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Welcome to Future-state Thinking, my weekly newsletter where I give actionable content, insights and tools for business and personal growth from my experience as an innovator and entrepreneur.
If you’re looking for my Cheat Sheets and Infographic PDFs, the vault is at the bottom of this email!
Hi Reader,
“If I had one hour to solve a problem, I would spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about the solution.”
— Albert Einstein
The Key, the Lock, and the Door
Imagine you’re struggling to open a locked door. You search for the perfect key, trying different shapes and angles, convinced that the right fit is within reach.
But what if the real problem isn’t the key at all?
What if the door opens in the opposite direction? Or isn’t locked in the first place? Or maybe you’re trying to enter the wrong room entirely.
Many organisations approach problem-solving this way. They focus all their energy on refining solutions – making a better key – without questioning whether they are solving the right problem in the first place.
Innovation doesn’t start with great ideas. It starts with understanding the problem behind the problem.
How Omega Soundscapes Used Problem Framing to Solve Declining Sales
To demonstrate a useful process for problem framing, let’s consider the composite firm Omega Soundscapes from the recent HBR article.
Omega, a premium headphone manufacturer, experienced a sharp sales decline over two consecutive quarters. Leadership initially attributed this to a recent price increase, assuming affordability concerns drove customers to competitors. Instead of acting on this assumption, Omega applied problem framing to fully understand the issue before making strategic decisions.
They assembled a cross-functional team from sales, marketing, R&D, customer service, and external consultants to conduct frame-storming, which explores multiple ways to define a problem. Instead of focusing solely on pricing, they examined all aspects like customer preferences, competition, product quality, brand perception, and distribution challenges.
Using the iceberg model to delve into root causes, Omega identified declining brand loyalty as a more profound issue. A detailed review of customer feedback revealed that a recent cost-cutting shift in manufacturing had impacted product quality. Additionally, Omega’s shift toward direct online sales had weakened its retail partnerships, reducing in-store product exposure.
To empathise, Omega used empathy mapping to understand stakeholder perspectives. Customers felt the value no longer justified the price, retailers struggled with weak in-store demand, and investors worried about brand erosion.
To zoom out and consider wider organisational issues they took a bird’s eye view using these four lenses of political, people, structural and symbolic. From the internal analysis using the four-frame model further revealed misalignment between R&D and marketing, demotivated sales teams, and limited promotional efforts due to financial constraints.
Rather than reacting with a price cut, Omega used backcasting to design a structured turnaround. Immediate actions included a quality audit and restoring key retail partnerships. Medium-term efforts focused on brand messaging and cross-functional collaboration, while long-term plans included developing a next-generation product aligned with evolving customer needs.
As you can see, this process has similarities to that of the DUCTRI process. Using a combination of divergent and convergent phases to arrive at a better informed point of view about the problem.
I’d recommend that the exploration is first step and then the problem-framing or at least a check-in that the problem is still the problem before moving on to back-casting.
The DUCTRI Playbook provides other proven tools to explore and make sense of complex problems, to create ideas and to run experiments. Backcasting is also a key tool when resourcing and implementing innovative ideas.
Regardless of the process, when you deeply understand the problem, you are more likely to be starting from a more insightful and effective point to focus effort and resources.
“If I had one hour to solve a problem, I would spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about the solution.” – Albert Einstein
Interestingly, there’s a recent nod to understanding the problem better from the startup world with the release of the new book Click by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky – Sprint book authors.
After helping hundreds of startups using the design sprint method they recognised that not all ventures were ready for a design sprint and many were needing a ‘foundation sprint’ – focusing on aspects like the customer, the problem, competitors etc.
As experience design thinker Danny Seals said in a recent post “Maybe a better way is to think of sprints is to do ‘sprints in your design’ rather than do ‘design sprints’.
Call to Action
In the current business environment leaders face constant change and complex problems which demands more agile and effective ways of problem solving.
Organisations must consider implementing systems which help support curiosity, creativity and clarity.
Leaders should reflect on how they can carve out time and space for them and their teams to build creative problem solving mindsets and capability.
Are we solving the problem behind the problem?
See you next week,
Vaughan
Until next week, happy innovating.
And, keep future-state thinking.
Vaughan
Helping 35,230 smart people learn human-centred innovation
PS: Enjoy the newsletter? Why not forward to a friend. Thanks!
P.S. Want to really unlock your innovation and impact potential even more?
There are a few ways we can help:
- Grab your practical resource. Join 110+ smart people on the waitlist for The DUCTRI Playbook, a simple and proven way to unlock human-centred innovation. Available early 2025.
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- Need help now? Contact me here for design thinking consulting, workshops and training (limited availability).
Vaughan’s Vault:
P.S… As promised on LinkedIn, click the button for my cheat sheets on innovation, strategy, and more!
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