Problem solving module

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

— Reinhold Niebuhr

The question was given to a bunch of engineers: how do we make the journey to Paris better? They came up with a very good solution: spend £6 billion building completely new tracks from London to the coast, knocking 40 minutes off a 3½ hour journey. But it strikes me as an unimaginative way of improving a train journey merely to make it shorter. What you should in fact do is employ all the world’s top male and female supermodels, pay them to walk the length of the train handing out free Château Petrus for the duration of the journey. You’ll still have about £3 billion pounds left and people will ask for the trains to be slowed down.

— Rory Sutherland

The problem

• What is your problem? defining the issue as you see it. We will get to whether your problem is the problem later.

• Your agenda: What are you trying to do? What happens if you don’t do it?
• Tried and failed: What have you tried to fix the problem?

• Why didn’t it work?

• Identify the blocker: What (or who) is stopping you
• If you had a magic wand, how would you fix the problem? What (or who) stops that happening?
• Containment: stopping the bleeding
• Could the problem get worse?
• If so what can you do to contain it while you solve it?
• Conflicting mandates: Where that “what” or “who” is a person or process with a mandate: What is that mandate? How is that person or process trying to achieve it? Is it inherently contradictory?

• Negotiations:

• How much flexibility is there in the conflicting mandate? What sort of things could be changed to help you without disrupting that mandate?
• Psychological approaches: If it isn't working for you, likely it isn't working out for him/her either.

• what problems does the mandate holder have in carrying out that mandate?
• what is her blocker?