practice the art of problem solving. Six Thinking Hats
