Charles Kettering, the legendary American inventor and head of research for GM, liked to say: ‘A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved’.
By Minnaar Fourie, commercial director at King Price Insurance
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that all great innovation starts by identifying the problem that needs to be solved. By the same token, companies and teams that battle to innovate are either not asking the right questions, or not solving the right problems.
So why is a good problem statement so often missing from a creative or innovative process? Simple: It’s human nature. We’re so eager to get onto the ‘what’, and the ‘doing’ part of the process, that we want to skip past the ‘why’. But it’s detrimental to our ability to innovate. Before we pick up our tools, we must understand the problem we’re trying to solve, or we’re going to waste a lot of time and resources going nowhere.
Start with the user in mind
One of the most important reasons for defining your problem statement is that it builds empathy with your customer, or user. It helps define their pain. That’s why I like to start the problem statement process by putting myself in my user’s shoes, and trying and express their need: ‘I’m Minnaar, and I’m trying to do [a thing], but [a barrier] keeps getting in my way, and that makes me feel [like this].’
This is a key driver of any problem-solving process. Unless you know what you’re solving for, and for whom, innovation won’t add value. Connecting at an emotional level also drives loyalty. When people make an emotional connection with you, they become evangelists for your product or brand.
Ask good questions
Often, customers know what they want, but don’t know how to articulate it. There’s a famous quote that’s incorrectly attributed to Henry Ford that says, ‘If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.’ The point is they knew they wanted faster transportation. They just didn’t know what that looked like.
That’s why it’s so important to ask specific questions that get to the core of the real problem. Spend time with the team, and even your users. Don’t ask what features they’d like to see. Ask what’s bothering them. Then bridge that with your innovation.
Interrogate your own thinking
Too often, we’re so consumed by a cool idea that we rush to market with it before we know the big ‘why’. In the early 2000s, Microsoft launched the Zune to compete with Apple’s iPod. It did exactly what the iPod did, and better. It failed miserably, for many reasons. It wasn’t cool enough. It also didn’t address a unique problem.
I often tell my team that when you think you’ve identified the problem, assume it’s wrong, or that you haven’t peeled enough layers off the onion. Why do we need an 25% increase in revenue? Why not a 500% increase? What’s just as important as revenue to the business, or the user? Why do we even exist?
Finally, get going
Don’t get so trapped in the problem definition process that it paralyses you. Choose what seems to be the best one, and run with it. Moving forward beats standing still, any day.