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Asking better questions (see Day 196) can help you define better problems.

Talking with others in my team about the same problem oftentimes reveals our different interpretations of the same facts. I, as team leader, may have more knowledge of the historical and contextual nuance that hasn’t been effectively communicated ahead of looking at a new problem. At the same time, other team members will ‘fill in the blanks’ of what they don’t know with their own past experience.

In short, several people working together to solve the same problem can reveal a range of assumptions about what the problem actually is.

An example:

Out team designs, develops, and deploys software to serve various chemical applications and end end users. We have the ultimate flexibility (through my research fellowship) to tackle those software problems in whatever way we see fit. That flexibility is creatively wonderful, but it’s a double edged sword. It incentivises insular thinking and has no life-or-death (of the project) demand that we actually talk to end users!

How, then, would we ever know how to combine what we know is possible with what problems people actually need solved?

Our answer? Spend more time defining the problem before rushing off to solve it.

How might you use the power of asking better questions to define clearer problems?

If you have a question for Marc, upload an audio recording for it to be featured on a later Q&A episode!