Have you ever been asked to play twenty questions in an interview?

When people want to play twenty questions with you in an interview they’re trying to get an idea of how you think — how you approach a specific problem.

Do you just start naming things? Is it an aardvark? An apple? An avocado? Do you have a scattershot approach? Is it something you find in a house? What about on an airplane? Is it in space? Or are you more methodical? Is it in this room? On the left or right side from here? Okay, now the left or right side of that side of the room?

The idea behind this practice is that there are better and worse ways to approach problems. Problem solving is a skill — one you can learn and improve.

So if there are better and worse ways, what is the right way?

The basics of problem solving

I mean, “the right way” is going to depend a lot on who you ask, but there are some commonalities. Let’s look at a few basic problem solving procedures.

Toyota solves problems using what they call “Toyota Business Practices” (TBP), which is comprised of eight steps (from The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership):

1. Define the problem relative to the ideal
2. Break down the problem into manageable pieces
3. Identify the root cause
4. Set a target for improvement
5. Select the appropriate solution among several alternatives
6. Implement the solution
7. Check impact
8. Adjust, standardize, and spread

In Understanding A3 Thinking the authors take the same basic plan, but structure it as a flow chart thus:

In Leadership Effectiveness Training Dr. Thomas Gordon outlines a six step problem-solving process:

1. Identifying and defining the problem
2. Generating alternative solutions
3. Evaluating the alternative solutions
4. Decision-Making
5. Implementing the decision
6. Following up to evaluate the solution

The authors of Smart Choices define a process for decision making (the process of finding solutions to problems — though not necessarily executing the solutions). They call it the PrOACT model, for:

• Problem
• Objectives
• Alternatives
• Consequences
• Tradeoffs

Hopefully as you’ve read through these you’ve noticed something — there is a lot of overlap! Although each model uses different terminology (sometimes), the steps follow roughly the same pattern:

1. Define the problem
   • This frequently involves understanding the current situation, and comparing it to the ideal situation to find where your gaps are.
   • Root cause analysis is also a frequent component — to make sure that the problem you’re defining is the right problem
   • This may also involve creating some kind of target — what would things look like if this problem were solved? How can we measure it?
2. Create a list of multiple potential solutions
   • These are sometimes called “countermeasures” or “alternatives” — the idea is to make sure you don’t assume something is a solution and implement it before looking at all your options
3. Perform some analysis to decide on the “right” solution
4. Implement the selected solution
5. Follow up
   • Confirm that the selected solution had the intended effect and the problem from our original problem definition is resolved

This generic process basically covers all the processes listed above. When we break it down it’s not terribly complicated:

1. Define the problem
2. Devise Solutions
3. Decide on a solution
4. Do the solution
5. I can’t think of a D term for “Follow Up”

Wait! I figured it out!

1. Define the problem
2. Devise Solutions
3. Decide on a solution
4. Do the solution
5. Double check

As simple as that seems, we all run into problems basically right away.

How to improve your problem solving today

If this is your first time getting introduced to these concepts I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that you’re probably doing step 1 very wrong, which cascades down the whole list and derails your problem solving efforts.

The good news is that there’s so much room to improve! Think of how great you’re going to become at problem solving!

If you’re like, well, most people, you’re probably action oriented. When something is going wrong you want to jump in. You want to

Most people don’t even finish step 1 before they jump to step 4. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Before I create or modify something, do I write down exactly what is wrong with the current situation?
2. When I define the problem for myself, do I dig deeper, looking for what may be the underlying cause using tools like root cause analysis or 5 Whys?
3. Do I write down what it would look like if it work perfectly? Or even the exact effect I expect the change I’m making to have? With numbers and everything?
4. When I’m facing a problem, do I often find myself saying “Oh yeah, I know what’s up” as the problem is introduced to me?

If you said, well, I should’ve done this a little differently. But whatever, here we are and I’m powering through!

If you said no to 1, no to 2, no to 3 and yes to 4, you’re probably not defining your problem correctly.

And what happens when we don’t define our problem correctly?

Well, a lot of things. One outcome is that the solution doesn’t work at all and we’re forced to start all over. Another outcome could be that the solution is only temporary and the root cause returns. Another outcome could be, well, this blog post — constantly backtracking and revising as I write, too committed to the post to stop until it’s done!

Luckily this is just a rough draft. In problem solving terms this blog post, which answers the problem question: “What does a generic problem solving process that can be applied in many situations and expanded on by existing resources look like?”, is one solution of many alternatives. Writing it down allows me to look at it, turn it over in my mind, and eventually find what I want to keep and what I want to toss.

I’ll probably keep the 5 Ds of problem solving. Probably the 20 questions bit. And the Futurama meme. Who doesn’t love Futurama?

Oh, and the resources. I highly recommend all the books I mentioned up above.