The Art of Problem Solving*

The Art of Problem Solving * By Ben Everard

Ben, why the f *** are you talking about this?

Impact: Opportunity Enjoyment Money Time Stress

This isn’t just for our work problems.

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Brexit

Before we start…

Read Consume Contribute

Five steps: 1. Discover 2. Understand 3. Solve 4. Report 5. Share

Discover

Discover Proactively discover our problems.

Discover Embrace problems while they’re cheap to solve.

Discover Think about the future now, it’ll be an investment you wished you had made.

Discover Don’t hide from our problems.

Discover Document our problems.

Discover Prioritise our problems.

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Understand

Understand Know the problem.

Understand “Very little will cost you more than having to do something twice” [4]

Understand How do we understand our problem? We ask questions We consult experts We speak to users We challenge assumptions We challenge our bias We use data

Understand Is this even a problem that needs solving?

Understand

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” [5]

Solve

Solve Keep it simple!

Solve Layering complexity will either become a resource drain or a failure, pick one.

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Solve Test. Test. Test.

Report

Report Things go wrong, and it’s important to be able report on what happened.

Report It’s a strength to report to a stakeholder how a problem occurred, not a weakness.

Share

Share The problem is solved… are we done?

Share [6]

Share

The Art of Problem Solving *

Cheers, drive! @_beneverard noti.st/beneverard

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. https://www.space.com/24835-spacesuit-water-leak-nasa-investigation.html https://blog.ajsmart.com/how-to-prioritise-your-tasks-and-reduce-stress-at-work-acb352df3ec9 https://www.thesprintbook.com/ https://youtu.be/JnlxXTbGwj4?t=1065 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F98lUtez3EU https://twitter.com/lurkmoophy/status/1090936204047142912 Colophon Typeface: Utopia Std Regular

The Art of Problem Solving * By Ben Everard