Rule 1: Know the Problem You Are Trying to Solve

Ground Rules for Rule 1:

The problem must impact your ability to succeed with a goal (Relevancy)
The problem must be quantifiable
You must have the ability to impact the problem

But first, the basic vocabulary…

For sake of argument, let’s say these definitions are close enough to allow us to proceed. The reason I am documenting them is to build on our basic vocabulary that will better help us apply the 5 Rules.

What is a Goal?

A Goal is a desired end state that can be objectively measured.

Examples of what a goal is:

Be the market leader in widget sales…
Deliver world-class customer service…

Examples of what a goal isn’t:

Sell more widgets.
Increase customer satisfaction.

All too often, goals are set with short-term ends in mind. They are tactical. They fail to motivate.

A leader’s responsibility is setting goals for an organization and keeping the organization thinking and acting with the goals in mind. Actions can be weighted and prioritized based upon how they solve problems that prevent the organization from achieving their goals.

Goals should be measurable. At least the degree to which you have achieved your goal should be measurable. You don’t know whether you are winning or losing unless you keep score. But, the measures should matter. For example, with a sales goal what matters most as a measure: Total Sales Revenue, Total Quantity of Sales, Profitability, Adherence to the Sales Process, New Customers, Pipeline. Another example, with goals for an IT department, what matters most: Total Number of Servers, Customer Satisfaction, Total Budget, Tickets Closed, Processes Documented, Incidents.

Some of these measures seem pretty terrible, but I have seen all of them on departmental scorecards in my career.

What is a Problem?

A Problem is an obstacle that prevents you from reaching a goal.

Examples of what a problem is:

To be the sales leader, we require more bandwidth to accommodate the web traffic…
To be a world-class customer service organization, we must better understand our customers’ behavior by…

Examples of what a problem isn’t:

We need more servers.
We need budget to buy tracking software.

The simplest way to keep your problems relevant is to reference the goal you are trying to achieve in the problem statement. Notice the examples above start with the goal you are trying to achieve and then state the key problem you intend to solve.

The Win in the Big Picture

battle board game castle challenge

Discuss the problem you are trying to solve in terms of priority and relevance to the goal. Consider what happens if we do nothing. If we solve the problem, will we reach the goal without any further investment? What measurable impact does solving the problem have on reaching the goal?

Measuring Success

To construct the measure of the problem’s impact utilize the following questions:

What is the end state?
When can I say the problem is no more?
How will you measure the change (impact, not the amount of solution you apply)?

Consider the example of the problem I need to get to the airport to catch my flight. Now let’s consider some solutions.

I could use a smart GPS software program on my cell phone to find the most effective route to the airport.
I could take a taxi and let someone else figure out the navigation.
I could build a transporter and beam myself to the airport allowing me to leave later.

Now if you are like me, you probably already had a few of these solutions in mind. The problem is, we didn’t follow the first of the 5 Rules. We started trying to solve the problem before we understood the problem. I would argue that the problem we are trying to solve is catching the flight. To catch the flight, I need to get to the airport from wherever I am. We don’t know where the airport is, nor how far away from the airport I am currently. We don’t know the time of the flight and if I have enough time to catch the flight. For that matter, the amount of time that I have to catch the flight will probably eliminate some of the solution options.

So let’s take the recommended approach:

What is the end state? – I need to catch my flight.
When can I say the problem is no more? – When I have boarded the flight.
How will you measure the change? – What is the progress toward catching my flight. It would be the relationship between the time needed to get to the boarding gate at the airport and the time remaining before my flight departs.

Let’s create an example that more closely replicates a business problem. We have customers complaining about the performance of our website. If I take the same mistaken approach we took before, the conversations would go something like this:

We need to move to the cloud so we can rapidly scale our website.
We need to hire a new vendor to redesign our website for more efficient interactions.
My daughter has one of those new smart watches, we need to optimize the website for interactions with smart watches. (If you think this sounds crazy, transport yourself back 10 years and think of how many executives said the above sentence with iPad inserted instead of smart watch)

Digging a little deeper: We have said that there are customers complaining about the performance of our website. How many customers? What are they trying to do? What are some of the causes of the perceived performance issues? Have we solved these problems before? What did we do then?

And if we assume that the problem statement is true, the discussion looks something like this:

What is the end state? – Website performance is within acceptable parameters as measured by customer complaints.
When can I say the problem is no more? – Customers no longer complain about the performance of our website. (Or an acceptable number of our customers complain about the performance of our website)
How will you measure the change? – The reduction of customer complaints about the performance of our website.

Notice that the tone has changed from different possible solutions to understanding what our tolerance for the problem looks like. This is key to understanding the priority that this problem holds and helps scope the pain and cost of ignoring the problem. Maybe a restatement of the problem would read: We have too many customers complaining about the performance of our website.

Rule 1 in Summary

The better you understand the problem you are trying to solve, the better you can prioritize and fund solutions to solve the problem. The better you understand the impact of the problem, the better you can quantify the cost the problem brings. The better you understand the impact, the better you can evaluate the proposed solutions against that impact.

To facilitate assigning priority to a problem relative to other problems apply the 5 Rules Mindset below.

Talk in terms of the impact, not the solution
Seriously consider doing nothing, that is always the starting state
Be careful about taking too small a step, the end state needs to be perceived as reachable
Evaluate what others have done in the face of this problem

Form the problem statements using the framing questions that help you better understand what you are trying to solve.

What is the end state?
When can I say the problem is no more?
How will you measure the change (impact, not the amount of solution you apply)?