What's The Problem?

Every minute of every day, we’re all solving a problem.  Yes, we are.  When we eat or sleep, we’re solving the problem of a weakened body which cannot continue without energy or rejuvenation.  When I shovel snow, I'm solving the problem of not being able to get out of my driveway.

In business, as in life, a project or an initiative is always about solving a problem.

At work, we have all endured through painful meetings during which everyone has a few thoughts on how to solve a problem.  But what is the problem? An easy question to ask, but difficult to answer.

While leading a team of business analysts, I would insist that they ask their business client, “What’s the problem?”  Inevitably, the client would reply with a solution: “I need a Customer Relationship Management System hosted at HQ.” Often this is because the client was at a meeting where he or she spoke with a colleague who had implemented this solution to a similar problem.  Whether the colleague’s problem was actually solved is another story.

Since “What’s the problem?” is a difficult question to answer, I would encourage the analysts to phrase the question more as, “What is it that you cannot do?”, or “Which process is painful?”  The answer could be “I cannot share my clients with the sales force”, or “I don’t have visibility of the clients that are part of my sales campaign.”

When “What’s the problem?” is answered correctly, you will usually deliver the right solution.  This is because when a solution is chosen or designed correctly, there should be an undebatable, unequivocal and direct line between each identified problem and the chosen solution.  Perhaps, instead of investing time and money in implementing a locally hosted CRM system with its one-time and ongoing infrastructure and staffing costs, you may end up with a cloud-based quick-setup CRM solution.  Maybe the solution is not a CRM.

My point is, it is hard to remain focused on the problem because as humans, we want to solve a problem as quickly as possible. It isn’t fun to have a problem hanging around.  Therefore, for those who are in the business of solving a problem, it is critical that the definition of the problem remain front and center.

That’s our problem.