by Tom Cloyd (reviewed 2024-05-02)
Most of the time, when we solve a problem, we do it quickly and without much thought. However, when the consequences of a decision are serious, a casual approach risks disaster. The alternative is to go forward more slowly, using methods we can expect to help us get better results - methods validated by the experience of other people faced with critical decisions. These methods are well known and can be learned easily.
This whole section on problem-solving is being developed as material for an online class on this subject. This means that what you are reading is a preliminary draft. There may be significant changes - improvements - made in the very near future, but much of it is pretty close to final form.
The class will be interactive and discussion will be a key part of the process. This will likely lead to improvements in how the material is presented. At the same time, know that I have used this material and process on multiple occasions in the past - personally and with some of my counseling clients - and know that the structure is well designed and the process does work.
The problem solving process described here is well-known in the professional business and technology worlds, because there urgent problems are frequently encountered, and good procedures for solving them are essential.
These procedures are formal, which is to say a) carefully described, b) designed to provoke careful thought, and c) more cautious and slow than the methods people more often use. This means that if one is unable to be thoughtful and methodical these methods will likely be of little use.
A major feature of the procedure is that steps are carefully laid out and described. Because they are formally listed, skipping something important is prevented.
You should pause at this point and pay attention to a striking fact: Such formal procedures are used in major surgeries in hospitals, and in the cockpit of major airliners before takeoff and landing. In both situations, serious mistakes have serious consequences. If this procedure has been found to have benefits in these situations, and your situation is also a critical one, you should do what surgeons and commercial and military pilots do: employ a formal decision making procedure to minimize risk of failure and increase likelihood of success.
The procedure we will be learning and using here allows a problem-solver to focus on part of the process and, for a time, ignore the other parts. This limited focus brings one’s full mental powers each part of the process, in sequence. It is a known limitation of human cognition that what we can pay attention to at any point in time is distinctly limited. Recognizing this, and adapting to this reality, is wise.
The process does not have a bias about what constitutes a good solution, other than this: the solution that is determined to be the best will be that which best reflects the desires and values of the problem solver. At the end of the procedure, it is most often clear that the chosen solution is simply the result of a careful consideration of the problem solver’s concerns, their particular situation, and their individual values. In hindsight, the indicated “best” solution will make sense, even if in the beginning the process and its outcome is anything but clear.
Your problem may be fairly simple. An example might be that you need to buy a car that will be economical to acquire and use. This is a single problem with two aspects: acquisition and maintenance.
Alternatively, your problem may be a situation in which more than one sub-problem can be identified. An example might be that you need to get from where you live to some distant location, and that will require a means of transportation, plus money for the trip, plus a route that is safe and efficient. This is really 3 separate, although related, problems.
If, upon reflection, you see that your problem has distinct and critical subproblems, then you actually have a sequence of problems to solve, and must approach the matter that way.
Research on people solving real-world problems has revealed a number of mistakes they usually make. Three of the most critical ones are:
Failure to search carefully for solution possibiliities. They do not look diligently enough for possible solutions because they are over-focused on relieving the anxiety of not yet having a solution.
Failure to thoughtfully evaluate possible solutions. They decide on a solution well before all solutions have been carefully evaluated, because they simply don’t have a usable way to do this evaluation.
Failure to do a competent evaluation of solution possibilites. They do not evaluate possible solutions considering all aspects of the problem, because they do not have a format for doing this problem/solution evaluation.
Problem solving is complicated. It often exceeds the functional capacity of our mind because the wealth of information involved is almost always greater than can easily held at one time in our awareness. The result is that we lose track of information, or just ignore some of it. This does NOT produce a better solution, compared to doing things retaining valuable information and making good use of it.
This procedure described is structured to avoid these mistakes, and this is a major reason why it works so well. It is a simplified, easily-understood version of a process that can be quite complex but usually works well when applied in simple form.
Part 1: Describing the problem, and finding possible solutions
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