As you may recall, my last discussion was around rethinking and reframing problems to make sure that the solution fit the contextual problem. Today, Id like to pick up the second part of that: the solution. As professional problem solvers (and nearly all of us are exactly that), we know that the outcome is the most important part of solving a problem.
No matter how much you love or hate a solution, the efficacy of the solution trumps the style/form. If it looks great, sounds intellectually amazing, but yet doesn’t get the desired result…it’s not a good solution. Conversely, if there is a little duct tape showing, weird noises persist, and it smells a little funny…but the problem is repeatedly solved, it is a good solution. That context is critical as it’s more important to focus on the outcome of the solution rather than the solution itself. Bluntly: Don’t fall in love with your solutions!
With that framing in mind (the outcome of the solution is more important than the elegance of the solution), I am here to challenge each of you to be more creative in your problem solving. Don’t get boxed in by what has worked before or your “process” that you always rely on. But before doing that, let me be clear about what I am NOT inferring: creative solutions don’t need to unnecessarily cute, complex, or comprehensive.
Just like tools to solve a problem, solutions should fit the problem and provide the best outcome. The higher the level of criticality, the more complete, comprehensive, and repeatable the solution needs to be. For example, the need for a seal on a car trunk is far different than the seal needed on an airplane freight cargo area. Sure, both are vehicles built to transport things and we are talking about the place where your luggage goes, but criticality of the seal is much different in one than the other, thus the solution should meet that level of necessity or the outcome would be catastrophic.
Creativity in problem solving has no clear definition, but instead there are a spectrum of several facets which I think of it in a few ways: flexibility in approach, tactics/tools, structure of approach, level of effort, level of detail, etc. amongst others. When trying to match solution creativity to problem criticality, I typically focus on three factors to guide what level/type of creativity makes sense for my solution.
Creative solutions factor #1: Consider the number of times a solution needs to be used as you try and build a solution. For example, if you simply need to solve a problem one time to never be repeated (like answering a one off question about something), your solution can be scrappy, inelegant, and clamped together, so long as it is done right since you won’t have to repeat it multiple times. You have a lot of freedom to cobble together an answer/solution with as little effort as possible since the solution will likely be thrown away afterwards. The converse is also true: if this a problem solution that could turn into an ongoing process, you’ll want to quickly figure out how to create a viable, repeatable solution saving you time each time you have to re-run. I didn’t say complex, just viable and repeatable being creative in the maximum return for your effort. There isn’t a right or wrong here and creativity can be injected on both extremes…just understand the expectation for use before you start solving and plan accordingly.
Creative solutions factor #2: Consider the accuracy/efficacy required before you try and build a solution. Go back to my initial example, the accuracy and efficacy on the seal of an airplane cargo door is much different than the trunk of your car. That doesn’t mean you can do a crappy job solving a problem (outcomes are the name of the game, remember) – the darn trunk should close and shouldn’t be noisy, but it simply means that sometimes a good enough solution to a problem is exactly that: good enough. Good enough isn’t good enough when it comes to performing open heart surgery, but it sure is when painting the exterior of the 39th floor of a 50 story high-rise. This factor can be one of the key levers in making sure your spending your efforts in the right place to solve the right problems by not spending time where it isn’t giving you a high ROI.
Creative solutions factor #3: Consider the overall impact of the problem you are solving before you try and build a solution. This is one of the more common traps I see analysts and developers get hung up on…they spend a disproportionate amount of time on problems and solutions interesting to them that often don’t make the final product/solution materially better for their customers (internal or external). They may focus on the outcome, but lose sight of the scale (the old tree-forest cliche). Conversely, they don’t always spend the appropriate effort on more impactful problems because they aren’t as interesting, sexy, or immediately solvable. If you are solving a big problem at the core of your company, product, career, or life, the solution should be commensurate. To accomplish this, you likely will need to get more and more creative to make sure you have the most effective solution, vetted as comprehensively as possible, and durable/repeatable solution because of the high importance of accuracy in the answer.
To recap, creative problem solving (and looking for creative solutions) is really simply understanding that every problem is unique, adjusting your potential solutioning to match the situation, while not losing sight of the outcome being the key indicator of solution success. If you take a few minutes to deeply understand the repeatability and efficacy required for your solution and the potential impact of the solution in context, you will be able to determine whether a duct tape and bubble gum solution on the fly is appropriate or if you need to go with peer reviewed, double-blind trials to adequately test your solution before proceeding.
View from the Middle 