How to identify problems to make decisions better
Practical ways how to identify problems and to decide the solution with some methods of problem-solving
As human beings, we face problems in our daily life. Those can encounter in our schools, jobs, people, or anything. We all have to make decisions and problems that we need to solve. The complexity of that problems may vary. It can be so simple or so complicated that needs so much analysis and strategy to solve it. Whether it is about your personal life such as improving your body health or your professional life such as finding your dream job.
Based on World Economic Forum, problem-solving skills are top the list of the top 10 skills of 2025. These have been consistent since the first report in 2016.
According to the report of the top 10 skills half of them are the skills that categorize as problem-solving skills (the blue one). This happened because problem-solving is a skill that is needed in almost every job in the world. Alas, it’s not only for work but also for our daily basis as I mentioned before.
Considering this situation, I write this article to share with you what is a problem-solving technic to solve your problem and make a better decision. Fyi, I’m writing this not because I’m really good at problem-solving but because I just want to share what I have learned. Maybe some of you will find it helpful and also remind myself.
To be able to solve a problem, the first thing that you need to do is to understand the situation and find the root cause of the problem. There are 4 main steps in problem-solving;
- Understand the situation,
- Identify the root cause of the problem,
- Develop an effective action plan,
- Execute and modify the action plan until the problem is solved.
Step 1: Understand the situation
Before you can solve anything, you first need to realize that there’s a problem you need to fix. But, how can you find the problem that you need to fix? First thing first, you need to find your goal and then identify the gap between your goal and your current situation. This gap will become your problem that needed to fix.
Let’s learn it faster by using a study case;
Aldo is a Product Researcher and now he wants to find his next gig abroad. As a researcher, he will expected to meet and speak to a lot of people. But, there’s one problem; he couldn’t speak English fluently. In fact, he never speak English before. He’d like to get some exercise to improve his speaking ability but he doesn’t know where to begin.
Set a clear goal
In the phase of understanding the situation, Aldo’s first step is to set a clear goal. In his case, his goal might be to improve his ability in speaking English or to be able to speak English fluently. However, these aren’t the best answers. It is important to be more specific. Before setting a specific goal, he needs to know how far his ability is in English in general, not only in speaking. This is also an essential step to avoid a wasting plan. In this case, Aldo used a yes/no tree to help him figure out how far is his ability in English.
From the tree you can see that Aldo has enough input in English, he just needs to produce output more to be able to speak fluently. Now, Aldo already has a goal, which is to improve his ability in speaking English. However, as I mentioned before this is not the best statement, he needs to make it more specific. The more specific the goal is, the more specific the action plan will be. By clearly stating what you want, when you want it, and how you want to obtain it. This is Aldo’s goal:
“I want to be able to speak English fluently within six months with the highest cost of around 3 million if it is really necessary.”
Determine the gap between your goal and your current situation
From Aldo’s case, you can see that the gap between his goal and his condition is in his ability in speaking English fluently. He even doesn’t know how far his ability is in speaking because he never tries before. But, as he has enough ability in reading, writing, and listening, he has enough confidence to be able to reach his goal within six months, because he believes that he just needs to put in a lot of practice and be more confident in speaking.
Step 2: Identify the root cause of the problem
After setting a clear goal and determining the gap between the goal and the condition, now you have to find all the possible root causes of problems. As a problem solver, you don’t want just to solve a problem, but to solve the right problem. In order to know which is the right problem, you need to find all the possible root causes of problems from the problem itself. “Why has this problem happened?” When trying to understand and identify the problems, you have to keep asking “why”.
In the process of problem-solving, you have to break down the problem into smaller pieces by using a logic tree. It helps you to identify all the root causes of problems and potential solutions. The key to making a useful logic tree is by grouping the same categories and similar items into one branch.
Here is the logic tree for all the possible root cause problems about why Aldo couldn’t speak English fluently;
Step 3: Develop an effective action plan
After you identify all the root causes of problems, the next thing you have to do is generate ideas and build an effective action plan. There are two main things that you can do;
List all the ideas as much as possible
In this phase, you have to list as many options and ideas to close the gap and solve the root cause problems as possible. It might be tempting to come up with a list idea like this:
- Find a partner
- Join English speaking course
- Move to a more proper environment such as an English village
However, the first idea is not specific enough, the second idea could be a good idea but seems like a long shot because it still needs extra research, and the third idea probably won’t work because the cost will be more than 3 million which doesn’t suit with Aldo’s goal. Some people might just give up at this point and decide it will be impossible to solve the problems.
But, you can overcome this situation by using the logic tree. To make the tree grow vertically, you have to ask “Are there other ways of solving the problem?” and to make the tree grow horizontally, you have to ask “Specifically how or what falls into this category?” By doing this, you will be able to come up with a wide variety of more specific ideas.
Select the best ideas as your hypothesis
When you already list all the ideas as much as possible, you can select those ideas to consider or implement in the next step. Let’s check Aldo’s logic tree;
As you can see when Aldo’s used the logic tree, he came up with a lot of possible ideas to solve his problem and reach his goal. But, you don’t have to implement all those ideas because,e in the logic tree, those ideas are still a hypothesis that needed further research and has to be suitable to your limitations and values.
You can cut a branch out of your logic tree if the idea is clearly not effective or feasible, or if it goes against your values. For example, in Aldo’s case, he cut out the whole branch to “find a partner from friends and acquaintances” because it was against his values and also because of time limitations. He also cut one of the “from strangers” branches because it is still not effective in his current condition.
Analyze and test the hypothesis
Once you already list as many ideas and select some of them as your hypothesis, the next step you have to do is to analyze and test the hypothesis. You can also figure out what analyses and activity plan to test them. Here is some of Aldo’s plan to test his hypothesis;
Step 4: Execute and modify the action plan until the problem is solved
So why is this still a hypothesis and not Aldo’s actual solution? It remains a hypothesis because we still don’t know if it’s true or effective. It still needs further research and sometimes, you need to test those hypotheses to find out if those hypotheses are effective or not.
For example, in Aldo’s case, one of his hypotheses is “use a language exchange application” to find a partner from strangers. But, after some research and using it for some time, he found out that almost people in that application are passive and likely to use a chat feature instead of speaking directly. Another example is when Aldo tried to research the idea of “joining an English-speaking course”, he found a suitable course that also has a speaking community. So, the idea “join an English speaking course” and “join an English speaking community” from the branch “find a partner from strangers” could be put together.
After you create the hypothesis test plan, it is clear what you have to do. All you need to do now is just execute those activities and action plans. You also need to review your progress and make changes to your plan as necessary. If the hypothesis isn’t effective, you can change it or even cut all of them. Like Aldo did in his hypothesis “use a language exchange applications”, he cut out this idea.
It’s totally okay to change the plan. Even if you go back from the beginning because problem-solving is not a linear process. There’s so much trial and error you will face as you go. You can remove what existed or create the new one. You also can combine one idea with another idea or shrink and expand the existing idea. Feel free to modify them as much as possible.
Cheers ✌🏻
Icha (still learning to become a good problem solver)
The method in this article was based on Ken Watanabe’s book called Problem-Solving 101.
