when problem solving a person should ask

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Effective Questions to Support Problem-Solving Thinking

September 9, 2015

How do we ask effective questions to support problem-solving thinking?

Asking better questions — and learning to “break the telling habit” has been a passion of mine since I deeply started studying and applying the art of better question-asking around 2010.

In fact, the importance of asking questions (the right questions) is one of the foundations of my work.

It’s one of the most popular topics here on my blog, in my custom learning programs for organizations, and my on-demand workshops (such as “Break the Telling Habit”) and guided coaching programs such as the Leading to Learn Accelerator.

Problem-Solving in Support of Developing People

If your organization is looking for support in developing your people as problem solvers, I recommend starting with focusing on A3 problem-solving thinking.

It’s applicable to all leaders and not only hones people’s ability to solve problems and learn by going to see what is actually happening, but also is a great way of deepening coaching skills of asking effective questions and listening.

A Chain of Learning: Managing to Learn and Leading to Learn

John Shook’s book “Managing to Learn” is the best book I’ve found to describe the A3 problem-solving process and is the basis for this A3 thinking class.

Fun fact — One of the models for the character of Sanderson, the manager / coach in the book, is Isao Yoshino — my friend and subject of my best-selling book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn — who was one of Shook’s first managers at Toyota in Japan. Shook wrote the foreword to my book and shares reflections about how he learned to ask questions and think more

I learned so much about asking questions from my mentor Margie Hagene, who herself was mentored by John Shook. This is my chain of learning that I now link with you to as we learn together.

There are many questions that we can ask in support of problem-solving, but they differ in the intention and outcome of problem solving ownership. I like to categorize questions into four categories, inspired by the work of Edgar Schein (whose books such as Humble Inquiry and Helping have been foundational in my learning about asking questions).

Humble Open Inquiry

The most effective questions are either those of pure humble inquiry which are questions for which you don’t have the answer. Humble inquiry questions keep the problem-solving thinking with the problem owner, not the person asking the question.

Diagnostic Inquiry

Other effective questions that can be asked, once the problem is clearly defined, are diagnostic questions.

Diagnostic inquiry questions help the problem solver discover cause and effect, more clearly define the root causes for the gap between the way things should be happening and the way they are happening today, and the link between proposed countermeasures and the problem.

Prompting Inquiry: WARNING!

when problem solving a person should ask

Prompting questions can take away the ownership of the thinking from the problem solver. These are closed-ended questions, multiple-choice questions, or your idea or suggestion with a question mark at the end.

These questions are like a wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing — they are really your idea or suggestion with a question mark on it!

Process questions

It’s important to not just focus on solving the problem…but also to understand the process of solving the problem.

Good questions to ask during problem-solving coaching are not always related to the problem at hand, but to the human interaction. Process questions help us understand where we are in the problem-solving process or in the conversation.

If you are practicing asking more effective questions and wanting to improve, you could ask a process question such as “What question was most helpful to you to advance your thinking?”.

Want to learn more about questions — get the guide!

If you don’t have it yet you can download my free guide “3 Tips to Break the ‘Telling Habit’” ! You’ll learn more about the types of questions, and how to ask them so that you too can break your telling habit!

Asking the right questions is often about intention .

Get this resource to help you ask more effective questions today!

Examples of effective questions

Below are some of the examples of effective questions that participants in a two-day A3 Thinking and Coaching workshop I led many years ago. When coaching leaders to ask more effective questions, I like to capture real-time examples of questions being asked well.

What do you notice about these questions? (I’ll share some reflections below the image).

Examples of effective questions asked today to develop problem solving thinking in others. #lean #coaching @HCValue pic.twitter.com/aXzVhtI2bb — Katie Anderson (@kbjanderson) August 19, 2015

Qualities of effective questions

Just like in the image above, the most effective questions to support problem-solving share many of the following qualities:

Start with WHAT or HOW
Do not introduce a solution or idea

Additional categories of problem solving questions

Source: Harvard Business Review "Relearning the Art of Asking Questions", March 2015

An HBR article titled “Relearning the art of asking questions” highlights four categories of questions that can be used when problem solving:

clarifying and

This can be a helpful structure for you to think about how to ask questions to help the other person think more creatively (divergent thinking) or get more clarity (convergent thinking).

Of the questions that are listed above from the A3 thinking class, how would you categorized them based on the HBR article’s definition?

Intention and Practice Leads to Improvement

It’s always inspiring to see, with some dedicated thinking time and practice time, how much people’s skills in problem solving, question asking, and listening can advance.

For example, in this class over two days, people got at least 90-120 minutes to work through a problem they own, and then practice 3-4 sessions of “catchball” (asking and receiving questions) with others as both the problem owner and the coach.

Their questions are dramatically improved on the second day with just some focused practice (see image of questions above)!

This is the same structure of practice that you can learn when you join my self-paced “Breaking the ‘Telling Habit’” workshop, and unlock your team’s potential by discovering how to ask more effective questions. You can take the class at any time, at your own pace.

Additional resources

To learn more tips from me about asking effective questions, listening, and coaching for problem-solving, check out these additional articles:

“Leading Daily Improvement: Creating New Habits and Practices to Support Continuous Improvement”
“When to ‘A3’: 3 Problem-Solving Tools to Match the Complexity of Your Problem”
How to Ask Problem-Solving Questions
“How to Get Out of the Habit of Telling”
“Be More Than a Coach, be a Coach That Listens” .
How to ask questions even if you already know “the answer” .

What is your experience?

How have you practiced becoming a better problem solver or a better coach in support of problem solving? What have you found helpful in asking more effective questions?

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Problem-Solving Strategies and Obstacles

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Sean is a fact-checker and researcher with experience in sociology, field research, and data analytics.

JGI / Jamie Grill / Getty Images

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Improvement

From deciding what to eat for dinner to considering whether it's the right time to buy a house, problem-solving is a large part of our daily lives. Learn some of the problem-solving strategies that exist and how to use them in real life, along with ways to overcome obstacles that are making it harder to resolve the issues you face.

What Is Problem-Solving?

In cognitive psychology , the term 'problem-solving' refers to the mental process that people go through to discover, analyze, and solve problems.

A problem exists when there is a goal that we want to achieve but the process by which we will achieve it is not obvious to us. Put another way, there is something that we want to occur in our life, yet we are not immediately certain how to make it happen.

Maybe you want a better relationship with your spouse or another family member but you're not sure how to improve it. Or you want to start a business but are unsure what steps to take. Problem-solving helps you figure out how to achieve these desires.

The problem-solving process involves:

Discovery of the problem
Deciding to tackle the issue
Seeking to understand the problem more fully
Researching available options or solutions
Taking action to resolve the issue

Before problem-solving can occur, it is important to first understand the exact nature of the problem itself. If your understanding of the issue is faulty, your attempts to resolve it will also be incorrect or flawed.

Problem-Solving Mental Processes

Several mental processes are at work during problem-solving. Among them are:

Perceptually recognizing the problem
Representing the problem in memory
Considering relevant information that applies to the problem
Identifying different aspects of the problem
Labeling and describing the problem

Problem-Solving Strategies

There are many ways to go about solving a problem. Some of these strategies might be used on their own, or you may decide to employ multiple approaches when working to figure out and fix a problem.

An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that, by following certain "rules" produces a solution. Algorithms are commonly used in mathematics to solve division or multiplication problems. But they can be used in other fields as well.

In psychology, algorithms can be used to help identify individuals with a greater risk of mental health issues. For instance, research suggests that certain algorithms might help us recognize children with an elevated risk of suicide or self-harm.

One benefit of algorithms is that they guarantee an accurate answer. However, they aren't always the best approach to problem-solving, in part because detecting patterns can be incredibly time-consuming.

There are also concerns when machine learning is involved—also known as artificial intelligence (AI)—such as whether they can accurately predict human behaviors.

Heuristics are shortcut strategies that people can use to solve a problem at hand. These "rule of thumb" approaches allow you to simplify complex problems, reducing the total number of possible solutions to a more manageable set.

If you find yourself sitting in a traffic jam, for example, you may quickly consider other routes, taking one to get moving once again. When shopping for a new car, you might think back to a prior experience when negotiating got you a lower price, then employ the same tactics.

While heuristics may be helpful when facing smaller issues, major decisions shouldn't necessarily be made using a shortcut approach. Heuristics also don't guarantee an effective solution, such as when trying to drive around a traffic jam only to find yourself on an equally crowded route.

Trial and Error

A trial-and-error approach to problem-solving involves trying a number of potential solutions to a particular issue, then ruling out those that do not work. If you're not sure whether to buy a shirt in blue or green, for instance, you may try on each before deciding which one to purchase.

This can be a good strategy to use if you have a limited number of solutions available. But if there are many different choices available, narrowing down the possible options using another problem-solving technique can be helpful before attempting trial and error.

In some cases, the solution to a problem can appear as a sudden insight. You are facing an issue in a relationship or your career when, out of nowhere, the solution appears in your mind and you know exactly what to do.

Insight can occur when the problem in front of you is similar to an issue that you've dealt with in the past. Although, you may not recognize what is occurring since the underlying mental processes that lead to insight often happen outside of conscious awareness .

Research indicates that insight is most likely to occur during times when you are alone—such as when going on a walk by yourself, when you're in the shower, or when lying in bed after waking up.

How to Apply Problem-Solving Strategies in Real Life

If you're facing a problem, you can implement one or more of these strategies to find a potential solution. Here's how to use them in real life:

Create a flow chart . If you have time, you can take advantage of the algorithm approach to problem-solving by sitting down and making a flow chart of each potential solution, its consequences, and what happens next.
Recall your past experiences . When a problem needs to be solved fairly quickly, heuristics may be a better approach. Think back to when you faced a similar issue, then use your knowledge and experience to choose the best option possible.
Start trying potential solutions . If your options are limited, start trying them one by one to see which solution is best for achieving your desired goal. If a particular solution doesn't work, move on to the next.
Take some time alone . Since insight is often achieved when you're alone, carve out time to be by yourself for a while. The answer to your problem may come to you, seemingly out of the blue, if you spend some time away from others.

Obstacles to Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is not a flawless process as there are a number of obstacles that can interfere with our ability to solve a problem quickly and efficiently. These obstacles include:

Assumptions: When dealing with a problem, people can make assumptions about the constraints and obstacles that prevent certain solutions. Thus, they may not even try some potential options.
Functional fixedness : This term refers to the tendency to view problems only in their customary manner. Functional fixedness prevents people from fully seeing all of the different options that might be available to find a solution.
Irrelevant or misleading information: When trying to solve a problem, it's important to distinguish between information that is relevant to the issue and irrelevant data that can lead to faulty solutions. The more complex the problem, the easier it is to focus on misleading or irrelevant information.
Mental set: A mental set is a tendency to only use solutions that have worked in the past rather than looking for alternative ideas. A mental set can work as a heuristic, making it a useful problem-solving tool. However, mental sets can also lead to inflexibility, making it more difficult to find effective solutions.

How to Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills

In the end, if your goal is to become a better problem-solver, it's helpful to remember that this is a process. Thus, if you want to improve your problem-solving skills, following these steps can help lead you to your solution:

Recognize that a problem exists . If you are facing a problem, there are generally signs. For instance, if you have a mental illness , you may experience excessive fear or sadness, mood changes, and changes in sleeping or eating habits. Recognizing these signs can help you realize that an issue exists.
Decide to solve the problem . Make a conscious decision to solve the issue at hand. Commit to yourself that you will go through the steps necessary to find a solution.
Seek to fully understand the issue . Analyze the problem you face, looking at it from all sides. If your problem is relationship-related, for instance, ask yourself how the other person may be interpreting the issue. You might also consider how your actions might be contributing to the situation.
Research potential options . Using the problem-solving strategies mentioned, research potential solutions. Make a list of options, then consider each one individually. What are some pros and cons of taking the available routes? What would you need to do to make them happen?
Take action . Select the best solution possible and take action. Action is one of the steps required for change . So, go through the motions needed to resolve the issue.
Try another option, if needed . If the solution you chose didn't work, don't give up. Either go through the problem-solving process again or simply try another option.

You can find a way to solve your problems as long as you keep working toward this goal—even if the best solution is simply to let go because no other good solution exists.

Sarathy V. Real world problem-solving . Front Hum Neurosci . 2018;12:261. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2018.00261

Dunbar K. Problem solving . A Companion to Cognitive Science . 2017. doi:10.1002/9781405164535.ch20

Stewart SL, Celebre A, Hirdes JP, Poss JW. Risk of suicide and self-harm in kids: The development of an algorithm to identify high-risk individuals within the children's mental health system . Child Psychiat Human Develop . 2020;51:913-924. doi:10.1007/s10578-020-00968-9

Rosenbusch H, Soldner F, Evans AM, Zeelenberg M. Supervised machine learning methods in psychology: A practical introduction with annotated R code . Soc Personal Psychol Compass . 2021;15(2):e12579. doi:10.1111/spc3.12579

Mishra S. Decision-making under risk: Integrating perspectives from biology, economics, and psychology . Personal Soc Psychol Rev . 2014;18(3):280-307. doi:10.1177/1088868314530517

Csikszentmihalyi M, Sawyer K. Creative insight: The social dimension of a solitary moment . In: The Systems Model of Creativity . 2015:73-98. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-9085-7_7

Chrysikou EG, Motyka K, Nigro C, Yang SI, Thompson-Schill SL. Functional fixedness in creative thinking tasks depends on stimulus modality . Psychol Aesthet Creat Arts . 2016;10(4):425‐435. doi:10.1037/aca0000050

Huang F, Tang S, Hu Z. Unconditional perseveration of the short-term mental set in chunk decomposition . Front Psychol . 2018;9:2568. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02568

National Alliance on Mental Illness. Warning signs and symptoms .

Mayer RE. Thinking, problem solving, cognition, 2nd ed .

Schooler JW, Ohlsson S, Brooks K. Thoughts beyond words: When language overshadows insight. J Experiment Psychol: General . 1993;122:166-183. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.2.166

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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The Problem-Solving Process

Looking at the basic problem-solving process to help keep you on the right track.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Problem-solving is an important part of planning and decision-making. The process has much in common with the decision-making process, and in the case of complex decisions, can form part of the process itself.

We face and solve problems every day, in a variety of guises and of differing complexity. Some, such as the resolution of a serious complaint, require a significant amount of time, thought and investigation. Others, such as a printer running out of paper, are so quickly resolved they barely register as a problem at all.

Despite the everyday occurrence of problems, many people lack confidence when it comes to solving them, and as a result may chose to stay with the status quo rather than tackle the issue. Broken down into steps, however, the problem-solving process is very simple. While there are many tools and techniques available to help us solve problems, the outline process remains the same.

The main stages of problem-solving are outlined below, though not all are required for every problem that needs to be solved.

1. Define the Problem

Clarify the problem before trying to solve it. A common mistake with problem-solving is to react to what the problem appears to be, rather than what it actually is. Write down a simple statement of the problem, and then underline the key words. Be certain there are no hidden assumptions in the key words you have underlined. One way of doing this is to use a synonym to replace the key words. For example, ‘We need to encourage higher productivity ’ might become ‘We need to promote superior output ’ which has a different meaning.

2. Analyze the Problem

Ask yourself, and others, the following questions.

Where is the problem occurring?
When is it occurring?
Why is it happening?

Be careful not to jump to ‘who is causing the problem?’. When stressed and faced with a problem it is all too easy to assign blame. This, however, can cause negative feeling and does not help to solve the problem. As an example, if an employee is underperforming, the root of the problem might lie in a number of areas, such as lack of training, workplace bullying or management style. To assign immediate blame to the employee would not therefore resolve the underlying issue.

Once the answers to the where, when and why have been determined, the following questions should also be asked:

Where can further information be found?
Is this information correct, up-to-date and unbiased?
What does this information mean in terms of the available options?

3. Generate Potential Solutions

When generating potential solutions it can be a good idea to have a mixture of ‘right brain’ and ‘left brain’ thinkers. In other words, some people who think laterally and some who think logically. This provides a balance in terms of generating the widest possible variety of solutions while also being realistic about what can be achieved. There are many tools and techniques which can help produce solutions, including thinking about the problem from a number of different perspectives, and brainstorming, where a team or individual write as many possibilities as they can think of to encourage lateral thinking and generate a broad range of potential solutions.

4. Select Best Solution

When selecting the best solution, consider:

Is this a long-term solution, or a ‘quick fix’?
Is the solution achievable in terms of available resources and time?
Are there any risks associated with the chosen solution?
Could the solution, in itself, lead to other problems?

This stage in particular demonstrates why problem-solving and decision-making are so closely related.

5. Take Action

In order to implement the chosen solution effectively, consider the following:

What will the situation look like when the problem is resolved?
What needs to be done to implement the solution? Are there systems or processes that need to be adjusted?
What will be the success indicators?
What are the timescales for the implementation? Does the scale of the problem/implementation require a project plan?
Who is responsible?

Once the answers to all the above questions are written down, they can form the basis of an action plan.

6. Monitor and Review

One of the most important factors in successful problem-solving is continual observation and feedback. Use the success indicators in the action plan to monitor progress on a regular basis. Is everything as expected? Is everything on schedule? Keep an eye on priorities and timelines to prevent them from slipping.

If the indicators are not being met, or if timescales are slipping, consider what can be done. Was the plan realistic? If so, are sufficient resources being made available? Are these resources targeting the correct part of the plan? Or does the plan need to be amended? Regular review and discussion of the action plan is important so small adjustments can be made on a regular basis to help keep everything on track.

Once all the indicators have been met and the problem has been resolved, consider what steps can now be taken to prevent this type of problem recurring? It may be that the chosen solution already prevents a recurrence, however if an interim or partial solution has been chosen it is important not to lose momentum.

Problems, by their very nature, will not always fit neatly into a structured problem-solving process. This process, therefore, is designed as a framework which can be adapted to individual needs and nature.

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Classic Therapy Questions Therapists Tend to Ask

We partner with our clients and focus not only on the content of what we talk about, but also on the person, process, and quality of the therapeutic relationship.

The goals for therapy are as varied as the dilemmas our clients struggle with. A systematic approach to the exploration of issues can go a long way in effectively addressing what is brought to the table and, most of all, in getting to know the person who brings them.

What makes conversations in therapy different from our day-to-day discussions are the types of questions asked, as well the focus on the client during the interaction, not the problem.

Meeting the client’s psychological needs is another critical component that often determines the effectiveness of the therapeutic process. When our needs are not adequately met, we often make an unconscious attempt to satisfy them somehow, which can lead to maladaptive coping.

What distinguish different forms of therapy from each other are the content and techniques used to address the core needs that underlie the presenting problems clients usually describe.

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

There are several recognized basic psychological needs, and they vary with theories on what motivates human behavior. For a full description of some of these phenomena, see our series of articles on human motivation .

Two basic psychological needs that are most important for enabling the process of therapy, however, are shared by all: the need for cognition and the need for closure.

The need for cognition refers to our desire to understand our own experiences and things in our environment through thinking as we find ourselves having to consistently respond to increasing complexity in our environment and changes to our circumstances.

The need for closure motivates us to avoid ambiguities and to seek to arrive at a firm conclusion, which can have implications for our relationships and our ability to function effectively.

For even more therapy questions, see also our related article: Therapy Questions Every Therapist Should Be Asking .

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive CBT Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will provide you with detailed insight into Positive CBT and give you the tools to apply it in your therapy or coaching.

This Article Contains

37 classic and common questions therapists often ask, therapy questions for depression and anxiety, a look at the solution-focused therapy miracle question, more sfbt questions, 20 cbt therapy question to ask clients, 13 music therapy interview questions, 10 examples of narrative therapy questions, a look at gestalt therapy questions, a take-home message, frequently asked questions.

One aspect of therapy is partnering with a client in problem solving. Probing deeply into our clients’ lives through thought-provoking questions is often the bulk of what happens in talk therapy.

Inquiring about clients’ situations in a nonjudgmental way and with genuine curiosity and warmth is crucial not only for getting to the root of the problem, but also for building rapport and creating an environment of psychological safety .

Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, “ What else could this mean? ”

Shannon L. Alder

When clients feel like they can bring their whole person into the therapeutic relationship, the conversation unfolds with genuine ease. Whenever possible, good therapy questions should be presented as a door-opener phrase that invites clients’ full disclosure and gradually and carefully challenges their assumptions, believes, and perspectives that may be contrary to their needs and goals.

Some of the most common therapy questions are included below.

What is the problem from your point of view?

Defining a problem in the initial stage of therapy can often be challenging; clients come in with unique perspectives on what the problem is and sometimes with what the solution to that problem should be.

Empathic, nonjudgmental listening is crucial. The goal is to make the client feel acknowledged and accepted for who they are, and for that, caution and patience are required.

The point of counseling is to create positive changes without the client feeling hurried or being worked on.

How do you see the problem?
How would you define the biggest challenge you’re facing right now?
What are the things or people in your life that are causing problems for you?
How does this problem typically make you feel?

Validating clients’ feelings is an integral part of rapport building. Feelings are not facts, and there is no right or wrong way to feel about any given situation. Some clients are less equipped at articulating their feelings and may need help naming them.

When strong negative emotions show up, one way to deal with them is to parse them into smaller, less potent feelings. Practitioners also often observe that their clients are subject to conflicting emotions, and probing into those can often prove to be very useful, although at times uncomfortable for the client.

How do you feel when a problem pops up unexpectedly?
Do you feel sad, mad, hopeless, stuck, or something else?
What else do you feel? Tell me more.
When you tell me you feel angry, what else do you feel? Disappointed, hurt, betrayed, lonely, or something else?

What makes the problem better?

How often do you experience the problem?
How have you been coping with the problem(s) that brought you into therapy? What have you tried so far?
What do you think caused the situation to worsen?
How does the problem affect how you feel about yourself?
What avenues have you pursued in the past that have worked well to solve the problem?
Tell me about a time when you were not experiencing these difficulties.

Overall, how would you describe your mood?

Robert Thayer (1997), who studied how moods influence behavior, suggested that we should see moods as a form of internal barometer and a reflection of the interactions between our psychological states and our physiology, rather than mysterious, purely emotional reactions to events around us.

Unlike fleeting emotions, moods are more like the weather and represent the underlying biology of our daily cycles of energy and tension.

When we find ourselves overwhelmed by stress or tiredness, we are more likely to reach for self-destructive habits. Understanding our moods and their fluctuations better can allow us to improve our personal effectiveness substantially, both mentally and physically.

Describe your typical daily mood. Is your mood like a roller coaster, or is it pretty steady?
What energizes you and makes you feel more upbeat?
What brings you down or makes you feel blue?
How do you typically handle irritations, aggravations, and frustrations? Do you get mad easily? How does your anger come out?
Do you feel mad when you don’t get your way or lose control?
How do you get yourself out of a bad mood?
We all use different strategies to cope. Do you find yourself reaching for caffeine, drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, the internet, or something else to make you feel better?
What have people close to you told you about your moods?

How connected do you feel to the people around you?

Exploring the dynamics of clients’ relationships with people in their lives can be a good predictor for how they will respond to forming a relationship in therapy, as we often play out similar tendencies in most of our relationships.

Tell me about the important relationships in your life.
What was it like growing up in your family?
What do people keep doing that you dislike, and what do you wish they would change?
What wrongs have been done to you that you haven’t forgiven?

What positive changes do you want to make in your life?

Exploring clients’ goals for therapeutic engagement and their attitudes toward change allows the practitioner to glimpse into what our clients value and what frustrates their ability to honor those values in their lives.

On a scale of 0–10, how content are you with your life?
Do you regularly set positive goals for your work life, your relationships or health, and relaxation?
What is your attitude about change?
What are these goals?
What keeps happening repeatedly that keeps you from achieving them?

While there may be many reasons for that, the biggest value of therapy is in creating awareness of the habits of mind that often don’t serve us.

The below questionnaire identifies typical symptoms of depression and is adapted from the Patient Health Questionnaire (Kroenke, Spitzer, Williams, & Löwe, 2010).

Over the last two weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?

Apply a score as follows:

1 for Not at all;
2 for Several days;
3 for More than half the days and
4 for Nearly every day.

If you experience any of the problems above, how difficult have they made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people?

Not difficult at all
Somewhat difficult
Very difficult
Extremely difficult

Many forms of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), some discussed below, address the problems in thinking associated with depression. The good news is that these problematic thinking patterns can be adequately assessed and treated.

One such example is the measure of pessimism present in clients’ interpretations of life events as marked by their attribution or explanatory style .

Several questionnaires help therapists analyze the content of their clients’ perceptions such as Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982), the Children’s Attributional Style Questionnaire (Kaslow, Tannenbaum, & Seligman, 1978) and the Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations Technique (Peterson, Schulman, Castellon, & Seligman, 1992).

Below is an example of how to adopt these assessments to real-life situations.

Instructions :

Ask the client to imagine as vividly as possible an event, such as having a serious argument with a family member or any other appropriate scenario best suited to the client’s situation.

Let the client indicate the major cause(s) of the event and then ask them to answer three follow-up questions regarding their chosen explanatory options.

A. Please select from below the important reasons that caused the above event. You may choose more than one:

Personality problems
Emotional problems
Influence of past experience or feelings
Being treated unfairly
Communication problems
Misunderstandings
Discrepancies in mutual expectations
Other reasons

B. Are the causes you selected due to something about you or to something about other people or circumstances?

C. In the future, when facing a similar event, will these causes be present again?

D. Are the causes something that had an influence on only the above event, or do they also influence other areas of your life?

Other frequently used measures for depression and anxiety include the Beck Depression Inventory (Dozois & Covin, 2004) and the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 2010). The rating scale below has been adopted from part of the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory.

Read the statements below and indicate how much these apply to how you feel and think on a typical day. Apply a score of 1 for Never; 2 for Sometimes; 3 for Frequently and 4 for Almost always.

Therapy questions for anxiety will often need to include probing into somatic symptoms and bringing awareness to the body for signals of onset of anxiety. Treatment for anxiety often also includes techniques for learning relaxation that can be used when the anxiety suddenly strikes.

Gestalt Therapy may be a helpful approach to combating somatic symptoms of anxiety (see below).

Questions to work with anxiety can also focus on reframing our perceptions of stress, as studies show that when we view stress as physically harmful, it tends to have a more detrimental effect on our health than when we see stress as information or an opportunity to rise to the occasion (McGonigal, 2015).

CBT and solution-focused therapies discussed below can be applied to specific behavioral patterns associated with anxiety-inducing thinking patterns and perceptions (see below).

For that reason, interventions like the Miracle Question allow us to connect where we are today to where we want to be in the future by visualizing vividly and emotionally the goals we desire.

The Miracle Question, or the “problem is gone” question, is a method of questioning that a therapist can utilize to invite the client to envision and describe in detail how the future will be different when the problem is no longer present.

Imagine that tonight as you sleep, a miracle occurs in your life. A magical momentous happening has completely solved this problem and perhaps rippled out to cover and infinitely improve other areas of your life too. Think for a moment and tell me, how is life going to be different now? Describe it in detail. What’s the first thing you’ll notice as you wake up in the morning?

Some suggest that this intervention is most effective when a relaxation technique is briefly applied first. Others suggest that follow-up questions can help solidify the vision of the future.

What do your senses pick up?
What do you feel?
What are you doing (in as many aspects of your life as possible)?
With whom are you doing it?
Where are you living?
How much fun are you having?
How much income are you earning?
What difference are you making in the world each day?

The power of Miracle Question lies in the emotional connection we create to the detailed picture of what our lives could be like. We are, after all, veritable anticipation machines and can get energized by future possibilities. Not to mention, the devil is in the details, and the more vivid the picture of the future we paint, the more likely we are to see the necessary steps to get there.

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Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is typically very brief (three to five sessions), focuses on finding solutions, and attends only minimally to defining or understanding the presenting problems (De Shazer et al., 1986).

The questioning style is intended to explore the client’s preferred future and goals in the context of their current resources and behaviors. Some examples of the therapeutic elements include problem-free talk, the Miracle Question, and ratings of progress scales (Ratner, George, & Iveson, 2012).

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The following exercise, called Do One Thing Differently , is an excellent example of how this form of therapy zeros in on resolving issues directly in a concrete and immediate fashion. This seven-step intervention is intended to break a problematic pattern of behavior by replacing it with another (Miller, Hubble, & Duncan, 1991).

Do One Thing Differently

Step 1 : Think of a time that things did not go well for you and bring to mind the things you usually do in a problematic situation. Choose to change one thing, such as:

Your body patterns and what you do with your body
What you say and how you say it
The location and where it happens
The order you do things in

When a similar issue comes up again, what part of that problem situation will you do differently now?

Step 2 : Think of something that somebody else does that makes the problem better or think of something that you have done in the past that made things go better.

Think of something that somebody else does that works to make things go better.
What is the person’s name?
What do they do that you will try?
Think of something that you have done in the past that helped make things go better. What did you do that you will do next time?

Step 3 : Feelings are a vital source of information but do not have to determine your actions. You always have a choice, particularly when your previous experience shows that your pattern of emotional reactions causes behavior that undermines your future goals.

Think of a feeling that used to get you into trouble, e.g., anger, sadness, etc.
What feeling do you want to stop getting you into trouble?
Think of what information that feeling is telling you.
What does the feeling suggest you should do that would help things go better?

Step 4 : Change what you focus on. What you pay attention to tends to loom larger, and you will notice it more. To solve a problem, try changing your focus or your perspective.

Think of something that you are focusing on too much.
What gets you into trouble when you focus on it too much?
Think of something that you will focus on instead.
What will you focus on that will not get you into trouble?

Step 5 : Imagine a future when you are not having the problem you are having right now. Work backward to figure out what you could do now to make that future come true.

Think of what will be different for you in the future when things are going better.
How will things be different?
Think of one thing that you would be doing differently before things could go better in the future.
What one thing will you do differently?

Step 6: Sometimes, people with problems talk about what other people are doing that makes things worse for them, and they talk about why it is not possible to do better. Remember that there are aspects of your life where you do have control and can change your story.

Talk about times when the problem was not happening and what you were doing.
Think of a time when you were not having the problem that is bothering you.
Tell me about that time.

Step 7 : Focus on facts and actions away from interpretations.

Talk about things you can see, not about what you believe the other person was thinking or feeling because we do not know that.
When you make a complaint, talk about the action that you do not like.
When you make a request, talk about what action you want the person to do.
When you praise someone, talk about what action you liked.

Assessing cognition within the CBT model comes down to helping the client examine their thoughts by asking questions related to how the client perceives themself, others, and the future.

For example, when a client describes themself as incapable or a burden and generally perceive others to be critical or hard to please, their view of the future might be mostly pessimistic and contain beliefs that the future will only hold more losses and disappointments.

Assessing behaviors and precipitating situations within the CBT model is about examining the events, behaviors, thoughts, or emotions that activate, trigger, or compound patient difficulties (Chambless & Ollendick, 2001; DeRubeis & Crits-Christoph, 1998).

At the end of the day, the questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people that we will become.

Leo Babauta

One helpful approach to examining behavior and symptoms is to address them in a broader context. The antecedents, behavior, consequences (ABC) model postulates that behaviors are primarily determined by antecedents or events that precede behavior, thoughts, or mood, and consequences or events that follow them.

The ABC model can be used as a functional assessment where behavior is shaped by antecedents and followed by consequences (Ellis & MacLaren, 1998).

The antecedent occurs before a behavior and may be a trigger for a particular reaction in the patient and can both increase and decrease a particular behavior. Antecedents, or events that occur before a behavior, typically elicit emotional and physiological responses.

Antecedents may be affective (an emotion), somatic (a physiological response), behavioral (an act), or cognitive (a thought). They are also subject to contextual factors (situational) and relational (interpersonal) factors.

For example, a patient who reports being depressed (behavior) may feel bad when they are alone at home late at night (contextual antecedent) or better when they are around family (relational antecedent). Consequently, they may feel even more dejected by thinking that they will always be alone (cognitive antecedent) (Ellis, & MacLaren, 1998).

Below are some questions to help examine antecedents to a particular behavior:

What were you feeling right before you did that? (Affective)
What happens to you physically before this happens? Do you feel sick? (Somatic)
How do you normally act right before this happens? (Behavioral)
What thoughts go through your mind before this happens? (Cognitive)
Where and when does this usually happen? (Contextual)
Do you do this with everyone, or just when you are around certain people? (Relational)

Behavior is any activity, including thoughts or feelings, that the patient exhibits in response to an antecedent. The questions below help examine a particular behavior:

How do you feel immediately after this occurs? (Affective)
Do you have any bodily sensations after this happens, like trembling? (Somatic)
How do you react after this behavior occurs? (Behavioral)
What do you think about after this happens? (Cognitive)
Are you in a different place when this behavior ends? (Contextual)
Are there any people who make this behavior worse? Make it better? (Relational)

Consequences are events that occur after the behavior and direct the patient to either continue or discontinue the behavior. Two kinds of consequences are examined in a functional assessment: short-term and long-term consequences. The questions below help explore the consequences of a particular behavior:

Does this behavior get your attention in some way?
What good things happen as a result of this behavior?
Does this help you in some way?
Do you feel a certain rush from doing this?
Does this behavior help you avoid something you don’t want to do?

The goal of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is to help the client develop more balanced thinking about the situation and combat their automatic thoughts and reactions. The questions below can help the client challenge automatic thoughts:

What evidence is there that this thought is true?
What evidence is there that this thought is not true?
What would I tell someone I loved if they were in this situation and had these thoughts?
If my automatic thought is true, what is the worst that could happen?
If my automatic thought is true, what is the best thing that could happen?

Once the evidence has been generated, we want to combine it to form a more balanced thought. This thought will likely be much longer and more nuanced than the original emotionally charged thought. The questions below can help the client create a more balanced thought:

What is a more balanced view that more accurately reflects the facts?
Is there an alternative way of thinking about the situation?
Can someone I trust understand this situation in a different way?

In the final step, ask the client to rate the believability of the alternative thought on a scale of 0–100. If the thought is not more than 50 believable, more work is needed to identify an alternative view. Go back to the evidence and keep working.

During a music therapy assessment, the practitioner learns about the person and their needs and works to identify an appropriate and effective plan for them. Questions about the relationship to music, preferences toward techniques, and goals for therapy are some of the most frequently used.

Have you heard of music therapy?
Have you ever used music therapy?
If you have used music therapy, did you find it helpful?
Has music affected your mood?

Part of being a music Therapist is knowing how to manipulate the music in ways that will be effective for the moment and based on preference. What makes someone feel better is dependent on their music preference, and there are many benefits in asking detailed questions about individual experience with music.

What type of music makes you feel completely relaxed?
What type of music makes you feel energized?
What type of music do you not like?
If you had to pick one song to play continuously, nonstop, in the background of your life, what would it be?
What is your favorite sound, and what instrument makes it?
Have you played an instrument before?
How do you feel about moving to music?

The American Music Therapy Association lists many benefits of music therapy treatment. This can help identify the goals for the music therapy engagement. A music therapist may ask:

What would you like to accomplish in music therapy?

Promote a sense of wellbeing
Learn to manage stress
Alleviate pain
Express feelings
Enhance memory
Improve communication
Promote physical rehabilitation

The bulk of the session will consist of music therapy interventions. These are experiences the music therapist facilitates that are meant to target the client’s non-musical goals and objectives.

Here is a list of types of music-based interventions clients may be asked to choose from:

Singing, performing, or playing an instrument
Composing, which includes any group or individual songwriting process and can be as simple or complex as needed
Improvising and creating music on the spot or in the moment
Receiving music or simply listening, which can include a music and relaxation-type of experience, a lyric analysis intervention, and a “moving to music” type of experience as in gait training
Listening to live or recorded music
Learning music-assisted relaxation techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxation or deep breathing
Singing familiar songs with live or recorded accompaniment
Playing instruments, such as hand percussion
Writing song lyrics
Writing the music for new songs
Learning to play an instrument, such as piano or guitar
Creating art with music
Dancing or moving to live or recorded music
Writing choreography for music
Discussing one’s emotional reaction or meaning attached to a particular song or improvisation

Wherever possible, individuals are encouraged to reflect on personal issues that relate to the music or associations that the music brings up. The session may also include choosing music that has meaning for the person, such as the music reflecting an issue that the person is currently occupied with (Geretsegger, Elefant, Mössler, & Gold, 2014).

Narrative Therapy assumes there is no such thing as objective reality and instead allows clients to redefine and rewrite their stories in ways that are more effective for coping with reality.

Like many other client-centered approaches, it sees the client as the expert on their own life and uses techniques that allow for separation of the problematic behavior from the person that we are so that we can effectively address the problem without getting our ego caught up in the process.

There are several techniques used in Narrative Therapy that are akin to storytelling techniques used in literary studies and can be effectively used to rewrite aspects of the situation a client is dealing with.

This could involve assigning a different meaning, viewing from a different perspective, deconstructing into smaller parts, externalizing the problem, or merely focusing on a more optimistic thread.

Below is a list of some of the techniques and examples of questions that can be used. A more detailed explanation of Narrative Therapy techniques can be found in our article Narrative Therapy Techniques, Interventions + Worksheets .

Gestalt Therapy is one such method that teaches us that full awareness and attention has the potential of resolving an issue in a way that rationalizing about it cannot. The goal of Gestalt Therapy is to stop living life as if we are on auto-pilot.

Many people find that they truly live in the present only a small amount of the time, and when they learn to do it more consciously, this can often be a breakthrough. The Gestalt Therapist appreciates the person as part of their environment. The mind, the body, and the environment are all part of one consideration.

During therapy, clients are often asked questions to help them tune in to their immediate experiences, such as:

What are you feeling?
What are you thinking?
How does your body feel right now?
What are you seeing and doing in this very moment?
What sounds do you hear around you?

Practicing Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls used many experiments to get his clients to increase awareness, such as telling them to feel their body (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951).

He would ask his clients to tell themselves what they were seeing and doing in each moment. He then asked them what difficulties they were experiencing while they were doing this, to which they invariably answered, “ What difficulties? ”

The discovery was that as long as we are fully in the present, noticing and feeling the environment around us, we are trouble free.

Some of the techniques commonly used in Gestalt Therapy are:

Amplification, where the client is asked to repeat and exaggerate a particular action, feeling, or expression so that they become more aware of it.
Guided fantasy, where the client is asked to visualize either an actual event from the past or a hypothetical situation. The therapist then helps the individual to focus on what they are thinking, feeling, and doing as they mentally experience this event.
Dreamwork, where dreams are not interpreted, but acted out in therapy. The different parts of a dream are thought to represent different aspects of the individual, so by becoming each part, the individual becomes more aware of the many different sides to their personality.
Internal dialogue, where the client engages in a dialogue between opposing poles of their personality.
Role-play, where the client dramatizes relevant aspects of their existence. This may involve taking on the role of a character in their life or of a part of the self. The empty chair technique is a classic example of role-play.
The empty chair technique, where the client sits across from an empty chair and is asked to imagine that someone else, the client themself, or a part of themself is sitting in that chair. The therapist then encourages the client to engage in a conversation with the imaginary person or part of a person. As the conversation progresses, the client alternates roles, switching from one chair to the next accordingly. The empty chair technique is often used to enhance clients’ awareness of polarities in their personality so they can work toward integrating them (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951).

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Many accomplished practitioners complain that today’s training of therapists does not stress the importance of relationships enough (e.g., Yalom, 2002).

Yalom’s (2002) school of thought stresses the crucial role that warmth, empathy, and persistent focus on the here-and-now play in psychological healing.

He warns that not enough therapists encourage patients to go deep and believes that we should be teaching our students the importance of relationships with other people: how you work with them, what the relational pathology consists of, how you examine your own conscience, and how you examine the inner world.

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

What do you think is missing from how talk therapy is practiced today?

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. For more information, don’t forget to download our three Positive CBT Exercises for free .

Typical questions that therapists ask first are:

“What brings you here today?”
“Can you tell me a little about yourself?”
“Have you been in therapy before, and if so, what was that experience like for you?”
“What are some of the challenges you’ve been facing recently?”

Common questions that counselors ask include:

“What brings you to counseling?”
“What are some of the challenges you are currently facing?”
“How have you been coping with these challenges?”
“What are some of your goals for counseling?”

The “Big Five” questions refer to a set of questions commonly used in solution-focused brief therapy. These questions are designed to help clients identify and work towards their goals in therapy. The Big Five questions are:

What are your best hopes for our work together?
How will you know when you have achieved your goals?
What will be different in your life when you have achieved your goals?
What strengths and resources do you have that can help you achieve your goals?
What small steps can you take towards your goals starting today?
Chambless, D. L., & Ollendick, T. H. (2001). Empirically supported psychological interventions: Controversies and evidence. Annual Review of Psychology, 52 (1), 685–716.
De Shazer, S., Berg, I. K., Lipchik, E. V. E., Nunnally, E., Molnar, A., Gingerich, W., & Weiner‐Davis, M. (1986). Brief therapy: Focused solution development. Family Process, 25 (2), 207–221.
DeRubeis, R. J., & Crits-Christoph, P. (1998). Empirically supported individual and group psychological treatments for adult mental disorders. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66 (1), 37–52.
Dozois, D. J. A., & Covin, R. (2004). The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), and Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS) 50. In M. Hersen (Ed.), Comprehensive handbook of psychological assessment. Wiley .
Ellis, A., & MacLaren, C. (1998). Rational emotive behavior therapy: A therapist’s guide . Impact Publishers.
Geretsegger, M., Elefant, C., Mössler, K. A., & Gold, C. (2014). Music therapy for people with autism spectrum disorder. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews , 6.
Kaslow, N. J., Tannenbaum, R. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1978). TheKASTAN: A children’s attributional style questionnaire (Unpublished manuscript).
Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B., & Löwe, B. (2010). The patient health questionnaire somatic, anxiety, and depressive symptom scales: a systematic review. General Hospital Psychiatry, 32 (4), 345–359.
McGonigal, K. (2015). The upside of stress: Why stress is good for you (and how to get good at it). Random House.
Miller, S. D., Hubble, M. A., & Duncan, B. L. (1991). Handbook of solution-focused brief therapy. Jossey-Bass.
Perls, F., Hefferline, G., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt therapy.
Peterson, C., Semmel, A., Von Baeyer, C., Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Seligman, M. E. (1982). The attributional style questionnaire. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 6 (3), 287–299.
Peterson, C., Schulman, P., Castellon, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1992). CAVE: Content analysis of verbatim explanations. In C. P. Smith (Ed.), Motivation and personality: Handbook of thematic content analysis (pp. 383–392). Cambridge University Press.
Ratner, H., George, E., & Iveson, C. (2012). Solution-focused brief therapy: 100 key points and techniques . Routledge.
Spielberger, C. D. (2010). State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory. In I. B. Weiner & W. E. Craighead (Eds.), The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology. John Wiley & Sons.
Thayer, R. E. (1997). The origin of everyday moods: managing energy, tension, and stress . Oxford University Press.
Yalom, I. D. (2002). The gift of therapy: An open letter to a new generation of therapists and their patients. HarperCollins.

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What our readers think.

Greetings from Papua New Guinea (PNG).

I can’t thank you more for every curve I’ve turned reading your presentation. It’s in-depth, intriguing, resourceful, insightful, applicable, and well researched. Thank you so much.

This has opened my eyes to know it’s okay to be ignorant of every question, thought, feeling, etc. Your points gave me confidence for my first Residency at CCMH. Thank you!

I am doing a course in counseling and therapy i really found this useful…thank you so much

Amazingly done, easy to follow up and understand the type of therapist.

Thank you very much! This will helpful in my supervision with interns and LMSWs.

Hi Helen, We’re glad to hear you found the post helpful for your supervision. Thanks for your feedback! – Nicole | Community Manager

Wow!! Extremely informative. Thank you!

Thanks so much. It’s so informative. I’ve read it several times. Please add questions in Imago Therapy sessions too.

Glad you enjoyed the post and thank you for the suggestion! If it’s helpful, we have a post on the topic of therapy worksheets, some of which are based on Imago Therapy. You can find that post here .

– Nicole | Community Manager

Hi I don’t really know how to tell you this because I’m only 13 but I might see a therapist soon because I feel like I’m using my my depression for attention and I’m getting diagnosed to see if I actually do,can you tell me some questions they will ask a 13 year old because I’m kinda nervous and if it turns out to be fake i”ll get bashed and people will say that I was overreacting.and easy questions please so I can understand them and i can openly answer because English is not my first language.thank you!

I’m very sorry to read that you’re experiencing depression. Given your fear you may be harmed depending on what your therapist says, it sounds as though you are in an unsafe situation. Please be careful and do what you must do to prioritize your safety. I’d encourage you to reach out to a trusted adult in your life (e.g., a teacher, a relative) and let them know about your concerns. Likewise, you could consider speaking to someone on the relevant child helpline in your country.

The therapist will likely ask you questions about your sleep (e.g., Have you been falling and staying asleep?), mood (e.g., How often do you feel sad and how long does it last?), and energy/motivation levels (e.g., Do you find it hard to do daily activities/work/study without losing motivation or feeling tired/giving up?)

Rest assured that a therapist’s priority will be to ensure you feel comfortable — so just answer honestly. Likewise, if you are able to speak privately with the therapist, definitely let them know your concerns about being punished. Being fearful for one’s safety is more than enough to induce symptoms of depression, so know that what you are feeling is real and valid. And being open about how you are feeling is brave and the first step to receiving support.

I hope your session goes well, and please keep safe.

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Problem solving skills are invaluable in any job. But even the most experienced among us can fall into the trap of solving the wrong problem.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg says that all too often, we jump to find solutions to a problem – without taking time to really understand what we’re facing.

He’s an expert in innovation, and he’s the author of the book, What’s Your Problem?: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve .

In this episode, you’ll learn how to reframe tough problems, by asking questions that reveal all the factors and assumptions that contribute to the situation. You’ll also learn why searching for one root cause can be misleading. And you’ll learn how to use experimentation and rapid prototyping as problem-solving tools.

This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in December 2016. Here it is.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green Carmichael.

Problem solving is popular. People put it on their resumes. Managers believe they excel at it. Companies count it as a key proficiency. We solve customers’ problems.

The problem is we often solve the wrong problems. Albert Einstein and Peter Drucker alike have discussed the difficulty of effective diagnosis. There are great frameworks for getting teams to attack true problems, but they’re often hard to do daily and on the fly. That’s where our guest comes in.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg is a consultant who helps companies and managers reframe their problems so they can come up with an effective solution faster. He asks the question “Are You Solving The Right Problems?” in the January-February 2017 issue of Harvard Business Review. Thomas, thank you so much for coming on the HBR IdeaCast .

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Thanks for inviting me.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, I thought maybe we could start by talking about the problem of talking about problem reframing. What is that exactly?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Basically, when people face a problem, they tend to jump into solution mode to rapidly, and very often that means that they don’t really understand, necessarily, the problem they’re trying to solve. And so, reframing is really a– at heart, it’s a method that helps you avoid that by taking a second to go in and ask two questions, basically saying, first of all, wait. What is the problem we’re trying to solve? And then crucially asking, is there a different way to think about what the problem actually is?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, I feel like so often when this comes up in meetings, you know, someone says that, and maybe they throw out the Einstein quote about you spend an hour of problem solving, you spend 55 minutes to find the problem. And then everyone else in the room kind of gets irritated. So, maybe just give us an example of maybe how this would work in practice in a way that would not, sort of, set people’s teeth on edge, like oh, here Sarah goes again, reframing the whole problem instead of just solving it.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: I mean, you’re bringing up something that’s, I think is crucial, which is to create legitimacy for the method. So, one of the reasons why I put out the article is to give people a tool to say actually, this thing is still important, and we need to do it. But I think the really critical thing in order to make this work in a meeting is actually to learn how to do it fast, because if you have the idea that you need to spend 30 minutes in a meeting delving deeply into the problem, I mean, that’s going to be uphill for most problems. So, the critical thing here is really to try to make it a practice you can implement very, very rapidly.

There’s an example that I would suggest memorizing. This is the example that I use to explain very rapidly what it is. And it’s basically, I call it the slow elevator problem. You imagine that you are the owner of an office building, and that your tenants are complaining that the elevator’s slow.

Now, if you take that problem framing for granted, you’re going to start thinking creatively around how do we make the elevator faster. Do we install a new motor? Do we have to buy a new lift somewhere?

The thing is, though, if you ask people who actually work with facilities management, well, they’re going to have a different solution for you, which is put up a mirror next to the elevator. That’s what happens is, of course, that people go oh, I’m busy. I’m busy. I’m– oh, a mirror. Oh, that’s beautiful.

And then they forget time. What’s interesting about that example is that the idea with a mirror is actually a solution to a different problem than the one you first proposed. And so, the whole idea here is once you get good at using reframing, you can quickly identify other aspects of the problem that might be much better to try to solve than the original one you found. It’s not necessarily that the first one is wrong. It’s just that there might be better problems out there to attack that we can, means we can do things much faster, cheaper, or better.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, in that example, I can understand how A, it’s probably expensive to make the elevator faster, so it’s much cheaper just to put up a mirror. And B, maybe the real problem people are actually feeling, even though they’re not articulating it right, is like, I hate waiting for the elevator. But if you let them sort of fix their hair or check their teeth, they’re suddenly distracted and don’t notice.

But if you have, this is sort of a pedestrian example, but say you have a roommate or a spouse who doesn’t clean up the kitchen. Facing that problem and not having your elegant solution already there to highlight the contrast between the perceived problem and the real problem, how would you take a problem like that and attack it using this method so that you can see what some of the other options might be?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Right. So, I mean, let’s say it’s you who have that problem. I would go in and say, first of all, what would you say the problem is? Like, if you were to describe your view of the problem, what would that be?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I hate cleaning the kitchen, and I want someone else to clean it up.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: OK. So, my first observation, you know, that somebody else might not necessarily be your spouse. So, already there, there’s an inbuilt assumption in your question around oh, it has to be my husband who does the cleaning. So, it might actually be worth, already there to say, is that really the only problem you have? That you hate cleaning the kitchen, and you want to avoid it? Or might there be something around, as well, getting a better relationship in terms of how you solve problems in general or establishing a better way to handle small problems when dealing with your spouse?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Or maybe, now that I’m thinking that, maybe the problem is that you just can’t find the stuff in the kitchen when you need to find it.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Right, and so that’s an example of a reframing, that actually why is it a problem that the kitchen is not clean? Is it only because you hate the act of cleaning, or does it actually mean that it just takes you a lot longer and gets a lot messier to actually use the kitchen, which is a different problem. The way you describe this problem now, is there anything that’s missing from that description?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That is a really good question.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Other, basically asking other factors that we are not talking about right now, and I say those because people tend to, when given a problem, they tend to delve deeper into the detail. What often is missing is actually an element outside of the initial description of the problem that might be really relevant to what’s going on. Like, why does the kitchen get messy in the first place? Is it something about the way you use it or your cooking habits? Is it because the neighbor’s kids, kind of, use it all the time?

There might, very often, there might be issues that you’re not really thinking about when you first describe the problem that actually has a big effect on it.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I think at this point it would be helpful to maybe get another business example, and I’m wondering if you could tell us the story of the dog adoption problem.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Yeah. This is a big problem in the US. If you work in the shelter industry, basically because dogs are so popular, more than 3 million dogs every year enter a shelter, and currently only about half of those actually find a new home and get adopted. And so, this is a problem that has persisted. It’s been, like, a structural problem for decades in this space. In the last three years, where people found new ways to address it.

So a woman called Lori Weise who runs a rescue organization in South LA, and she actually went in and challenged the very idea of what we were trying to do. She said, no, no. The problem we’re trying to solve is not about how to get more people to adopt dogs. It is about keeping the dogs with their first family so they never enter the shelter system in the first place.

In 2013, she started what’s called a Shelter Intervention Program that basically works like this. If a family comes and wants to hand over their dog, these are called owner surrenders. It’s about 30% of all dogs that come into a shelter. All they would do is go up and ask, if you could, would you like to keep your animal? And if they said yes, they would try to fix whatever helped them fix the problem, but that made them turn over this.

And sometimes that might be that they moved into a new building. The landlord required a deposit, and they simply didn’t have the money to put down a deposit. Or the dog might need a $10 rabies shot, but they didn’t know how to get access to a vet.

And so, by instigating that program, just in the first year, she took her, basically the amount of dollars they spent per animal they helped went from something like $85 down to around $60. Just an immediate impact, and her program now is being rolled out, is being supported by the ASPCA, which is one of the big animal welfare stations, and it’s being rolled out to various other places.

And I think what really struck me with that example was this was not dependent on having the internet. This was not, oh, we needed to have everybody mobile before we could come up with this. This, conceivably, we could have done 20 years ago. Only, it only happened when somebody, like in this case Lori, went in and actually rethought what the problem they were trying to solve was in the first place.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, what I also think is so interesting about that example is that when you talk about it, it doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that would have been thought of through other kinds of problem solving methods. There wasn’t necessarily an After Action Review or a 5 Whys exercise or a Six Sigma type intervention. I don’t want to throw those other methods under the bus, but how can you get such powerful results with such a very simple way of thinking about something?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: That was something that struck me as well. This, in a way, reframing and the idea of the problem diagnosis is important is something we’ve known for a long, long time. And we’ve actually have built some tools to help out. If you worked with us professionally, you are familiar with, like, Six Sigma, TRIZ, and so on. You mentioned 5 Whys. A root cause analysis is another one that a lot of people are familiar with.

Those are our good tools, and they’re definitely better than nothing. But what I notice when I work with the companies applying those was those tools tend to make you dig deeper into the first understanding of the problem we have. If it’s the elevator example, people start asking, well, is that the cable strength, or is the capacity of the elevator? That they kind of get caught by the details.

That, in a way, is a bad way to work on problems because it really assumes that there’s like a, you can almost hear it, a root cause. That you have to dig down and find the one true problem, and everything else was just symptoms. That’s a bad way to think about problems because problems tend to be multicausal.

There tend to be lots of causes or levers you can potentially press to address a problem. And if you think there’s only one, if that’s the right problem, that’s actually a dangerous way. And so I think that’s why, that this is a method I’ve worked with over the last five years, trying to basically refine how to make people better at this, and the key tends to be this thing about shifting out and saying, is there a totally different way of thinking about the problem versus getting too caught up in the mechanistic details of what happens.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: What about experimentation? Because that’s another method that’s become really popular with the rise of Lean Startup and lots of other innovation methodologies. Why wouldn’t it have worked to, say, experiment with many different types of fixing the dog adoption problem, and then just pick the one that works the best?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: You could say in the dog space, that’s what’s been going on. I mean, there is, in this industry and a lot of, it’s largely volunteer driven. People have experimented, and they found different ways of trying to cope. And that has definitely made the problem better. So, I wouldn’t say that experimentation is bad, quite the contrary. Rapid prototyping, quickly putting something out into the world and learning from it, that’s a fantastic way to learn more and to move forward.

My point is, though, that I feel we’ve come to rely too much on that. There’s like, if you look at the start up space, the wisdom is now just to put something quickly into the market, and then if it doesn’t work, pivot and just do more stuff. What reframing really is, I think of it as the cognitive counterpoint to prototyping. So, this is really a way of seeing very quickly, like not just working on the solution, but also working on our understanding of the problem and trying to see is there a different way to think about that.

If you only stick with experimentation, again, you tend to sometimes stay too much in the same space trying minute variations of something instead of taking a step back and saying, wait a minute. What is this telling us about what the real issue is?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, to go back to something that we touched on earlier, when we were talking about the completely hypothetical example of a spouse who does not clean the kitchen–

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Completely, completely hypothetical.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yes. For the record, my husband is a great kitchen cleaner.

You started asking me some questions that I could see immediately were helping me rethink that problem. Is that kind of the key, just having a checklist of questions to ask yourself? How do you really start to put this into practice?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: I think there are two steps in that. The first one is just to make yourself better at the method. Yes, you should kind of work with a checklist. In the article, I kind of outlined seven practices that you can use to do this.

But importantly, I would say you have to consider that as, basically, a set of training wheels. I think there’s a big, big danger in getting caught in a checklist. This is something I work with.

My co-author Paddy Miller, it’s one of his insights. That if you start giving people a checklist for things like this, they start following it. And that’s actually a problem, because what you really want them to do is start challenging their thinking.

So the way to handle this is to get some practice using it. Do use the checklist initially, but then try to step away from it and try to see if you can organically make– it’s almost a habit of mind. When you run into a colleague in the hallway and she has a problem and you have five minutes, like, delving in and just starting asking some of those questions and using your intuition to say, wait, how is she talking about this problem? And is there a question or two I can ask her about the problem that can help her rethink it?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, that is also just a very different approach, because I think in that situation, most of us can’t go 30 seconds without jumping in and offering solutions.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Very true. The drive toward solutions is very strong. And to be clear, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that if the solutions work. So, many problems are just solved by oh, you know, oh, here’s the way to do that. Great.

But this is really a powerful method for those problems where either it’s something we’ve been banging our heads against tons of times without making progress, or when you need to come up with a really creative solution. When you’re facing a competitor with a much bigger budget, and you know, if you solve the same problem later, you’re not going to win. So, that basic idea of taking that approach to problems can often help you move forward in a different way than just like, oh, I have a solution.

I would say there’s also, there’s some interesting psychological stuff going on, right? Where you may have tried this, but if somebody tries to serve up a solution to a problem I have, I’m often resistant towards them. Kind if like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That solution is not going to work in my world. Whereas if you get them to discuss and analyze what the problem really is, you might actually dig something up.

Let’s go back to the kitchen example. One powerful question is just to say, what’s your own part in creating this problem? It’s very often, like, people, they describe problems as if it’s something that’s inflicted upon them from the external world, and they are innocent bystanders in that.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Right, or crazy customers with unreasonable demands.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Exactly, right. I don’t think I’ve ever met an agency or consultancy that didn’t, like, gossip about their customers. Oh, my god, they’re horrible. That, you know, classic thing, why don’t they want to take more risk? Well, risk is bad.

It’s their business that’s on the line, not the consultancy’s, right? So, absolutely, that’s one of the things when you step into a different mindset and kind of, wait. Oh yeah, maybe I actually am part of creating this problem in a sense, as well. That tends to open some new doors for you to move forward, in a way, with stuff that you may have been struggling with for years.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, we’ve surfaced a couple of questions that are useful. I’m curious to know, what are some of the other questions that you find yourself asking in these situations, given that you have made this sort of mental habit that you do? What are the questions that people seem to find really useful?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: One easy one is just to ask if there are any positive exceptions to the problem. So, was there day where your kitchen was actually spotlessly clean? And then asking, what was different about that day? Like, what happened there that didn’t happen the other days? That can very often point people towards a factor that they hadn’t considered previously.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: We got take-out.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: S,o that is your solution. Take-out from [INAUDIBLE]. That might have other problems.

Another good question, and this is a little bit more high level. It’s actually more making an observation about labeling how that person thinks about the problem. And what I mean with that is, we have problem categories in our head. So, if I say, let’s say that you describe a problem to me and say, well, we have a really great product and are, it’s much better than our previous product, but people aren’t buying it. I think we need to put more marketing dollars into this.

Now you can go in and say, that’s interesting. This sounds like you’re thinking of this as a communications problem. Is there a different way of thinking about that? Because you can almost tell how, when the second you say communications, there are some ideas about how do you solve a communications problem. Typically with more communication.

And what you might do is go in and suggest, well, have you considered that it might be, say, an incentive problem? Are there incentives on behalf of the purchasing manager at your clients that are obstructing you? Might there be incentive issues with your own sales force that makes them want to sell the old product instead of the new one?

So literally, just identifying what type of problem does this person think about, and is there different potential way of thinking about it? Might it be an emotional problem, a timing problem, an expectations management problem? Thinking about what label of what type of problem that person is kind of thinking as it of.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That’s really interesting, too, because I think so many of us get requests for advice that we’re really not qualified to give. So, maybe the next time that happens, instead of muddying my way through, I will just ask some of those questions that we talked about instead.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: That sounds like a good idea.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, Thomas, this has really helped me reframe the way I think about a couple of problems in my own life, and I’m just wondering. I know you do this professionally, but is there a problem in your life that thinking this way has helped you solve?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: I’ve, of course, I’ve been swallowing my own medicine on this, too, and I think I have, well, maybe two different examples, and in one case somebody else did the reframing for me. But in one case, when I was younger, I often kind of struggled a little bit. I mean, this is my teenage years, kind of hanging out with my parents. I thought they were pretty annoying people. That’s not really fair, because they’re quite wonderful, but that’s what life is when you’re a teenager.

And one of the things that struck me, suddenly, and this was kind of the positive exception was, there was actually an evening where we really had a good time, and there wasn’t a conflict. And the core thing was, I wasn’t just seeing them in their old house where I grew up. It was, actually, we were at a restaurant. And it suddenly struck me that so much of the sometimes, kind of, a little bit, you love them but they’re annoying kind of dynamic, is tied to the place, is tied to the setting you are in.

And of course, if– you know, I live abroad now, if I visit my parents and I stay in my old bedroom, you know, my mother comes in and wants to wake me up in the morning. Stuff like that, right? And it just struck me so, so clearly that it’s– when I change this setting, if I go out and have dinner with them at a different place, that the dynamic, just that dynamic disappears.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, Thomas, this has been really, really helpful. Thank you for talking with me today.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Thank you, Sarah.

HANNAH BATES: That was Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg in conversation with Sarah Green Carmichael on the HBR IdeaCast. He’s an expert in problem solving and innovation, and he’s the author of the book, What’s Your Problem?: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve .

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about leadership from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review.

We’re a production of Harvard Business Review. If you want more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos like this, find it all at HBR dot org.

This episode was produced by Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. Special thanks to Maureen Hoch, Adi Ignatius, Karen Player, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener.

See you next week.

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35 problem-solving techniques and methods for solving complex problems

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How do you identify problems?

How do you identify the right solution.

Tips for more effective problem-solving

Complete problem-solving methods

Problem-solving techniques to identify and analyze problems
Problem-solving techniques for developing solutions

Problem-solving warm-up activities

Closing activities for a problem-solving process.

Before you can move towards finding the right solution for a given problem, you first need to identify and define the problem you wish to solve.

Here, you want to clearly articulate what the problem is and allow your group to do the same. Remember that everyone in a group is likely to have differing perspectives and alignment is necessary in order to help the group move forward.

Identifying a problem accurately also requires that all members of a group are able to contribute their views in an open and safe manner. It can be scary for people to stand up and contribute, especially if the problems or challenges are emotive or personal in nature. Be sure to try and create a psychologically safe space for these kinds of discussions.

Remember that problem analysis and further discussion are also important. Not taking the time to fully analyze and discuss a challenge can result in the development of solutions that are not fit for purpose or do not address the underlying issue.

Successfully identifying and then analyzing a problem means facilitating a group through activities designed to help them clearly and honestly articulate their thoughts and produce usable insight.

With this data, you might then produce a problem statement that clearly describes the problem you wish to be addressed and also state the goal of any process you undertake to tackle this issue.

Finding solutions is the end goal of any process. Complex organizational challenges can only be solved with an appropriate solution but discovering them requires using the right problem-solving tool.

After you’ve explored a problem and discussed ideas, you need to help a team discuss and choose the right solution. Consensus tools and methods such as those below help a group explore possible solutions before then voting for the best. They’re a great way to tap into the collective intelligence of the group for great results!

Remember that the process is often iterative. Great problem solvers often roadtest a viable solution in a measured way to see what works too. While you might not get the right solution on your first try, the methods below help teams land on the most likely to succeed solution while also holding space for improvement.

Every effective problem solving process begins with an agenda . A well-structured workshop is one of the best methods for successfully guiding a group from exploring a problem to implementing a solution.

In SessionLab, it’s easy to go from an idea to a complete agenda . Start by dragging and dropping your core problem solving activities into place . Add timings, breaks and necessary materials before sharing your agenda with your colleagues.

The resulting agenda will be your guide to an effective and productive problem solving session that will also help you stay organized on the day!

Tips for more effective problem solving

Problem-solving activities are only one part of the puzzle. While a great method can help unlock your team’s ability to solve problems, without a thoughtful approach and strong facilitation the solutions may not be fit for purpose.

Let’s take a look at some problem-solving tips you can apply to any process to help it be a success!

Clearly define the problem

Jumping straight to solutions can be tempting, though without first clearly articulating a problem, the solution might not be the right one. Many of the problem-solving activities below include sections where the problem is explored and clearly defined before moving on.

This is a vital part of the problem-solving process and taking the time to fully define an issue can save time and effort later. A clear definition helps identify irrelevant information and it also ensures that your team sets off on the right track.

Don’t jump to conclusions

It’s easy for groups to exhibit cognitive bias or have preconceived ideas about both problems and potential solutions. Be sure to back up any problem statements or potential solutions with facts, research, and adequate forethought.

The best techniques ask participants to be methodical and challenge preconceived notions. Make sure you give the group enough time and space to collect relevant information and consider the problem in a new way. By approaching the process with a clear, rational mindset, you’ll often find that better solutions are more forthcoming.

Try different approaches

Problems come in all shapes and sizes and so too should the methods you use to solve them. If you find that one approach isn’t yielding results and your team isn’t finding different solutions, try mixing it up. You’ll be surprised at how using a new creative activity can unblock your team and generate great solutions.

Don’t take it personally

Depending on the nature of your team or organizational problems, it’s easy for conversations to get heated. While it’s good for participants to be engaged in the discussions, ensure that emotions don’t run too high and that blame isn’t thrown around while finding solutions.

You’re all in it together, and even if your team or area is seeing problems, that isn’t necessarily a disparagement of you personally. Using facilitation skills to manage group dynamics is one effective method of helping conversations be more constructive.

Get the right people in the room

Your problem-solving method is often only as effective as the group using it. Getting the right people on the job and managing the number of people present is important too!

If the group is too small, you may not get enough different perspectives to effectively solve a problem. If the group is too large, you can go round and round during the ideation stages.

Creating the right group makeup is also important in ensuring you have the necessary expertise and skillset to both identify and follow up on potential solutions. Carefully consider who to include at each stage to help ensure your problem-solving method is followed and positioned for success.

Document everything

The best solutions can take refinement, iteration, and reflection to come out. Get into a habit of documenting your process in order to keep all the learnings from the session and to allow ideas to mature and develop. Many of the methods below involve the creation of documents or shared resources. Be sure to keep and share these so everyone can benefit from the work done!

Bring a facilitator

Facilitation is all about making group processes easier. With a subject as potentially emotive and important as problem-solving, having an impartial third party in the form of a facilitator can make all the difference in finding great solutions and keeping the process moving. Consider bringing a facilitator to your problem-solving session to get better results and generate meaningful solutions!

Develop your problem-solving skills

It takes time and practice to be an effective problem solver. While some roles or participants might more naturally gravitate towards problem-solving, it can take development and planning to help everyone create better solutions.

You might develop a training program, run a problem-solving workshop or simply ask your team to practice using the techniques below. Check out our post on problem-solving skills to see how you and your group can develop the right mental process and be more resilient to issues too!

Design a great agenda

Workshops are a great format for solving problems. With the right approach, you can focus a group and help them find the solutions to their own problems. But designing a process can be time-consuming and finding the right activities can be difficult.

Check out our workshop planning guide to level-up your agenda design and start running more effective workshops. Need inspiration? Check out templates designed by expert facilitators to help you kickstart your process!

In this section, we’ll look at in-depth problem-solving methods that provide a complete end-to-end process for developing effective solutions. These will help guide your team from the discovery and definition of a problem through to delivering the right solution.

If you’re looking for an all-encompassing method or problem-solving model, these processes are a great place to start. They’ll ask your team to challenge preconceived ideas and adopt a mindset for solving problems more effectively.

Six Thinking Hats
Lightning Decision Jam
Problem Definition Process
Discovery & Action Dialogue

Design Sprint 2.0

Open Space Technology

1. Six Thinking Hats

Individual approaches to solving a problem can be very different based on what team or role an individual holds. It can be easy for existing biases or perspectives to find their way into the mix, or for internal politics to direct a conversation.

Six Thinking Hats is a classic method for identifying the problems that need to be solved and enables your team to consider them from different angles, whether that is by focusing on facts and data, creative solutions, or by considering why a particular solution might not work.

Like all problem-solving frameworks, Six Thinking Hats is effective at helping teams remove roadblocks from a conversation or discussion and come to terms with all the aspects necessary to solve complex problems.

2. Lightning Decision Jam

Featured courtesy of Jonathan Courtney of AJ&Smart Berlin, Lightning Decision Jam is one of those strategies that should be in every facilitation toolbox. Exploring problems and finding solutions is often creative in nature, though as with any creative process, there is the potential to lose focus and get lost.

Unstructured discussions might get you there in the end, but it’s much more effective to use a method that creates a clear process and team focus.

In Lightning Decision Jam, participants are invited to begin by writing challenges, concerns, or mistakes on post-its without discussing them before then being invited by the moderator to present them to the group.

From there, the team vote on which problems to solve and are guided through steps that will allow them to reframe those problems, create solutions and then decide what to execute on.

By deciding the problems that need to be solved as a team before moving on, this group process is great for ensuring the whole team is aligned and can take ownership over the next stages.

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) #action #decision making #problem solving #issue analysis #innovation #design #remote-friendly The problem with anything that requires creative thinking is that it’s easy to get lost—lose focus and fall into the trap of having useless, open-ended, unstructured discussions. Here’s the most effective solution I’ve found: Replace all open, unstructured discussion with a clear process. What to use this exercise for: Anything which requires a group of people to make decisions, solve problems or discuss challenges. It’s always good to frame an LDJ session with a broad topic, here are some examples: The conversion flow of our checkout Our internal design process How we organise events Keeping up with our competition Improving sales flow

3. Problem Definition Process

While problems can be complex, the problem-solving methods you use to identify and solve those problems can often be simple in design.

By taking the time to truly identify and define a problem before asking the group to reframe the challenge as an opportunity, this method is a great way to enable change.

Begin by identifying a focus question and exploring the ways in which it manifests before splitting into five teams who will each consider the problem using a different method: escape, reversal, exaggeration, distortion or wishful. Teams develop a problem objective and create ideas in line with their method before then feeding them back to the group.

This method is great for enabling in-depth discussions while also creating space for finding creative solutions too!

Problem Definition #problem solving #idea generation #creativity #online #remote-friendly A problem solving technique to define a problem, challenge or opportunity and to generate ideas.

4. The 5 Whys

Sometimes, a group needs to go further with their strategies and analyze the root cause at the heart of organizational issues. An RCA or root cause analysis is the process of identifying what is at the heart of business problems or recurring challenges.

The 5 Whys is a simple and effective method of helping a group go find the root cause of any problem or challenge and conduct analysis that will deliver results.

By beginning with the creation of a problem statement and going through five stages to refine it, The 5 Whys provides everything you need to truly discover the cause of an issue.

The 5 Whys #hyperisland #innovation This simple and powerful method is useful for getting to the core of a problem or challenge. As the title suggests, the group defines a problems, then asks the question “why” five times, often using the resulting explanation as a starting point for creative problem solving.

5. World Cafe

World Cafe is a simple but powerful facilitation technique to help bigger groups to focus their energy and attention on solving complex problems.

World Cafe enables this approach by creating a relaxed atmosphere where participants are able to self-organize and explore topics relevant and important to them which are themed around a central problem-solving purpose. Create the right atmosphere by modeling your space after a cafe and after guiding the group through the method, let them take the lead!

Making problem-solving a part of your organization’s culture in the long term can be a difficult undertaking. More approachable formats like World Cafe can be especially effective in bringing people unfamiliar with workshops into the fold.

World Cafe #hyperisland #innovation #issue analysis World Café is a simple yet powerful method, originated by Juanita Brown, for enabling meaningful conversations driven completely by participants and the topics that are relevant and important to them. Facilitators create a cafe-style space and provide simple guidelines. Participants then self-organize and explore a set of relevant topics or questions for conversation.

6. Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)

One of the best approaches is to create a safe space for a group to share and discover practices and behaviors that can help them find their own solutions.

With DAD, you can help a group choose which problems they wish to solve and which approaches they will take to do so. It’s great at helping remove resistance to change and can help get buy-in at every level too!

This process of enabling frontline ownership is great in ensuring follow-through and is one of the methods you will want in your toolbox as a facilitator.

Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD) #idea generation #liberating structures #action #issue analysis #remote-friendly DADs make it easy for a group or community to discover practices and behaviors that enable some individuals (without access to special resources and facing the same constraints) to find better solutions than their peers to common problems. These are called positive deviant (PD) behaviors and practices. DADs make it possible for people in the group, unit, or community to discover by themselves these PD practices. DADs also create favorable conditions for stimulating participants’ creativity in spaces where they can feel safe to invent new and more effective practices. Resistance to change evaporates as participants are unleashed to choose freely which practices they will adopt or try and which problems they will tackle. DADs make it possible to achieve frontline ownership of solutions.

7. Design Sprint 2.0

Want to see how a team can solve big problems and move forward with prototyping and testing solutions in a few days? The Design Sprint 2.0 template from Jake Knapp, author of Sprint, is a complete agenda for a with proven results.

Developing the right agenda can involve difficult but necessary planning. Ensuring all the correct steps are followed can also be stressful or time-consuming depending on your level of experience.

Use this complete 4-day workshop template if you are finding there is no obvious solution to your challenge and want to focus your team around a specific problem that might require a shortcut to launching a minimum viable product or waiting for the organization-wide implementation of a solution.

8. Open space technology

Open space technology- developed by Harrison Owen – creates a space where large groups are invited to take ownership of their problem solving and lead individual sessions. Open space technology is a great format when you have a great deal of expertise and insight in the room and want to allow for different takes and approaches on a particular theme or problem you need to be solved.

Start by bringing your participants together to align around a central theme and focus their efforts. Explain the ground rules to help guide the problem-solving process and then invite members to identify any issue connecting to the central theme that they are interested in and are prepared to take responsibility for.

Once participants have decided on their approach to the core theme, they write their issue on a piece of paper, announce it to the group, pick a session time and place, and post the paper on the wall. As the wall fills up with sessions, the group is then invited to join the sessions that interest them the most and which they can contribute to, then you’re ready to begin!

Everyone joins the problem-solving group they’ve signed up to, record the discussion and if appropriate, findings can then be shared with the rest of the group afterward.

Open Space Technology #action plan #idea generation #problem solving #issue analysis #large group #online #remote-friendly Open Space is a methodology for large groups to create their agenda discerning important topics for discussion, suitable for conferences, community gatherings and whole system facilitation

Techniques to identify and analyze problems

Using a problem-solving method to help a team identify and analyze a problem can be a quick and effective addition to any workshop or meeting.

While further actions are always necessary, you can generate momentum and alignment easily, and these activities are a great place to get started.

We’ve put together this list of techniques to help you and your team with problem identification, analysis, and discussion that sets the foundation for developing effective solutions.

Let’s take a look!

The Creativity Dice
Fishbone Analysis
Problem Tree
SWOT Analysis
Agreement-Certainty Matrix
The Journalistic Six
LEGO Challenge
What, So What, Now What?
Journalists

Individual and group perspectives are incredibly important, but what happens if people are set in their minds and need a change of perspective in order to approach a problem more effectively?

Flip It is a method we love because it is both simple to understand and run, and allows groups to understand how their perspectives and biases are formed.

Participants in Flip It are first invited to consider concerns, issues, or problems from a perspective of fear and write them on a flip chart. Then, the group is asked to consider those same issues from a perspective of hope and flip their understanding.

No problem and solution is free from existing bias and by changing perspectives with Flip It, you can then develop a problem solving model quickly and effectively.

Flip It! #gamestorming #problem solving #action Often, a change in a problem or situation comes simply from a change in our perspectives. Flip It! is a quick game designed to show players that perspectives are made, not born.

10. The Creativity Dice

One of the most useful problem solving skills you can teach your team is of approaching challenges with creativity, flexibility, and openness. Games like The Creativity Dice allow teams to overcome the potential hurdle of too much linear thinking and approach the process with a sense of fun and speed.

In The Creativity Dice, participants are organized around a topic and roll a dice to determine what they will work on for a period of 3 minutes at a time. They might roll a 3 and work on investigating factual information on the chosen topic. They might roll a 1 and work on identifying the specific goals, standards, or criteria for the session.

Encouraging rapid work and iteration while asking participants to be flexible are great skills to cultivate. Having a stage for idea incubation in this game is also important. Moments of pause can help ensure the ideas that are put forward are the most suitable.

The Creativity Dice #creativity #problem solving #thiagi #issue analysis Too much linear thinking is hazardous to creative problem solving. To be creative, you should approach the problem (or the opportunity) from different points of view. You should leave a thought hanging in mid-air and move to another. This skipping around prevents premature closure and lets your brain incubate one line of thought while you consciously pursue another.

11. Fishbone Analysis

Organizational or team challenges are rarely simple, and it’s important to remember that one problem can be an indication of something that goes deeper and may require further consideration to be solved.

Fishbone Analysis helps groups to dig deeper and understand the origins of a problem. It’s a great example of a root cause analysis method that is simple for everyone on a team to get their head around.

Participants in this activity are asked to annotate a diagram of a fish, first adding the problem or issue to be worked on at the head of a fish before then brainstorming the root causes of the problem and adding them as bones on the fish.

Using abstractions such as a diagram of a fish can really help a team break out of their regular thinking and develop a creative approach.

Fishbone Analysis #problem solving ##root cause analysis #decision making #online facilitation A process to help identify and understand the origins of problems, issues or observations.

12. Problem Tree

Encouraging visual thinking can be an essential part of many strategies. By simply reframing and clarifying problems, a group can move towards developing a problem solving model that works for them.

In Problem Tree, groups are asked to first brainstorm a list of problems – these can be design problems, team problems or larger business problems – and then organize them into a hierarchy. The hierarchy could be from most important to least important or abstract to practical, though the key thing with problem solving games that involve this aspect is that your group has some way of managing and sorting all the issues that are raised.

Once you have a list of problems that need to be solved and have organized them accordingly, you’re then well-positioned for the next problem solving steps.

Problem tree #define intentions #create #design #issue analysis A problem tree is a tool to clarify the hierarchy of problems addressed by the team within a design project; it represents high level problems or related sublevel problems.

13. SWOT Analysis

Chances are you’ve heard of the SWOT Analysis before. This problem-solving method focuses on identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is a tried and tested method for both individuals and teams.

Start by creating a desired end state or outcome and bare this in mind – any process solving model is made more effective by knowing what you are moving towards. Create a quadrant made up of the four categories of a SWOT analysis and ask participants to generate ideas based on each of those quadrants.

Once you have those ideas assembled in their quadrants, cluster them together based on their affinity with other ideas. These clusters are then used to facilitate group conversations and move things forward.

SWOT analysis #gamestorming #problem solving #action #meeting facilitation The SWOT Analysis is a long-standing technique of looking at what we have, with respect to the desired end state, as well as what we could improve on. It gives us an opportunity to gauge approaching opportunities and dangers, and assess the seriousness of the conditions that affect our future. When we understand those conditions, we can influence what comes next.

14. Agreement-Certainty Matrix

Not every problem-solving approach is right for every challenge, and deciding on the right method for the challenge at hand is a key part of being an effective team.

The Agreement Certainty matrix helps teams align on the nature of the challenges facing them. By sorting problems from simple to chaotic, your team can understand what methods are suitable for each problem and what they can do to ensure effective results.

If you are already using Liberating Structures techniques as part of your problem-solving strategy, the Agreement-Certainty Matrix can be an invaluable addition to your process. We’ve found it particularly if you are having issues with recurring problems in your organization and want to go deeper in understanding the root cause.

Agreement-Certainty Matrix #issue analysis #liberating structures #problem solving You can help individuals or groups avoid the frequent mistake of trying to solve a problem with methods that are not adapted to the nature of their challenge. The combination of two questions makes it possible to easily sort challenges into four categories: simple, complicated, complex , and chaotic . A problem is simple when it can be solved reliably with practices that are easy to duplicate. It is complicated when experts are required to devise a sophisticated solution that will yield the desired results predictably. A problem is complex when there are several valid ways to proceed but outcomes are not predictable in detail. Chaotic is when the context is too turbulent to identify a path forward. A loose analogy may be used to describe these differences: simple is like following a recipe, complicated like sending a rocket to the moon, complex like raising a child, and chaotic is like the game “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” The Liberating Structures Matching Matrix in Chapter 5 can be used as the first step to clarify the nature of a challenge and avoid the mismatches between problems and solutions that are frequently at the root of chronic, recurring problems.

Organizing and charting a team’s progress can be important in ensuring its success. SQUID (Sequential Question and Insight Diagram) is a great model that allows a team to effectively switch between giving questions and answers and develop the skills they need to stay on track throughout the process.

Begin with two different colored sticky notes – one for questions and one for answers – and with your central topic (the head of the squid) on the board. Ask the group to first come up with a series of questions connected to their best guess of how to approach the topic. Ask the group to come up with answers to those questions, fix them to the board and connect them with a line. After some discussion, go back to question mode by responding to the generated answers or other points on the board.

It’s rewarding to see a diagram grow throughout the exercise, and a completed SQUID can provide a visual resource for future effort and as an example for other teams.

SQUID #gamestorming #project planning #issue analysis #problem solving When exploring an information space, it’s important for a group to know where they are at any given time. By using SQUID, a group charts out the territory as they go and can navigate accordingly. SQUID stands for Sequential Question and Insight Diagram.

16. Speed Boat

To continue with our nautical theme, Speed Boat is a short and sweet activity that can help a team quickly identify what employees, clients or service users might have a problem with and analyze what might be standing in the way of achieving a solution.

Methods that allow for a group to make observations, have insights and obtain those eureka moments quickly are invaluable when trying to solve complex problems.

In Speed Boat, the approach is to first consider what anchors and challenges might be holding an organization (or boat) back. Bonus points if you are able to identify any sharks in the water and develop ideas that can also deal with competitors!

Speed Boat #gamestorming #problem solving #action Speedboat is a short and sweet way to identify what your employees or clients don’t like about your product/service or what’s standing in the way of a desired goal.

17. The Journalistic Six

Some of the most effective ways of solving problems is by encouraging teams to be more inclusive and diverse in their thinking.

Based on the six key questions journalism students are taught to answer in articles and news stories, The Journalistic Six helps create teams to see the whole picture. By using who, what, when, where, why, and how to facilitate the conversation and encourage creative thinking, your team can make sure that the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the are covered exhaustively and thoughtfully. Reporter’s notebook and dictaphone optional.

The Journalistic Six – Who What When Where Why How #idea generation #issue analysis #problem solving #online #creative thinking #remote-friendly A questioning method for generating, explaining, investigating ideas.

18. LEGO Challenge

Now for an activity that is a little out of the (toy) box. LEGO Serious Play is a facilitation methodology that can be used to improve creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

The LEGO Challenge includes giving each member of the team an assignment that is hidden from the rest of the group while they create a structure without speaking.

What the LEGO challenge brings to the table is a fun working example of working with stakeholders who might not be on the same page to solve problems. Also, it’s LEGO! Who doesn’t love LEGO!

LEGO Challenge #hyperisland #team A team-building activity in which groups must work together to build a structure out of LEGO, but each individual has a secret “assignment” which makes the collaborative process more challenging. It emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, conflict, cooperation, patience and problem solving strategy.

19. What, So What, Now What?

If not carefully managed, the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the problem-solving process can actually create more problems and misunderstandings.

The What, So What, Now What? problem-solving activity is designed to help collect insights and move forward while also eliminating the possibility of disagreement when it comes to identifying, clarifying, and analyzing organizational or work problems.

Facilitation is all about bringing groups together so that might work on a shared goal and the best problem-solving strategies ensure that teams are aligned in purpose, if not initially in opinion or insight.

Throughout the three steps of this game, you give everyone on a team to reflect on a problem by asking what happened, why it is important, and what actions should then be taken.

This can be a great activity for bringing our individual perceptions about a problem or challenge and contextualizing it in a larger group setting. This is one of the most important problem-solving skills you can bring to your organization.

W³ – What, So What, Now What? #issue analysis #innovation #liberating structures You can help groups reflect on a shared experience in a way that builds understanding and spurs coordinated action while avoiding unproductive conflict. It is possible for every voice to be heard while simultaneously sifting for insights and shaping new direction. Progressing in stages makes this practical—from collecting facts about What Happened to making sense of these facts with So What and finally to what actions logically follow with Now What . The shared progression eliminates most of the misunderstandings that otherwise fuel disagreements about what to do. Voila!

20. Journalists

Problem analysis can be one of the most important and decisive stages of all problem-solving tools. Sometimes, a team can become bogged down in the details and are unable to move forward.

Journalists is an activity that can avoid a group from getting stuck in the problem identification or problem analysis stages of the process.

In Journalists, the group is invited to draft the front page of a fictional newspaper and figure out what stories deserve to be on the cover and what headlines those stories will have. By reframing how your problems and challenges are approached, you can help a team move productively through the process and be better prepared for the steps to follow.

Journalists #vision #big picture #issue analysis #remote-friendly This is an exercise to use when the group gets stuck in details and struggles to see the big picture. Also good for defining a vision.

Problem-solving techniques for developing solutions

The success of any problem-solving process can be measured by the solutions it produces. After you’ve defined the issue, explored existing ideas, and ideated, it’s time to narrow down to the correct solution.

Use these problem-solving techniques when you want to help your team find consensus, compare possible solutions, and move towards taking action on a particular problem.

Improved Solutions
Four-Step Sketch
15% Solutions
How-Now-Wow matrix
Impact Effort Matrix

21. Mindspin

Brainstorming is part of the bread and butter of the problem-solving process and all problem-solving strategies benefit from getting ideas out and challenging a team to generate solutions quickly.

With Mindspin, participants are encouraged not only to generate ideas but to do so under time constraints and by slamming down cards and passing them on. By doing multiple rounds, your team can begin with a free generation of possible solutions before moving on to developing those solutions and encouraging further ideation.

This is one of our favorite problem-solving activities and can be great for keeping the energy up throughout the workshop. Remember the importance of helping people become engaged in the process – energizing problem-solving techniques like Mindspin can help ensure your team stays engaged and happy, even when the problems they’re coming together to solve are complex.

MindSpin #teampedia #idea generation #problem solving #action A fast and loud method to enhance brainstorming within a team. Since this activity has more than round ideas that are repetitive can be ruled out leaving more creative and innovative answers to the challenge.

22. Improved Solutions

After a team has successfully identified a problem and come up with a few solutions, it can be tempting to call the work of the problem-solving process complete. That said, the first solution is not necessarily the best, and by including a further review and reflection activity into your problem-solving model, you can ensure your group reaches the best possible result.

One of a number of problem-solving games from Thiagi Group, Improved Solutions helps you go the extra mile and develop suggested solutions with close consideration and peer review. By supporting the discussion of several problems at once and by shifting team roles throughout, this problem-solving technique is a dynamic way of finding the best solution.

Improved Solutions #creativity #thiagi #problem solving #action #team You can improve any solution by objectively reviewing its strengths and weaknesses and making suitable adjustments. In this creativity framegame, you improve the solutions to several problems. To maintain objective detachment, you deal with a different problem during each of six rounds and assume different roles (problem owner, consultant, basher, booster, enhancer, and evaluator) during each round. At the conclusion of the activity, each player ends up with two solutions to her problem.

23. Four Step Sketch

Creative thinking and visual ideation does not need to be confined to the opening stages of your problem-solving strategies. Exercises that include sketching and prototyping on paper can be effective at the solution finding and development stage of the process, and can be great for keeping a team engaged.

By going from simple notes to a crazy 8s round that involves rapidly sketching 8 variations on their ideas before then producing a final solution sketch, the group is able to iterate quickly and visually. Problem-solving techniques like Four-Step Sketch are great if you have a group of different thinkers and want to change things up from a more textual or discussion-based approach.

Four-Step Sketch #design sprint #innovation #idea generation #remote-friendly The four-step sketch is an exercise that helps people to create well-formed concepts through a structured process that includes: Review key information Start design work on paper, Consider multiple variations , Create a detailed solution . This exercise is preceded by a set of other activities allowing the group to clarify the challenge they want to solve. See how the Four Step Sketch exercise fits into a Design Sprint

24. 15% Solutions

Some problems are simpler than others and with the right problem-solving activities, you can empower people to take immediate actions that can help create organizational change.

Part of the liberating structures toolkit, 15% solutions is a problem-solving technique that focuses on finding and implementing solutions quickly. A process of iterating and making small changes quickly can help generate momentum and an appetite for solving complex problems.

Problem-solving strategies can live and die on whether people are onboard. Getting some quick wins is a great way of getting people behind the process.

It can be extremely empowering for a team to realize that problem-solving techniques can be deployed quickly and easily and delineate between things they can positively impact and those things they cannot change.

15% Solutions #action #liberating structures #remote-friendly You can reveal the actions, however small, that everyone can do immediately. At a minimum, these will create momentum, and that may make a BIG difference. 15% Solutions show that there is no reason to wait around, feel powerless, or fearful. They help people pick it up a level. They get individuals and the group to focus on what is within their discretion instead of what they cannot change. With a very simple question, you can flip the conversation to what can be done and find solutions to big problems that are often distributed widely in places not known in advance. Shifting a few grains of sand may trigger a landslide and change the whole landscape.

25. How-Now-Wow Matrix

The problem-solving process is often creative, as complex problems usually require a change of thinking and creative response in order to find the best solutions. While it’s common for the first stages to encourage creative thinking, groups can often gravitate to familiar solutions when it comes to the end of the process.

When selecting solutions, you don’t want to lose your creative energy! The How-Now-Wow Matrix from Gamestorming is a great problem-solving activity that enables a group to stay creative and think out of the box when it comes to selecting the right solution for a given problem.

Problem-solving techniques that encourage creative thinking and the ideation and selection of new solutions can be the most effective in organisational change. Give the How-Now-Wow Matrix a go, and not just for how pleasant it is to say out loud.

How-Now-Wow Matrix #gamestorming #idea generation #remote-friendly When people want to develop new ideas, they most often think out of the box in the brainstorming or divergent phase. However, when it comes to convergence, people often end up picking ideas that are most familiar to them. This is called a ‘creative paradox’ or a ‘creadox’. The How-Now-Wow matrix is an idea selection tool that breaks the creadox by forcing people to weigh each idea on 2 parameters.

26. Impact and Effort Matrix

All problem-solving techniques hope to not only find solutions to a given problem or challenge but to find the best solution. When it comes to finding a solution, groups are invited to put on their decision-making hats and really think about how a proposed idea would work in practice.

The Impact and Effort Matrix is one of the problem-solving techniques that fall into this camp, empowering participants to first generate ideas and then categorize them into a 2×2 matrix based on impact and effort.

Activities that invite critical thinking while remaining simple are invaluable. Use the Impact and Effort Matrix to move from ideation and towards evaluating potential solutions before then committing to them.

Impact and Effort Matrix #gamestorming #decision making #action #remote-friendly In this decision-making exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas along these lines is a useful technique in decision making, as it obliges contributors to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing to them.

27. Dotmocracy

If you’ve followed each of the problem-solving steps with your group successfully, you should move towards the end of your process with heaps of possible solutions developed with a specific problem in mind. But how do you help a group go from ideation to putting a solution into action?

Dotmocracy – or Dot Voting -is a tried and tested method of helping a team in the problem-solving process make decisions and put actions in place with a degree of oversight and consensus.

One of the problem-solving techniques that should be in every facilitator’s toolbox, Dot Voting is fast and effective and can help identify the most popular and best solutions and help bring a group to a decision effectively.

Dotmocracy #action #decision making #group prioritization #hyperisland #remote-friendly Dotmocracy is a simple method for group prioritization or decision-making. It is not an activity on its own, but a method to use in processes where prioritization or decision-making is the aim. The method supports a group to quickly see which options are most popular or relevant. The options or ideas are written on post-its and stuck up on a wall for the whole group to see. Each person votes for the options they think are the strongest, and that information is used to inform a decision.

All facilitators know that warm-ups and icebreakers are useful for any workshop or group process. Problem-solving workshops are no different.

Use these problem-solving techniques to warm up a group and prepare them for the rest of the process. Activating your group by tapping into some of the top problem-solving skills can be one of the best ways to see great outcomes from your session.

Check-in/Check-out
Doodling Together
Show and Tell
Constellations
Draw a Tree

28. Check-in / Check-out

Solid processes are planned from beginning to end, and the best facilitators know that setting the tone and establishing a safe, open environment can be integral to a successful problem-solving process.

Check-in / Check-out is a great way to begin and/or bookend a problem-solving workshop. Checking in to a session emphasizes that everyone will be seen, heard, and expected to contribute.

If you are running a series of meetings, setting a consistent pattern of checking in and checking out can really help your team get into a groove. We recommend this opening-closing activity for small to medium-sized groups though it can work with large groups if they’re disciplined!

Check-in / Check-out #team #opening #closing #hyperisland #remote-friendly Either checking-in or checking-out is a simple way for a team to open or close a process, symbolically and in a collaborative way. Checking-in/out invites each member in a group to be present, seen and heard, and to express a reflection or a feeling. Checking-in emphasizes presence, focus and group commitment; checking-out emphasizes reflection and symbolic closure.

29. Doodling Together

Thinking creatively and not being afraid to make suggestions are important problem-solving skills for any group or team, and warming up by encouraging these behaviors is a great way to start.

Doodling Together is one of our favorite creative ice breaker games – it’s quick, effective, and fun and can make all following problem-solving steps easier by encouraging a group to collaborate visually. By passing cards and adding additional items as they go, the workshop group gets into a groove of co-creation and idea development that is crucial to finding solutions to problems.

Doodling Together #collaboration #creativity #teamwork #fun #team #visual methods #energiser #icebreaker #remote-friendly Create wild, weird and often funny postcards together & establish a group’s creative confidence.

30. Show and Tell

You might remember some version of Show and Tell from being a kid in school and it’s a great problem-solving activity to kick off a session.

Asking participants to prepare a little something before a workshop by bringing an object for show and tell can help them warm up before the session has even begun! Games that include a physical object can also help encourage early engagement before moving onto more big-picture thinking.

By asking your participants to tell stories about why they chose to bring a particular item to the group, you can help teams see things from new perspectives and see both differences and similarities in the way they approach a topic. Great groundwork for approaching a problem-solving process as a team!

Show and Tell #gamestorming #action #opening #meeting facilitation Show and Tell taps into the power of metaphors to reveal players’ underlying assumptions and associations around a topic The aim of the game is to get a deeper understanding of stakeholders’ perspectives on anything—a new project, an organizational restructuring, a shift in the company’s vision or team dynamic.

31. Constellations

Who doesn’t love stars? Constellations is a great warm-up activity for any workshop as it gets people up off their feet, energized, and ready to engage in new ways with established topics. It’s also great for showing existing beliefs, biases, and patterns that can come into play as part of your session.

Using warm-up games that help build trust and connection while also allowing for non-verbal responses can be great for easing people into the problem-solving process and encouraging engagement from everyone in the group. Constellations is great in large spaces that allow for movement and is definitely a practical exercise to allow the group to see patterns that are otherwise invisible.

Constellations #trust #connection #opening #coaching #patterns #system Individuals express their response to a statement or idea by standing closer or further from a central object. Used with teams to reveal system, hidden patterns, perspectives.

32. Draw a Tree

Problem-solving games that help raise group awareness through a central, unifying metaphor can be effective ways to warm-up a group in any problem-solving model.

Draw a Tree is a simple warm-up activity you can use in any group and which can provide a quick jolt of energy. Start by asking your participants to draw a tree in just 45 seconds – they can choose whether it will be abstract or realistic.

Once the timer is up, ask the group how many people included the roots of the tree and use this as a means to discuss how we can ignore important parts of any system simply because they are not visible.

All problem-solving strategies are made more effective by thinking of problems critically and by exposing things that may not normally come to light. Warm-up games like Draw a Tree are great in that they quickly demonstrate some key problem-solving skills in an accessible and effective way.

Draw a Tree #thiagi #opening #perspectives #remote-friendly With this game you can raise awarness about being more mindful, and aware of the environment we live in.

Each step of the problem-solving workshop benefits from an intelligent deployment of activities, games, and techniques. Bringing your session to an effective close helps ensure that solutions are followed through on and that you also celebrate what has been achieved.

Here are some problem-solving activities you can use to effectively close a workshop or meeting and ensure the great work you’ve done can continue afterward.

One Breath Feedback
Who What When Matrix
Response Cards

How do I conclude a problem-solving process?

All good things must come to an end. With the bulk of the work done, it can be tempting to conclude your workshop swiftly and without a moment to debrief and align. This can be problematic in that it doesn’t allow your team to fully process the results or reflect on the process.

At the end of an effective session, your team will have gone through a process that, while productive, can be exhausting. It’s important to give your group a moment to take a breath, ensure that they are clear on future actions, and provide short feedback before leaving the space.

The primary purpose of any problem-solving method is to generate solutions and then implement them. Be sure to take the opportunity to ensure everyone is aligned and ready to effectively implement the solutions you produced in the workshop.

Remember that every process can be improved and by giving a short moment to collect feedback in the session, you can further refine your problem-solving methods and see further success in the future too.

33. One Breath Feedback

Maintaining attention and focus during the closing stages of a problem-solving workshop can be tricky and so being concise when giving feedback can be important. It’s easy to incur “death by feedback” should some team members go on for too long sharing their perspectives in a quick feedback round.

One Breath Feedback is a great closing activity for workshops. You give everyone an opportunity to provide feedback on what they’ve done but only in the space of a single breath. This keeps feedback short and to the point and means that everyone is encouraged to provide the most important piece of feedback to them.

One breath feedback #closing #feedback #action This is a feedback round in just one breath that excels in maintaining attention: each participants is able to speak during just one breath … for most people that’s around 20 to 25 seconds … unless of course you’ve been a deep sea diver in which case you’ll be able to do it for longer.

34. Who What When Matrix

Matrices feature as part of many effective problem-solving strategies and with good reason. They are easily recognizable, simple to use, and generate results.

The Who What When Matrix is a great tool to use when closing your problem-solving session by attributing a who, what and when to the actions and solutions you have decided upon. The resulting matrix is a simple, easy-to-follow way of ensuring your team can move forward.

Great solutions can’t be enacted without action and ownership. Your problem-solving process should include a stage for allocating tasks to individuals or teams and creating a realistic timeframe for those solutions to be implemented or checked out. Use this method to keep the solution implementation process clear and simple for all involved.

Who/What/When Matrix #gamestorming #action #project planning With Who/What/When matrix, you can connect people with clear actions they have defined and have committed to.

35. Response cards

Group discussion can comprise the bulk of most problem-solving activities and by the end of the process, you might find that your team is talked out!

Providing a means for your team to give feedback with short written notes can ensure everyone is head and can contribute without the need to stand up and talk. Depending on the needs of the group, giving an alternative can help ensure everyone can contribute to your problem-solving model in the way that makes the most sense for them.

Response Cards is a great way to close a workshop if you are looking for a gentle warm-down and want to get some swift discussion around some of the feedback that is raised.

Response Cards #debriefing #closing #structured sharing #questions and answers #thiagi #action It can be hard to involve everyone during a closing of a session. Some might stay in the background or get unheard because of louder participants. However, with the use of Response Cards, everyone will be involved in providing feedback or clarify questions at the end of a session.

Save time and effort discovering the right solutions

A structured problem solving process is a surefire way of solving tough problems, discovering creative solutions and driving organizational change. But how can you design for successful outcomes?

With SessionLab, it’s easy to design engaging workshops that deliver results. Drag, drop and reorder blocks to build your agenda. When you make changes or update your agenda, your session timing adjusts automatically , saving you time on manual adjustments.

Collaborating with stakeholders or clients? Share your agenda with a single click and collaborate in real-time. No more sending documents back and forth over email.

Explore how to use SessionLab to design effective problem solving workshops or watch this five minute video to see the planner in action!

Over to you

The problem-solving process can often be as complicated and multifaceted as the problems they are set-up to solve. With the right problem-solving techniques and a mix of creative exercises designed to guide discussion and generate purposeful ideas, we hope we’ve given you the tools to find the best solutions as simply and easily as possible.

Is there a problem-solving technique that you are missing here? Do you have a favorite activity or method you use when facilitating? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!

thank you very much for these excellent techniques

Certainly wonderful article, very detailed. Shared!

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Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D.

Relationships

If I Want Advice, I’ll Ask for It

Despite wanting to give advice, it might not be beneficial..

Posted January 11, 2021 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

We have all been recipients of unsolicited and unwanted advice; conversely, most of us have also given advice when it was not requested. Even when a person directly asks, “What should I do?” that question may not be an invitation to give advice. Many times it is prompted by a desire to be listened to, elicit sympathy, or problem-solve by thinking out loud rather than solicit advice (Feng & Magen, 2015). Being on the receiving end of unsolicited advice can be unpleasant; e.g., frustrating, unhelpful (Smith & Goodnow, 1999). Giving unsolicited advice risks damaging our close relationships, and even our professional relationships. It risks marital/relational dissatisfaction and strife, rejection, and loneliness . Professionally, it may lead to ineffective leadership or become an obstacle to advancement.

Yet, if we are to be candid, most of us are likely to respond to the question of “What should I do?” with advice. We may do so even though there are clear red flags from the other person to stop talking (e.g., silence, irritation).

Why is giving advice, even when we know that it is unsolicited and unwanted, so alluring? There may be several reasons:

Interpersonal power: Schaerer and colleagues (2018) suggest that advice-giving may enhance the advisor’s sense of influence over others. These researchers studied advice-giving in organizational settings; however, their findings have relevance to personal relationships. Advice makes the advisor believe that they are able to influence the behavior of others. Schaerer et al. hypothesized and found that individuals with a high tendency to seek power were more likely to give advice than those with a low tendency. Giving advice was characterized as a “subtle route to a sense of power” (p.1).
Over-value our opinions/undervalue others: Ironically, advice-givers may be advice rejecters. Such individuals, correctly or incorrectly, believe in the superiority of their own opinions over what others have to say. Researchers describe this motivation for advice-rejection as “egocentric discounting,” a process where the person places heavy emphasis on their own ideas and discounts what others have to say (Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006). In close relationships, this may translate to the advice-giver’s belief that they know “better than” the other person about how to make decisions.
Relevance and identity as the problem-solver. Those who give unsolicited advice tend to do so to people with whom they feel close, or they may believe that the advice will enhance interpersonal intimacy through serving a needed role to the advisee (i.e., the advice-giver is the advisee’s problem-solver). The advice-giver feels important while the advisee may feel diminished. Consequently, and paradoxically, giving advice may disrupt or decrease intimacy with the advice-giver.
Prompting feelings of incompetence. At all ages, those who received unsolicited advice perceived it as unpleasant primarily because they thought they were viewed as incompetent (Smith & Goodnow, 1999).

Because of the damaging consequences inherent to giving unsolicited advice, assessing when to speak and when to remain silent are skills well-worth learning. Here are some useful methods to consider.

Critical self-assessment. Assess whether power or personal relevance are your motives for giving advice by asking yourself the following:

Is influencing another person often the reason why you give advice?
Do you discount the ability of others to form opinions?
Do you believe that you tend to know what is better for others than they do?
Is being the advice-giver and problem solver a prominent part of your self-identity?
Are most of your relationships with others characterized by your role as advice-giver?
Do you solicit advice from others, or do you tend not to share your problems and dilemmas?

Listen first, speak later. In order to know what another person wants when they appear to be seeking your opinion, do not put on your problem-solver hat. Don’t even ask, “Do you want me to give you an opinion or would you rather I just listen?” These questions may not be helpful. In fact, people’s social desirability impulses (e.g., being polite, pleasing) may lead the other person to say they were soliciting your opinion, even if that’s not what they wanted. Instead, consider asking, “What are your ideas on what to do?” This enhances their sense of competency through self-initiated problem-solving. Even if you have special expertise that they don’t, the pathway to their ability to integrate your opinions into action will be dependent on their ownership of the information that is given.

U nderstand the other person’s perspective. Consider engaging in perspective-taking . In other words, try to place yourself in the other person’s shoes so as to appreciate what they are experiencing. You may think you fully understand their problem, but many times we only have a snippet of understanding. Asking questions gives you a full picture, gives the recipient a sense of your genuine interest in them and their situation, and reduces the likelihood that they will feel irritated when you ultimately offer your opinion. Yaniv & Choshen-Hillel (2012) found that taking the perspective of others also reduces ego-centric discounting. Perspective-taking is also likely to enhance the advisee’s sense of you listening and being responsive to them. If the person genuinely wants your opinion, you will be able to give one that resonates with them, as it is based on their perspective and experience, not yours.

Admittedly, there may be instances when someone comes to you with the question, “What should I do?” and they really want your opinion. Don’t feel pressure to respond immediately and don’t worry that you will miss out on the opportunity to give useful and solicited advice. Listening, gathering information, understanding the situation, and providing an empathetic ear are all actions that enhance the usefulness and appreciation of the opinion given.

Bonaccio, S. & Dalal, R. S. (2006). Advice taking and decision-making: an integrative literature review, and implications for the organizational science. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 101 (2), 127-151. doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.07.001

Feng, B. & Magen, E. (2015). Relationship closeness predicts unsolicited advice-giving in supportive interactions. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 1, 1-17. DOI: 10.1177/0265407515592262

Schaerer, M., Tost, L. P., Huang, L., Gino, F. & Larrick, R. (2018). Advice giving: a subtle pathway to power. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44 (5), 746-761. doi.org/10.1177/0146167217746341

Smith, J., & Goodnow, J. J. (1999). Unasked-for support and unsolicited advice: Age and the quality of social experience. Psychology and Aging, 14 (1), 108–121. doi: 10.1037//0882-7974.14.1.108.

Yaniv, I. & Choshen-Hillel, S. (2012). When guessing what another person would say is better than giving your own opinion: using perspective-taking to improve advice-taking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48 (5), 1022-1028. DOI:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.03.016

Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D. , are psychology professors at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.

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They came for Florida's sun and sand. They got soaring costs and a culture war.

One of the first signs Barb Carter’s move to Florida wasn’t the postcard life she’d envisioned was the armadillo infestation in her home that caused $9,000 in damages. Then came a hurricane, ever present feuding over politics, and an inability to find a doctor to remove a tumor from her liver.

After a year in the Sunshine State, Carter packed her car with whatever belongings she could fit and headed back to her home state of Kansas — selling her Florida home at a $40,000 loss and leaving behind the children and grandchildren she’d moved to be closer to.

“So many people ask, ‘Why would you move back to Kansas?’ I tell them all the same thing — you’ve got to take your vacation goggles off,” Carter said. “For me, it was very falsely promoted. Once living there, I thought, you know, this isn’t all you guys have cracked this up to be, at all.”

Florida has had a population boom over the past several years, with more than 700,000 people moving there in 2022, and it was the second-fastest- growing state as of July 2023, according to Census Bureau data . While there are some indications that migration to the state has slowed from its pandemic highs, only Texas saw more one-way U-Haul moves into the state than Florida last year. Mortgage application data indicated there were nearly two homebuyers moving to Florida in 2023 for every one leaving, according to data analytics firm CoreLogic.

But while hundreds of thousands of new residents have flocked to the state on the promise of beautiful weather, no income tax and lower costs, nearly 500,000 left in 2022, according to the most recent census data. Contributing to their move was a perfect storm of soaring insurance costs, a hostile political environment, worsening traffic and extreme weather, according to interviews with more than a dozen recent transplants and longtime residents who left the state in the past two years.

A demonstrator holds a placard reading "Ban Hate" during a 'Walkout 2 Learn' rally

“It wasn’t the utopia on any level that I thought it would be,” said Jodi Cummings, who moved to Florida from Connecticut in 2021. “I thought Florida would be an easier lifestyle, I thought the pace would be a little bit quieter, I thought it would be warmer. I didn’t expect it to be literally 100 degrees at night. It was incredibly difficult to make friends, and it was expensive, very expensive.”

Cummings expected she’d have extra money in her paycheck working as a private chef in the Palm Beach area since the state doesn’t have an income tax. But the high costs of car insurance, rent and food cut into that additional take-home pay. After six months of dealing with South Florida’s heat and traffic, she began planning a move back to the Northeast.

“I had been so disenchanted with Florida so quickly,” Cummings said. “There was this feeling of confusion and guilt about wanting to leave, of moving there then realizing this is not anything like I thought it would be.”

A window air conditioning unit during a heat wave in Miami

While costs have been rising across the country, some areas of Florida have been hit particularly hard. In the South Florida region, which includes Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, consumer prices in February were up nearly 5% over the prior year, compared to 3.2% nationally , according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Homeowners insurance rates in Florida rose 42% last year to an average of $6,000 annually, driven by hurricanes and climate change , and car insurance in Florida is more than 50% higher than the national average, according to the Insurance Information Institute. While once seen as an affordable housing market, Florida is now among the more expensive states to buy a home in, with prices up 60% since 2020 to an average of $388,500, according to Zillow.

For Carter, who made the move in 2022 from Kansas to a suburb of Orlando for the weather, beaches and to be closer to her grandchildren, the costs began to quickly pile up. She purchased a manufactured home and initially expected the lot rent in her community to be $580 a month. But when she arrived she learned her monthly bill was actually $750, and by the time she left it had jumped to $875 a month. Along with the $9,000 in repairs from the armadillos, her car insurance doubled and Hurricane Ian destroyed her home’s roof on her 62nd birthday.

A aerial view of a man wading through a flooded street.

There were also the ever-present conversations and disagreements over politics that started to wear on her. Carter, who describes herself as a “middle of the road” Republican, said she learned to keep her opinions to herself.

“You cannot engage in a conversation there without politics coming up, it is just crazy. We’re retired, we’re supposed to be in our fun time of life,” she said. “I learned quickly, just keep your mouth shut, because I saw people in my own community break up their friendships over it. I don’t like losing friends, and especially over politics.”

A supporter of President Joe Biden faces supporters of Donald Trump outside of the courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla., where Trump attended a hearing in his classified records case on March 14.

But she said the final straw was when she couldn’t find a surgeon to remove a 6-inch tumor from her liver that doctors warned could burst at any moment and lead to life-threatening sepsis. After being passed among doctors, she finally found one willing to remove the tumor. But when she called to schedule the surgery, her calls went unanswered and her messages weren’t returned. After months of trying and fearing for her life, she returned to Kansas to have the procedure done.“It just seemed like one challenge after another, but I kept with it until there was literally a lifesaving event that I needed to get handled and I wasn’t able to do it there,” she said. “I think it was the most difficult year of my life.”

No state has had more residents relocate to Florida in recent years than New York, with 90,000 New Yorkers moving there in 2022, according to census data. Among all out-of-state mortgage applicants, nearly 9% were from New York in 2023, slightly lower than the previous two years but similar to 2019, according to CoreLogic. One of those New York transplants was Louis Rotkowitz. He lasted less than two years in Florida.

“Like every good New Yorker, this is where you want to go,” he said by phone while driving the last of his belongings out of the state to his new home in Charlotte, North Carolina. “It’s a complete fallacy.”

After years working in emergency medicine, and nearly dying from a Covid-19 infection he contracted at work, Rotkowitz said he and his wife were looking for a more pleasant, affordable lifestyle and warmer weather when they decided to buy a house in the West Palm Beach area in 2022. He got a job there as a primary care physician and his wife took a teaching position.

But he said he quickly found the Florida he’d moved to wasn’t the one he’d experienced on regular visits there over the years. His commute to work often took more than an hour each way, he struggled to get basic services like a dishwasher repair, and the cost of his homeowners association fees doubled.

“I had a good salary, but we were barely making ends meet. We had zero quality of life,” said Rotkowitz.

Along with the rising costs, Rotkowitz said he generally felt unsafe in the state between the erratic traffic — which resulted in a number of his patients being injured by vehicles — and a state law passed in 2023 that allowed people to carry a concealed weapon without a license.

A handgun is inventoried at store that sells guns in Delray Beach

“Everyone is walking around with guns there,” he said. “I consider myself a conservative guy, but if you want to carry a gun you should be licensed, there should be some sort of process.”

Veronica Blaski, who moved to Florida from Connecticut, said rising costs drove her out of the state after less than three years. When at the start of the pandemic her husband was offered a job in Florida making more money as a manager for a landscaping company, Blaski envisioned warm weather and a more comfortable lifestyle.

The couple, both in their 40s, sold their home in Connecticut and were starting to settle into their new community when Blaski said they were hit with a “bulldozer” of costs at the start of 2023.

Her homeowners insurance company threatened to drop her coverage if she didn’t replace her home’s 9-year-old roof, a $16,000 to $30,000 project, and even with a new roof, she was expecting her home insurance rates to double — one neighbor saw their insurance go from $600 a month to $1,200 a month.

She was also facing rising property taxes as the value of her home increased, her homeowners association fees went from $326 a month to $480, and her insurance agent warned that her car insurance would likely double when it was time to renew her policy. Her husband had to get a second job on weekends to cover the higher costs.

While Florida has an unemployment rate below the national average, Blaski and others said wages weren’t enough to keep up with their expenses. The median salary in Florida is among the lowest in the country, according to payroll processor ADP. To afford a home in one of Florida’s more affordable metro areas, like Jacksonville, a homebuyer would need to earn $109,000 a year, around twice as much income as a buyer would have needed just four years ago, according to an analysis by Zillow.

“My little part-time job making $600, $700 a month went to paying either car insurance or homeowners insurance, and forget about groceries,” said Blaski, who was working in retail. “There are all these hidden things that people don’t know about. Make sure you have extra money saved somewhere because you will need it.”

When her husband’s former boss in Connecticut reached out to see if he’d be willing to return, the couple leaped at the chance.

The reverse migration out of Florida isn’t just among newcomers, but also among longtime residents who said they can no longer afford to live there and are uncomfortable with the state’s increasingly conservative policies, which in recent years have included a crackdown on undocumented immigrants, a ban on transgender care for minors, state interventions in how race , slavery and sexuality are taught in schools, and a six-week ban on abortions .

After more than three decades in the Tampa Bay area, Donna Smith left the state for Pennsylvania in December, with politics and rising insurance costs playing a major role in her decision to leave.

“It breaks my heart, it really does, because Florida was really a pretty great place when I first moved there,” Smith said.

Having grown up in Oklahoma, Smith considered herself a Republican, but as Florida’s politics shifted to the right, she said she began to consider herself a Democrat. It wasn’t until the past several years, though, that politics started to encroach on her daily life — from feuds between neighbors and friends to neo-Nazis showing up at a Black Lives Matter rally in her small town.

“When I first moved to Florida, it was a live-and-let-live sort of beach feel. You met people from all over, everybody was relaxed. That’s just gone now, and it’s shocking. It’s just gone,” said Smith, 61, who works as a graphic designer and illustrator. “Instead, it’s just a constant stressful atmosphere. I feel as though it could ignite at any point, and I’m not a fearmonger. It’s just the atmosphere, the feeling there.”

She was already considering a move out of the state when she was told by her homeowners insurance company that she would need to replace her home’s roof because it was older than four years or her insurance premium would be going up to $12,000 a year from $3,600, which was already double what she had been paying. Even with a new roof, she was told her premium would be $6,900 a year. Before she could make a decision about what to do, her insurance policy was canceled.

Shortly after, Smith ended up moving to the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, area, where she is closer to her adult children. While the majority of voters in her new county chose Donald Trump in the last election, she said politics is no longer such a heavy presence in her everyday life.

“I don’t feel it is as oppressive. People don’t wear it on their sleeve like they did in Florida,” she said. “When you walk in a room, you don’t overhear a conversation all the time where people are saying ‘Trump is the best’ or ‘I went to that last rally,’ and they’re telling total strangers while you’re just waiting for your car or something. It was just everywhere.”

A supporter of Donald Trump wears a Trump bust jewelry.

Costs and politics were also enough to cause Noelle Schmitz to leave the state after more than 30 years, despite her son having a year left in high school, and relocate to Winchester, Virginia. She said the politics became ever-present in her daily life — one former neighbor had a massive Trump banner in front of their house for years, and another had Trump written in big letters across their yard. When she put out a Hillary Clinton sign in 2016, it was stolen and her house was egged.“I saw my neighbors and co-workers become more radicalized, more aggressive and more angry about politics. I’m thinking, where is this coming from? These are not the people I remember,” Schmitz said. “I was finally like, we need to get the hell out of here, things are not going well.”

For some Florida newcomers though, politics is the main draw to the state, said John Desautels, who has sold real estate in Florida for decades. While politics never used to be a topic for homebuyers, Desautels said it is now a regular subject his clients bring up. Rather than asking about schools or amenities in a community, prospective buyers are asking him about the political affiliations of a certain neighborhood.

“One of the first things they say is, ‘I don’t want to be in one of them X or Y political party neighborhoods,’” Desautels said. “I spend hours listening to people vent to me about fleeing the communist government of XYZ and they want to come to freedom or whatever. So the politics have been the biggest issue when we get the call.”

Even home showings have become a politically sensitive issue. He recalled showing an elderly woman one property where there were Confederate flags at the gate and swastikas on the fish tank.

But while politics are a lure to people arriving in the state, he said they’re also among the reasons sellers tell him they’re leaving, and the state’s politics have deterred some of his gay or nonwhite clients from moving there.

“The problem is, when we alienate protected classes, it sounds like a good sound bite, but you’ve got to remember those are people who spend money in our community,” he said. “For this pro-business, free state, I’m feeling it in the wallet, bad.”

In Kansas, Carter says it’s good to be home. She moved into a 55-plus community in a small town about 10 miles from Wichita. While in Florida she was paying nearly $900 in lot rent for her manufactured home, she now pays just $520 in rent for a cottage-style apartment — a place she estimates would have cost her $1,800 a month in Florida.

With the money she’s saving in Kansas, she can afford to visit Florida.

“People call me the modern-day Dorothy,” she said. “There’s no place like home.”

An aerial view of a vehicle driving along a flooded street.

Shannon Pettypiece is senior policy reporter for NBC News digital.

IMAGES

How to Ask Problem-Solving Questions
What Is Problem-Solving? Steps, Processes, Exercises to do it Right
5 step problem solving method
7 Steps to Improve Your Problem Solving Skills
8 Steps For Effective Problem Solving
How to improve your problem solving skills and strategies

VIDEO

Problem Solving IQ Pedestal
Solving one problem at a time. #satire #elementaryschool #schoollunch
How To Develop Analytical & Problem Solving Skills ?
Lean Coach: Problem Solving Coaching / Avoiding Jumping to Solutions
Problem Solving Skills #motivation #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalillness #psychology
Solving JEE Advance Questions 1/6

COMMENTS

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Problem-solving involves taking certain steps and using psychological strategies. Learn problem-solving techniques and how to overcome obstacles to solving problems. ... Analyze the problem you face, looking at it from all sides. If your problem is relationship-related, for instance, ask yourself how the other person may be interpreting the ...
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The main stages of problem-solving are outlined below, though not all are required for every problem that needs to be solved. 1. Define the Problem. Clarify the problem before trying to solve it. A common mistake with problem-solving is to react to what the problem appears to be, rather than what it actually is.
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Although problem-solving is a skill in its own right, a subset of seven skills can help make the process of problem-solving easier. These include analysis, communication, emotional intelligence, resilience, creativity, adaptability, and teamwork. 1. Analysis. As a manager, you'll solve each problem by assessing the situation first.
8 Common Problem-Solving Interview Questions and Answers
2. Tell me about a time when you faced an unexpected challenge at work. Tip: For this question, you'll want to choose a specific example from your work history to demonstrate your ability to be flexible while solving problems. To stay focused, you can use the STAR method to answer this question.
What Are Problem-Solving Skills? Definitions and Examples
When employers talk about problem-solving skills, they are often referring to the ability to handle difficult or unexpected situations in the workplace as well as complex business challenges. Organizations rely on people who can assess both kinds of situations and calmly identify solutions. Problem-solving skills are traits that enable you to ...
4 Types of Questions Leaders Should Ask to Improve Team Problem-Solving
1.Questions for Clarifying the Issue. A team issue can be defined as a problem, obstacle, barrier, idea, or opportunity for the team, a client or the organization. Too often leaders become ...
If I Want Advice, I'll Ask for It
Even when a person directly asks, "What should I do?" that question may not be an invitation to give advice. ... or problem-solve by thinking out loud rather than solicit advice (Feng & Magen ...
10 Proven Problem-solving Interview Questions [+Answers]
5. Recall a time when you successfully used crisis-management skills. This question assesses candidates' ability to remain calm and make effective decisions under pressure. Look for their problem-solving approach and their ability to handle high-stress situations.
What is problem-solving and why is it important?
When you ask people to solve problems, you should give them some ideas on how to do it. You may also stimulate them to think of some other positive behaviours. Problem-solving the mark of an ...
They came for Florida's sun and sand. They got soaring costs and a
Economics. They came for Florida's sun and sand. They got soaring costs and a culture war. Florida has seen a population boom in recent years, but many longtime residents and recent transplants ...