Framing Your Problem

Innovative Problem Solving: Framing

 When beginning the problem solving process it is important to focus on three areas:

Context of the problem, current operating practices, and the desired outcome. 

To being the framing, develop a definition of the problem and then identify the context, the initial situation, and the goal as seen below.

Next, your team will need to re-frame the statement to make sure that it is not too broad, narrow, or assumption driven.

If you find that the problem statement is not well defined you will need to restate the problem as shown below.

"Example: Traditional fishermen in rural India don't know when or where to fish as well as the right prices to sell the fish they catch, so they risk their lives and get cheated by the middle man. Therefor they can't fish safely or sell at higher prices."  (Shrestha & Dev Appanah, 2007, slide 16).

Don't know is too broad. To narrow this problem the focus should be on access to information.

Can you see how the phrase "know where or when to fish as well as  the right place" was modified to define the cause of this action? In the rephrase, generalities such as where or when were replaced with access to weather reports or competitors pricing. this allows the framing of the problem to identify those primary and secondary drivers for a change initiative. Asking key questions provides the team with a specific issue that can be solved.