4 steps to solve every kind of problem

To solve a problem none needs to be a genius

Every one of us solves thousands of little problems every day, sometimes in seconds.

To say you are not a solving-oriented person is therefore incorrect.

You are able to solve them in a blink of an eye. Some are easy and some are hard to solve. The value of the solution and judgment if it is good that way depends on the perspective of the one to judge. In our personal life, it might be your parents, your wife, husband, or children but in business, it might be your colleague, manager, or your customer.

In your personal life, the judgment depends on the relationship between the solver and the judge in exact that moment when it will be evaluated. Emotions play a huge role. That is the reason why everyone waits until the judge is in a very good mood before delivering bad news — we all do it.

On the other hand, in business, a service must be provided for which the customer or client has paid. In this case, the judge, if a problem or solution is acceptable, depends on who has the responsibility to ensure the aligned service is fulfilled. The perspective of each party will influence the judgment of the problem and solution.

Keeping this in mind, it is sure that there will be a discussion with push and pull parties to ensure their interest are fully covered. But in business, not every solution is practical. There are many factors that need to be taken into account. In case, the service is a product that can be purchased, the solution depends on the degree of maturity of that product, which means how much am I able to change without developing the product completely new. Also how much will it cost? Must I sacrifice my whole profit for it? Can you even implement it into your production?

With those questions alone it is easy to realize that a product already in production with a problem of high functional impact can cost the company much. Especially startups would suffer a lot because the cash flow often is not that high.

Even though every problem itself is mostly unique and complex there are certain steps that can be applied to ensure that a problem is fully solved. It might be a good time to mention that there is no perfect solution as well as there is not a perfect product. There is always something that can be improved. The following steps concentrate on the problem itself and not on the discussions between the parties on which solution might be the best choice. This decision, that must be taken, is very complex due to social relationships between business owners and customers.

There are four steps that I extracted from my own experience.

A problem is defined by its impact — No action before this is clear!

Especially in software engineering, there is a very favorite quote:

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

This quote shows the determination of whether it is truly a problem or a bug depends on its perception of the impact it has. The evaluation of the impact is then defined by the respective party.

Before the impact is not evaluated an action might be an overreaction. This could kick off a snowball effect by doing the wrong thing before having the full picture.

Therefore clarify in the first step what is the impact of the problem and how high is the probability of occurrence. This is very important because this determines the time horizon for your reaction. You might have just a few hours to react. Or you might have a few days or even weeks to solve it.

Base your conclusion and root cause on data & facts!

Very often we are dragged into discussions of theories and hypotheses without having any data or facts to support those in any way. And even worse if a solution is defined just based on those theories. This is very risky gameplay.

Data and facts help us to get the story straight of what, why, and how something happened. To ensure you are on the right path it is recommended to first try to reproduce the failure in the exact same manner.

It is like a crime scene. Imagine your Sherlock Holmes and you try to replay the crime with Dr. Watson.

Gather as much data as possible. Straight up your data in a simple manner and visualize it.

Repeat tests as many as possible to reproduce and analyze the problem.

Ensure that your facts are conclusions from your data.

Repeat the three steps from above until you’ve determined the root cause.

If you can’t explain it to a 10-year old, you have not understood it.

How well you’ve understood something is defined by how simple you can explain it. Otherwise, you have not fully understood it.

When the root cause is identified the solution is waiting around the corner. But before taking further steps, ensure that you are able to simplify the situation as much as possible. Sometimes it is helpful to try to explain it to your young kids if they understand it or you ask a colleague from a completely different field to help you to simplify it. Some of their questions won’t come to mind if just you would think about it alone.

A fresh pair of eyes is always a good way to go.

Every problem is like a chapter in a book — it ends with a lesson.

We can’t expect to become better if we won’t take a moment to reflect on what happened and how it could have been prevented. We will never reach perfection, but we should try to constantly improve. Otherwise, it will feel like we are in a hamster wheel and will never get out.

Or perhaps a better helpful quote from one of the brilliant minds that walked on earth:

You cannot solve your problems with the same thinking you’ve created them. — Albert Einstein

This also applies to the last step of the resolution of a problem. If we do not change the way we do stuff we will end up in the same place we’ve started.

In conclusion, ensure that you take a lesson as small as it might be. It can only improve the future.

Please, be aware that these steps are described very generally but still can be very useful to solve a problem completely, at least they are for me.