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Grow » thrive, 6 problem-solving techniques that will help you run a better business.

Problem-solving is a skill that can be developed over time with the right approach and tools to help.

Small business owners face problems of all shapes and sizes during the course of the workday. Whether it’s resolving a customer service issue or managing inventory, problem-solving is a critical skill for most merchants. And, fortunately, it’s a skill that you can hone with practice and the right approach. Try these problem-solving techniques to run your business smoothly.

Creative or rational problem-solving?

There are two approaches to problem-solving: rational and creative. A rational approach is one that is relatively basic. At a high level, it involves defining the problem, brainstorming potential solutions, making a decision, and taking action.

Creative problem-solving is a process created by Sidney Parnes and Alex Faickney Osborn . This approach embraces generating lots of creative ideas in a brainstorm-style session, restating problems as questions, and being as open-minded as possible when coming up with potential solutions.

Neither approach is better than the other. But, if you’ve tried to solve a problem rationally and hit a wall, mixing it up with a creative approach can be helpful.

Try different methodologies

There are frameworks and tools that can help you break down a problem into smaller parts and identify possible solutions. One option is the Kipling Method, inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “ I Keep Six Honest Serving Men .” With this method, you ask these questions:

• What is the problem?
• Why is the problem important?
• When did the problem arise, and when does it need to be solved?
• How did the problem happen?
• Where is the problem occurring?
• Who does the problem affect?

Other possible options to help guide your problem-solving are the Simplex Process, the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FEMA), Hurson’s Productive Thinking Model, and the 5 Whys.

Work collaboratively

Getting input from others on your team can shift your perspective and help you see the problem in a new light. But don’t wait until you’re stuck to ask for other people’s advice. Brainstorming sessions can help you solve a problem and motivate your team to be engaged at work.

If you find yourself getting stuck, try to recalibrate and put yourself in a more creative mindset to see the issue from a different angle.

“Brainstorming should include a diverse group of stakeholders: people who are affected by the problem and/or may be affected by any changes made in an attempt to solve it. Seek continuous feedback from these stakeholders as you monitor the implementation of your solution to make sure it works well for everyone,” wrote Indeed .

[Read more: 5 Suggestions to Make Your Next Brainstorming Meeting Successful ]

Break down barriers to productive thinking

Psychologists have identified a few barriers that can prevent you from thinking through a problem productively. For instance, entrenchment can cause you to mentally fixate on a solution that has worked for you in the past but has no bearing on the current issue. Another cognitive bias is known as “ functional fixedness ” — basically, being unable to think outside the box.

“For example, say you need to cut a piece of paper in half but only have a ruler,” wrote Wrike . “Functional fixedness would lead you to think the ruler is only good for measuring things. (You could also use the ruler to crease the paper, making it easier to tear it in half.)”

If you find yourself getting stuck, try to recalibrate and put yourself in a more creative mindset to see the issue from a different angle. Drawing the problem is one way to get yourself out of a mental trap.

Take a ‘dragonfly eye view’

Dragonflies are able to see wavelengths of light not visible to the human eye. It’s a helpful analogy for being able to take a high-level view of the problem you are trying to solve.

As McKinsey describes, “The idea of a dragonfly eye taking in 360 degrees of perception is an attribute of ‘super forecasters’—people, often without domain expertise, who are the best at forecasting events. Think of this as widening the aperture on a problem or viewing it through multiple lenses.”

Understanding the problem in a greater context can help you find the best path forward. Return to your business values and mission statement, your growth goals, and your customer promise to make a decision that aligns with your bigger picture.

Sleep on it

When you sleep, your brain is turning the day's events into memories and processes things on a subconscious level . Sleep plays an important role in our ability to make decisions and see things more clearly. A good night’s rest can help you think through things more creatively and recharge so you can tackle the next challenge.

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I've consulted companies like Microsoft and Coca-Cola on the right way to problem solve. Here are the skills needed to think creatively and take on leadership roles.

• Peter Mulford is the chief innovation officer at the global consulting firm BTS and has worked with companies like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and AT&T.
• He has helped clients navigate crises and shares how you can bring yourself through the coronavirus pandemic.
• Trying harder and faster will only wear you out, but changing your approach to problem-solving will help you find new ways to handle today's pressing issues.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories .

In this time of global crisis, it's more important than ever to be creative and nimble in our professional lives. We'll be facing new business problems, and we won't be able to solve them with old approaches. Even in more regular times, there is no "business as usual."

For more than 25 years, I've worked as a consultant with BTS , helping people around the world when their companies are undergoing major transitions or facing times of tremendous uncertainty. In that time, I've seen over and over again that trying harder and faster will only exhaust you and your team, and it won't achieve the results you need.

If you can change how you solve problems, you will emerge stronger from this crisis and more ready to take on leadership roles. Here are five skills you must develop to innovate and create success:

1. Challenge everything you know about the problem

I once worked with a group of 400 leaders in a large tech company that had gotten stuck in a rut reusing the same strategy. Their mission for that year was to become more innovative. So I started asking them questions to jar them out of old ways of thinking: What would Walt Disney do? What would William Shatner do? How about the Incredible Hulk?

Some thoughts and assumptions are so deeply ingrained that they're like deep rivers running a set course in your brain. You need a way to find them and force them in new directions. Questions like the ones I used for those leaders are designed to do that — to provoke you to reexamine those assumptions and even put them on hold long enough to explore new and crazy ideas.

Next time you tackle a problem, list everything you know to be true about it. Then, challenge everything on the list. To be truly innovative, you have to learn to challenge established norms and reimagine accepted approaches .

2. Put people at the center of your innovation

After a series of mergers and acquisitions, one of my clients was stuck wondering how to sell its newly acquired products and services to customers. So I directed my client to think about those customers' problems so it could consider how its new capabilities could solve them.

This is the essence of design thinking : centering innovation around human users. Start by looking at the who, what, and why behind every product or solution you develop. In my own work, I think about who we're creating a solution for, what need they have that this is going to fulfill, and why they would care about what we have to offer.

When you're properly focused on the user, you have more clarity when asking the important business questions: Is this desirable? Is it profitable? Is it possible? In other words, is it something that will advance your business? Asking these questions allows you to nurture the creative process without abandoning common sense.

3. Test ideas confidently, but not recklessly

A client of mine was getting ready to make a pitch to a department head for a fundamental change that would cost $5 million to implement. My client's low-margin business made this a major risk, so we broke it down into 10 assumptions of what has to be true for it to work.

Instead of presenting the whole package, my client presented the first assumption for testing. And he got his proposal down from $5 million to $7,000, which allowed it to get approved and him to take one step toward executing the plan. Think about how you can take similar steps in your business.

Even the best ideas hold a degree of uncertainty. And unfortunately, much of conventional business wisdom focuses on minimizing uncertainty. Instead of minimizing or avoiding the unknown, however, you need techniques for testing your ideas.

Confronting uncertainty doesn't mean taking reckless risks. It means stepping forward systematically — and with confidence — to test an idea. You have to shift from planning and waiting to testing and learning. Ultimately, you're asking, "What has to be true for this to work?"

4. Think ahead and work backward

If we've learned anything since the beginning of this pandemic, it's that we never know where the next enormous disruption will come from. I vividly remember learning this business lesson a decade ago when my company was trying to forecast a few years out from 2009.

The iPhone was still new. The iPad hadn't even been invented yet. There were technological disruptions everywhere. So the further we stretched from 2009 in our forecasts, the fuzzier everything got.

Instead, we jumped ahead to 2020 and imagined what the world might be like. All of a sudden, it was easy to imagine what general trends could look like a decade later and then work backward to the present and make our plans. Anything was possible.

Your frame of reference provides helpful boundaries for dealing with present realities. But it becomes a trap when you're planning for the future. Let your imagination loose and see where it takes you.

Traditional business planning goes like this: Look at what you did last year, add or reduce 3% next year, and keep extrapolating the future based on the past. But it doesn't work . There is too much static interfering with your view of the future. Even the sharpest people can miss future opportunities — and threats — if they can't see beyond their frame of reference. To break out of this mindset, jump far into the future and work back to the present.

5. Focus on the impact — not the details — of digital technologies

I once worked with a client who was trying to sell a company full of nontechnical executives on the wisdom of adopting artificial intelligence and machine learning.

She wasn't getting anywhere, and it was because she was basically trying to turn executives into computer programmers. What worked far better was giving executives just enough background on AI for them to imagine the impact of these technologies on their workflows.

This kind of digital literacy is an essential business skill. That doesn't mean you need to be able to code in Python. Instead, it means you think about the results you've always wanted to achieve and reimagine how to get there by harnessing the power of new digital technologies.

It comes back to breaking out of those rivers of thinking, the assumptions born in an era of analog technology. There are constraints we've lived with for years — the way things have always been done.

What if you throw away those boundaries and start fresh? What problems could you solve using digital technologies? Shifting to a digital mindset dramatically broadens the possibilities because it lets you get stuff done that used to be financially impractical — or even physically impossible. We tend to be held back by our current technologies and our analog mindsets. Set yourself free of both and anything becomes possible.

Even at the best of times, innovation requires a mindset shift. In times of crisis, these five skills are more essential than ever. Putting people first, working backward from the future, and questioning your assumptions will help you face these new challenges — and whatever comes after. It's either that or keep running faster and farther for fewer rewards.

Peter Mulford is the chief innovation officer at BTS , a management consulting and professional services firm focused on working with leaders at all levels. With a passion for learning, teaching, and innovating solutions to difficult problems, Peter works with exceptional leaders bringing innovation and strategy to life all around the world.

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9 Steps to Effective Problem Solving

Executive Coaching ,  Leadership

Every day, we are each faced with problems to solve: the large problems can be intimidating and the small problems can be mind-numbing. Either way, there is no avoiding problems. You are in your leadership position, title or not, because you have the reputation for spotting and solving important problems while rallying others, and yourself, to action. However, every now and then a problem sneaks past even the best leaders and causes a stir. Where do you begin and how can you help deter the issue from becoming an even bigger problem?

The best outcomes usually come from problems that are dealt with early on. Problems can be identified in the early stages if you make it a habit to frequently ask peers and team members how things are going and what challenges, if any, they are facing. Encourage others to provide information on problems as soon as they arise. Be open to their input and suggested solutions, and thank people for bringing issues to your attention and allowing you the opportunity to address and resolve their concerns. Be sure to follow-through, or people will become reluctant to provide information as they may assume nothing will change.

Problem solving requires a high level of information about the issues and the needs of employees. This requires open communication. In order to become an effective problem solver, remember that this skill requires all parties to share control over the emerging solution. By using the following problem-solving model, you will generate a number of alternative solutions and increase the probability that the final solution will be the best one.

Step One: Define the Problem What are the symptoms of the problem? Why is it a problem? What is the impact of the problem?

Step Two: Gather Facts, Feelings, and Opinions What is happening? Who is involved? What is the impact of the problem? Who does it affect? What are the causes of the problem?

Step Three: Identify the Real Problem After you gather the facts, feelings, and opinions, it is important to discover if you are working on the real problem or only a symptom of the problem. This may require restating the problem in a totally different format. Be willing to start over with the real issues if that is what it takes. Why spend valuable time trying to solve something that is not the problem in the first place?

Step Four: Generate Possible Solutions The next step requires generating as many solutions as possible. In this stage, the goal is to generate alternatives. Avoid any judgment or evaluation of solutions at this point.

Step Five: Evaluate Alternatives After you have generated as many alternatives as possible, you want to start deciding which alternative will be the best. Now is the time to be critical about the different alternatives. Be cautious or hesitant when everyone agrees on which alternative to take.

Step Six: Select Best Alternative Once you have evaluated all the alternatives, you are then ready to pick the one you think will solve the problem in the best way. Most people start at Step One by defining the problem and then move right to Step Six by making a choice. If we do Steps Two through Five correctly and thoroughly, Step Six should be relatively easy.

Step Seven: Gain Approval and Support Any time you are going to change something, you will always need to rally approval and support. Do not think that the only thing that needs to be done is to select the alternative and then implement it. The negative thinkers will come up with obstacles and possess a “show-me” attitude that must be overcome. It helps if you involve such thinkers in the beginning of the problem-solving process so they become part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Step Eight: Implement Decision After support has been developed, you are finally ready to implement the decision.

Step Nine: Evaluate Results If you do not have a follow-up or monitoring system in place that allows you to check results, the chances for success diminish. If people do not know how the results are being measured or that they are going to be held responsible, problem-solving becomes a difficult task. When things go right, recognize success. When things go wrong, go back to Step One and start the process again.

It’s impossible to avoid all problems, but by following the above steps, you can minimize the impact of a problem and often come out of it better for having faced the challenge.

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MBA 523 Business Problem Solving: Resources for Problem Solving

• Resources for Problem Solving
• Articles & Databases
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Business Problem Solving Resources

You need to use a variety of sources to come to satisfactory methods to solve a specific problem such as web resources, books, articles, blogs, statistics, and news reports. Use them all! 

Web Resources

There are literally millions of websites that discuss business problem solving techniques. Listed below are a few from trusted sources.

• The 4 Most Effective Ways Leaders Solve Problems From the Forbes web site.
• Are you Solving the Right Problem? From Harvard Business Review. Search in Business Source Complete for additional Harvard Business Review articles.
• Nine Steps to Effective Business Problem Solving This is an article from Business Insider which recaps a formula from Brian Tracy, in his book "The Power of Self-Discipline" .
• Problem Solving and Decision Making Free Management Library is provided by Authenticity Consulting, LLC, as a free community resource.
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• Last Updated: Oct 7, 2024 1:09 PM
• URL: https://marymount.libguides.com/MBA_523_Bus_Prob_Solving

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Adopting the right problem-solving approach

May 4, 2023 You’ve defined your problem, ensured stakeholders are aligned, and are ready to bring the right problem-solving approach and focus to the situation to find an optimal solution. But what is the right problem-solving approach? And what if there is no single ideal course of action? In our 2013 classic  from the Quarterly , senior partner Olivier Leclerc  highlights the value of taking a number of different approaches simultaneously to solve difficult problems. Read on to discover the five flexons, or problem-solving languages, that can be applied to the same problem to generate richer insights and more innovative solutions. Then check out more insights on problem-solving approaches, and dive into examples of pressing challenges organizations are contending with now.

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TEST YOUR SKILLS

Take the McKinsey Problem Solving Test

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