Simple Steps to Problem Solving

I was reading a programming concepts textbook today and I came across this list that I thought might be useful for real life problems. The headings come from the book Problem Solving and Programming Concepts. The commentary is mine.  I’m sure you can take and port these concepts to your own line of work or life issues.

1. Identify the problem

Have you ever sat in a meeting and everyone wants to talk about problems? I’ve enduring countless meetings where problems were identified, but nothing was ever done to solve the problem. It’s easy to be a critic. Everyone has the ability to identify that a problem exists.

For instance, I set up Google Apps for our church recently. The secretary was accessing her email from two different clients. Even though we left all the mail on the server, she was only receiving some mail in one, but not in the other. She knew what the problem was about, but she had no idea what the problem actually was technically.

Get a room full of intelligent people and you can get a list as long of problems as long as your arm in just a matter of moments. It’s in our nature to find what’s wrong with a process or a person. It take much more character and brain power to get beyond finding problems to understanding problems.

2. Understand the problem

We expend enormous amounts of energy over time worrying about issues and problems when we don’t understand. For example, many people worry about taxes because they’re afraid of the system and rightly so – the tax code is 78,000 pages long. It is impossible for one person to completely understand the tax code. This is one extreme situation.

When I’m presented with a problem of an unknown subject, the first thing I do is start researching. Self-education is my weapon against worry. If I don’t understand something, I learn about it. Learning about a problem helps you get a high ground vantage point of the problem. You cannot even begin to identify a solution until you grasp what the problem is about. Take time to learn by asking others who have encountered the same problem, stopping by Barnes and Nobles, searching the Internet, or whatever means you find to understanding. Understanding can only come through knowledge.

3. Identify solutions

Once you properly grasp the extremities of the problem, it’s time to get to work on solutions. Depending on the problem, much of this will be trial and error. I find it is most efficient when I make a list of possible solutions with pros and cons. Solutions can be gathered through research, debate, conversations, or just nitty gritty logical conclusions.

Like I said before, it’s easy for a group of people in a meeting to identify that there is a problem. It’s hard work to create solutions to fix the problems. It is my feeling that meetings should mandate a solution for every problem that is identified before its conclusion. Don’t just be “one of those people” that always find problems. Couple your problem finding skills with positive solutions.

4. Select the best solution

I find it’s best to make a contingency list of things that might go wrong and compare the solutions to my contingency list. With this approach, you can see which solution will solve the most aspects of the problem. Here is a simple chart I created to illustrate a comparison table to visualize the best solution.

5. Prepare a list of instructions

Finding the best solution is where a lot of people end the conversation. I remember a young man came to me and asked my advice on a problem he was having in his personal life. The issue was with anger and sudden outbursts when dealing with mean kids at school. We went through steps 1-4 after an hour of conversation. The most impacting thing we did was take out a piece of paper, cut it down to wallet size, and write a few simple steps to implement the solution.  The simple, elementary list of instructions was something similar to the following:

1. Quickly walk away from situation to somewhere private.
2. Take three deep breaths.
3. Close your eyes and ask God to give you peace.
4. Quote Philippians 4:13 out loud.
5. Don’t say a word to the kids who provoke you.

It sounds silly to some people, but not to this young man. It gave him an offensive plan of action and more importantly power over his situation. He didn’t feel helpless anymore because he could pull out his list and follow the simple steps. If this simple instruction sheet empowered a young man, imagine what an ordered list of implementation actions could do for you personally or for your team.

Simple instructions give direction. Proverbs 28:19 says “Where there is no vision (direction, instructions) the people perish.” Paralysis sets in quickly when people don’t have a plan of action. You can either make or break yourself or your team by creating/not creating simple attainable steps to solve your problems.

6. Evaluate the solution

A plan of action should never be cast in concrete. It should be a living document that constantly evolves until the problem is solved correctly. Rarely do we find solutions to complex problems that work the first time. Thomas Edison tried hundreds and hundreds of solutions until the problem was finally solved.

Don’t give up on the process, refine it as you go. Step back from your emotional investment and analyze the effectiveness of your solution. For pastors and youth ministers, this means intense followup after dealing with people situations. Without proper evaluation, we just create more problems than we started with in the first place.