We all have problems. So, why are good problems so hard to find?
To understand a problem clearly, we need to know both the goal (what is desired) and the barrier (what is currently keeping us from getting the goal.
Defining a clear problem that we can act on, requires us to keep asking, "What can't this happen now?"
If you are interested in innovation, you probably already know that you can only develop a new opportunity if you are able to find and solve an important problem. And yet, although there are lots of problems out there in the world, it is surprisingly difficult to find good problems to work on. Why? Very few people actually know how to clearly define the problem so it can be worked on.
So, what is a problem?
A problem is a situation that we want to improve, but something is getting in the way.
It’s important to realize that this definition has two parts, because a problem always has two parts:
First, there’s a desired future state—how we wish things could be.
Second, there’s a barrier (or many barriers) preventing us from getting to that desired future.
Let’s call the desired future situation our goal, and the thing getting in the way, a barrier.
We could use lots of other words, but for simplicity, we’ll stick with these two when we talk about problems.
Most of the time, when people talk about problems, they fail to see both parts.
Or they only describe one part and assume the other is obvious.
Remember:
Goals without understanding barriers are dreams.
And dreaming is fun.
Barriers without knowing the desired goals are complaints.
And complaining is also fun—maybe even more fun than dreaming.
But, if we are going to understand a problem well enough to act on it, we need to understand both goals and the barriers that prevent them from happening.
For example, people often complain, “I don’t have enough money,” or “I don’t have enough time.”
If you had more money, what would you do? What better situation—what goal—would you achieve?
You might say, “I’d travel more.”
OK, we now have the minimum requirement for a problem: we have a goal and a barrier. Our simple problem statement would be: I would like to travel more (goal), but I don't have enough money or time (barrier).
Is that good enough?
Let's stress-test this statement. Ask the question, "why can't this happen now?" If you try to answer this question, it will force you to adjust either your definition of the goal or your definition of the barrier. In either case, your statement should become clearer and more specific.
So, why can't you go on a trip now? I don't have enough money.
How much do you have? THB 60K (about USD 2,000).
You can travel from Bangkok to Japan for that amount of money, or Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore. I have been to those places already. I want to go to Europe.
The goal has just changed.
You could still travel to Europe for THB60K. I want to travel business class and stay in luxury hotels. I want to go every year.
The goal is changing, and so is the barrier (the amount of needed money is increasing).
We can keep exploring different situations:
Get a job that pays me to fly to Europe. I need to get the right qualifications for that job.
Get married to somebody who is rich. I need to find a rich boyfriend or girlfriend.
Become an Internet influencer who reviews fancy hotels. I don't know how to start.
...
Keep going until the problem becomes actionable or until you begin to realize that the problem is not worth it after all. Time to seek out a new problem to work on.
As always, iteration is a superpower, so you will need to go through many rounds to get to a problem statement that works. For every iteration, you will adjust either the goal, the barrier, or both.
When do we stop? How do we know when we have iterated enough? The answer: when we reach one of the following two outcomes:
We have a clearly defined problem (goal and barrier) that we can act on to solve.
We stop because the effort to continue isn't worth it.
Not all problems can be solved. Many problems aren't worth solving.
Finding good problems worth working on takes effort and exploration.
If we’re going to solve any problem, we need to:
Clearly understand the goal.
Clearly understand the barrier.
Make sure the barrier is preventing the goal.
Keep asking ourselves, "why can't I do this now?"
Keep doing that until we have something we can act on, or we decide it is not worth the effort to keep going.
Yeah, this takes a lot of work. Make sure you start with problems that are really important.