I Keep Coming Up With Solutions, But the Work Isn't Moving. Maybe I've Got the Wrong Problem

You keep applying fixes, and the situation barely changes. When that happens, it’s worth doubting the problem itself before doubting the solution.

When a problem comes up, people want to jump straight to a solution.

I’m no different. Fix something, change a rule, ask someone for help. Moving feels like working.

But on the hard cases, there’s something else that has to come first.

Putting into words what the problem actually is, right now.

The symptom and its cause are different things. What’s bothering someone and what you’re trying to fix might also be different. Leave that fuzzy and move straight to a solution, and you’ll very likely end up solving the wrong thing.

What makes it worse is that even a misdefined problem, worked on hard enough, still produces something that looks like a result.

So before I commit to a conclusion, I want to ask a few more times.

Who is struggling, and with what, exactly? Since when? What would actually count as “solved”?

Once that definition is in place, everything that follows moves surprisingly fast.

Next time I’m stuck without a solution, I want to go back to those three questions before piling on more ideas. How quickly you solve a problem usually depends less on how fast you think of a fix, and more on how fast you get to the right problem.

Once the shape of the problem comes into focus, the next thing that matters is how close you can get to the primary source.