a story about problem solving

Problem-Solving: The Unsung Hero of Every Story

The fable of The Crow and the Pitcher teaches that necessity is the mother of invention.

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I can take stories apart into pieces and explain how every piece works. But sometimes, doing that can cause us to lose sight of the big picture. When all those pieces are put together, what are we looking at? What are stories, and what is their purpose?

After looking at how each piece works, it’s difficult to ignore that their workings neatly line up to support the same conclusion: stories are how we teach each other to solve problems. Or, similarly, how not to solve them.

Of course, this isn’t their only purpose. We can assign as many purposes to stories as we like. But it looks like problem-solving is what they are designed for, and when we’re writing, that matters.

Why Problem-Solving?

To understand how important it is for us to communicate about problems, let’s talk about crows. Studies are now showing they may be as smart as apes . Intelligence in animals follows a clear pattern: the most intelligent animals are also the most social.

Crows live in large groups, and they have complicated calls they use to signal to one another, calls we don’t fully understand. But studies at the University of Washington have shown that not only can crows recognize people who have previously done them a bad turn, but they can also teach other crows to recognize these miscreants. A crow will scold someone they have no personal experience with.

Crows are well known for one clever trick in particular: In some places, they drop nuts at intersections, wait for cars to run the nuts over, and then retrieve the cracked nuts when the light turns.

Now let’s imagine one crow told another crow about this clever solution.

Crow: One day, I was really hungry, but the only food I could find was these nuts. The shells on them were so hard I couldn’t get them open, no matter how hard I pecked at them.

Crow Friend: What did you do?

Crow: I realized that if I couldn’t get them open, I would need to get something bigger and stronger than me to do it instead. So I left one on the road and waited until a car ran over it.

Crow Friend: Did it work?

Crow: Yeah! The shell broke, and I swooped in to grab the nut as soon as the traffic died down. After that, I had no problem with hunger.

It’s easy to put this clever survival solution by a crow into story format, because it has all the necessary ingredients for a story. There are built-in stakes to whether a crow manages to get a meal, and dropping the nut on the road is obviously a clever deduction turning point . Then the crow is rewarded for its cleverness by abating its hunger.

And if a crow were telling this story, it would obviously benefit other crows to listen . Maybe that’s why we humans find stories so engrossing. Communication professionals of all stripes work to weave stories into their content. Businesses develop their origin stories to improve their marketing and PR. Journalists find personal stories to bring important issues to life. And teachers tell stories to help students remember lessons.

It’s amazing how many people emphasize they’re storytellers, even though that’s not strictly their job.

How Tension Draws Us to Problems

If we want to remember essential lessons from our fellows, we first need to identify them. What distinguishes information our lives may depend on from all the trivial things people say every day?

First, survival information addresses a serious problem. In the case of the crow with the nut, that concern is hunger and therefore starvation. These stakes are what separate a problem from a mere character goal . If, instead of opening a nut, the crow came up with a clever way to find pretty red ribbons, that wouldn’t be an important survival tip. It also wouldn’t make for a compelling story.

Second, the problem has to be hard to solve. If every crow could open any nut by pecking at it, there would be no need for a clever solution. No matter how many times I hear that life hack about opening a banana from the bottom, I do not care because I have no problem opening bananas from the top.

Both of these factors are requirements for tension : a feeling of uncertainty and concern that storytellers evoke to draw in audiences. Tension also has two other requirements: attachment, which indicts emotional investment in the outcome, and urgency. The crow’s nut story also fulfills these requirements. We obviously care whether we go hungry, and we can’t put off eating for long. Altogether, this means the indicators of an important problem create tension, and then tension draws audiences in.

As storytellers, we have to continually invent tough and important problems. In some ways it’s not that different from making crosswords for the newspaper, except the puzzles we invent are much closer to home. Instead of asking our audience to find a five-letter word related to rain, we ask how the protagonist might attend an interview and a parent-teacher meeting at the same time. It’s the stuff our nightmares are made of, except we’ve come up with plausible ways for the protagonist to end up on stage without their pants.

Once we accomplish that, our task only gets harder.

The Protagonist Should Always Be Solving Problems

A common plotting mistake is thinking the protagonist can just walk on stage and do anything. They can have a nice touching conversation while they recline and sip their cup of tea. But that’s not true.

Your protagonist exists to work on solving problems. All the time.

This is easy to miss because problems and problem-solving come in so many forms and touch on so many subjects. Think of our crossword. I could ask for a niche word that requires the puzzle solver to understand anatomy, astronomy, or history, but regardless, that knowledge is all a means to the same end: solving a puzzle.

Similarly, a protagonist who’s desperately unhappy could try to solve this by having a touching conversation with their friends, by winning a medal that makes their parents proud, or by facing their fears. These are very different activities, but what matters is that they are all a means of solving a problem.

Of course, we have a name for this in storytelling: conflict. But this name is sadly inadequate, incapable of expressing the full diversity of problem-solving activities.

Instead, it’s more accurate to say the protagonist has to struggle to solve tough problems. A common mistake that weakens conflicts is making problem-solving too easy. Remember, people need lessons in how to crack a tough nut, not how to peel a banana. In my sample crow story, the crow first described how pecking couldn’t break the shell — then they came up with their solution. Similarly, the harder a crossword is to solve, the more valuable the solution becomes and the more rewarding it is to solve it.

But as long as the protagonist struggles to solve a problem, changing what they are doing is the key to making your story about anything. Are you looking for an excuse to rant about growing tomatoes? That’s fine; just invent a problem that gardening might solve. Are these magical tomatoes that cure illness?

After we make the protagonist struggle with our problem, the next part is the hardest of all.

Your Solution Should Not Only Work but Be Teachable

Once you’ve invented a problem so thorny the protagonist is getting tangled and cut everywhere, you have to solve it somehow. It’s a constant magician’s trick where there’s nowhere a bunny could hide, yet you keep pulling them out of your hat. This requires careful balance.

If you have problems getting bunnies out of your hat, you may shy away from letting your protagonist struggle. That’s because once the protagonist faces a big challenge, you won’t know how to get them past it. Thankfully, this logistical issue can be solved with a little practice and observation. Of course, unique solutions are always fun, but the truth is most stories have similar conflicts that can be solved in similar ways. Take notes on some of your favorite stories – just don’t copy any one story too much. You’ll get there.

Conversely, if we become too eager to impress, we may tell our riveted audience that we’ll pull an elephant out of our hat even though that’s not possible. This is what happens when our problems are so difficult there simply is no solution with sufficient believability. Storytellers who do this benefit from planning ahead so they know what solutions they can pull off and what they need to make those solutions plausible.

So now let’s say you manage to make an incredibly difficult problem but still find a credible way for the protagonists to solve it. That’s great, but if you want to wow your audience, there’s still one thing missing.

The purpose of the story is to teach your audience how to solve problems or how not to. That means the solution has to be something that they could repeat in the same situation .

The neat trick of dropping nuts on the road has been repeated by crows in multiple locations. Similarly, if your protagonist finds the Dream Eater’s secret weakness, well, now your audience knows what to do if they ever face a Dream Eater. Luckily for us, the intellectual knowledge that Dream Eaters don’t exist doesn’t matter as long as you make it feel like they do.

This is why a protagonist can’t win simply because they are better at fighting. Instead you have to include why they are better at fighting so the audience could get good at it too. Maybe the secret is working really hard, being humble, or pushing past your fears.

Alternatively, you might warn your audience against steps that lead to failure. Steps that could be very tempting. They’d better not accept the Dream Eater’s offer to make their dreams come true; it will end in tears!

Any Unnecessary Step Must Go

Let’s go back to our storytelling crow. Imagine the story went like this:

Crow: One day, I was really hungry, but the only food I could find was these nuts with shells I couldn’t crack.

Crow: First, I did an unhappy dance for a day while the other crows watched. Second, I left a nut on the road and waited until a car ran over it. It did the trick. The nut broke, and I feasted!

Part of this story feels out of place, so much so that I would expect the rest of the conversation to go like so:

Crow Friend: Okay, but was that unhappy dance really necessary? It sounds like you could have skipped that part and still cracked the nut.

Crow: You know, I hadn’t thought of that — I’ll try it without the dance next time. Honestly, the dance wasted a lot of time.

Our stories work just like this. Any element that isn’t necessary to solving the problem or failing to solve it feels extraneous and pointless. That’s because the whole point is the necessary steps to cracking that nut.

Audiences are so sensitive to this that they get impatient if it doesn’t look like the material is relevant — even if it is.

Crow: So I did an unhappy dance…

Crow Friend: Is that important? Can you get to how you cracked the nut already?

Crow: It is important! If I hadn’t done the unhappy dance, I wouldn’t have met another unhappy crow that was mourning a cousin hit by a car. That’s how I thought of the solution.

This principle is called movement or, alternatively, momentum. Every step has to take the protagonist closer to solving the problem. And if it doesn’t appear that way initially, we need to do something to address that.

Problem-solving is not the only thing that makes a story entertaining. We have other methods of drawing the audience in, such as novelty and attachment . But without problem-solving, events don’t feel like a story anymore. So if you’re a storyteller, you’re also a creative problem-solver.

Craft a Plot That Hooks Readers

In our online writing course, Tension & Hooks, you’ll learn how create riveting plot problems that draw in readers. Apply the lessons to your own work and get personalized feedback from an instructor. Hurry – enrollment ends on June 10th!

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Comments on Problem-Solving: The Unsung Hero of Every Story

But … but … the unhappy dance is so important!

Great advice again!

I think speaking of a problem that needs solving instead of a conflict – even though that’s the more common word used – is a good idea. A lot of people immediately think of action or fighting or violence when you say ‘conflict’ – and then claim that a story doesn’t need that. ‘Problem’ is a much more neutral word. A problem can be ‘grown awesome tomatoes to cure a magical illness’ just as well as ‘slay the black spider-dragon of the cursed mountain,’ even though the solutions to the problems are vastly different.

Perhaps that happy dance is needed to close the vale before demons can break through and invade the mortal world? One can only imagine. It just so happens that stories involving demon invasions tickle my imagination right now.

I agree with your main point, but I’d phrase it slightly differently. It’s not so much that the reason we read stories is to teach ourselves something new. Rather, there’s a part of our brains that enjoys the challenge / reward cycle of learning and problem solving, and a story lets us experience that cycle vicariously. Seeing a character succeed makes the reader feel good not because we’re saying, “Oh, good, I learned a new thing” but because we’re invested in the character and experiencing that rewarding feeling along with them.

Read mentor text picture books to teach problem and solution text structure. Understanding the problem and solution story structures improves comprehension and helps readers make informed predictions. (As well as helping children see the creative possibilities in problem-solving!)

Of course, almost all stories have a problem and a solution –with the exception of a concept book. So really, you can search out problem and solution examples in any book, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction.

When children learn what to expect in a problem and solution story, not only will they be able to predict solutions, but they will also be better able to write their own problem-solution stories. I started teaching this early to my young kids, well before they were school-age because we want our children to become problem solvers. That is an important life skill!

While many picture books model the narrative story structure of problem and solution, these are my favorites to use with kids both at home and in the classroom.

PRINTABLE LIST

problem and solution picture books mentor texts

Mentor Text Picture Books to Teach Problem and Solution

Problem Solved! by Jan Thomas When Rabbit sees his messy room, he learns that he has HIS OWN PROBLEM SOLVING PORCUPINE! Which seems good at first. But, it turns into a disaster. Because to clean up the blocks, the porcupine flushes them down the toilet. And to clean up his shirts, he feeds them to the goldfish. How can Rabbit get rid of his not-very-helpful problem-solving porcupine?

A House in the Woods by Inga Moore Little Pig’s den becomes filled with friends, but once Moose arrives, the den collapses. Oh, no! Problem. What will they do to find a solution? Together, the animals build a new house in the woods big enough to fit all the friends.

Enigma by Graeme Base Bertie needs to find the missing magic show props that have disappeared from his grandpa’s retirement home. Each performer tells him what’s missing. Readers help find the items in the illustrations so that Bertie can find the culprit. Like all his books, Base excels in his detailed illustrations.

7 Ate 9: The Untold Story by Tara Lazar, illustrated by Ross MacDonald 6 bangs on Private I’s door for help! Because there’s a rumor that 7 is eating other numbers because apparently, 7 ate 9. YIKES! But did 7 really eat 9? Pitch perfect tongue-in-cheek number and word humor will crack you up throughout this suspenseful, funny problem and solution story. (Also on: Best Picture Book Mysteries .)

The Brownstone by Paula Scher, illustrated by Stan Mack The Bear family is ready for hibernation but first, they need to figure out what to do about the noise problem. Their solution? All the animals work together to shift apartments so that everyone finds the best apartment for their specific needs. You’ll love the message and illustrations.

Pigeon P.I. by Meg McLaren What a unique and delightful mystery story! A little canary asks Pigeon P.I. (private investigator) to help her find her missing friends. Then the canary goes missing, too. It’s up to Pigeon to solve the missing bird mystery. The author writes in the style of the old detective shows– punchy with short sentences. The illustrator captures the details, giving kids clues to notice as they read.

One Word from Sophia by Jim Averbeck, illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail This picture book is a great way to teach kids summarizing and word choice as well as a problem-solution text structure! Sophia really wants a pet giraffe for her birthday. As a result, she sets out to convince her family, starting with her mother, a judge. However, Mother says that Sophia’s argument is too verbose. As a result, Sophie tries fewer words with Father. But he says her presentation is too effusive. Sophia continues with each family member until she reaches her last-ditch attempt and says the one word that works: PLEASE.

No Boring Stories! by Julie Falatko, illustrated by Charles Santoso When a cute little bunny tries to join a group of animal storytellers (mole, weevil, crab, and babirusa), the group doesn’t want to add her to their brainstorming group. As the animals continue their story plans with relatable characters, an inciting incident, rising action, climax, and…. Only the group gets stuck with the ending. That’s when bunny reveals that she likes making up weird (not boring) stories. The group realizes that the bunny has the perfect ending idea. Reluctantly, they agree that she can be part of the group. At least until a “ bunch of adorable frogs and puppies show up next week… ” This book shows plotting as well as the creative strengths of writers working together.

That Fruit Is Mine! by Anuska Allepuz This is a charming problem and solution story about learning to share and the power of working together. You’ll crack up watching the elephants’ many failed attempts to get delicious-looking fruit off a tree while simultaneously watching a tiny group of mice work together to get the yummy fruit, too. The problem is getting the fruit but only one animal group succeeds in a solution. Who do you think it will be? Great for prediction! (Also on: Picture Books That Teach Cooperation .)

Great, Now We’ve Got Barbarians! by Jason Carter Eaton, illustrated by Mark Fearing Mom says that if the boy doesn’t clean his room, he’ll get pests . . . which the boy thinks aren’t all that bad, right? However, things go downhill when barbarian “pests” start arriving. Because they eat everything, use his toys to clean out their ears, and steal blankets and pillows. So there is only one thing to do — CLEAN up his room. It’s a predictable but funny solution with the perfect forgot-to-clean-up twist at the end.

Walrus in the Bathtub by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Matt Hunt The worst thing about this family’s new home is the walrus in the bathtub. And walrus songs are very, very loud. It’s a big problem. The family tries lots of clever things to get the walrus to leave the bathtub but with no success. So they decide to move. Again. That’s when the walrus shows them his list — “ How to Make Your New Family Feel Welcome ” — which, surprisingly, includes all the things that annoy the family. It turns out the walrus was just trying to be nice. As a result, the family stays with a few *new* rules. This story will make you want your own walrus in a bathtub.

The Thingity-Jig by Kathleen Doherty, illustrated by Kristyna Litten Wordplay, problem-solving, and persistence! One day Bear finds a Thingity-Jig (aka. a couch), which he thinks is wonderful as a sit-on-it, jump-on-it thing. He asks his friends to help him carry it home but they’re too fast asleep, so Bear figures out some ideas to do it himself. He makes a Rolly-Rumpity! Which is a pack-it-up, heap-it-up, load-it-up thing. That isn’t enough to move the Thingit-Jig so Bear makes something else — a Lifty-Uppity. And then, a Pushy-Poppity. And at daybreak, he arrives back at home where his friends are waking up, with his special Thingity-Jig. Bingity…Bing…Boing…Bear falls asleep.

Someday is Now: Clara Luper and the 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-Ins by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich Clara advocated for justice and equality during a time when Black people weren’t permitted the same rights as white people. As a teacher, she inspired her students to believe that change was possible. Clara and her students went to the Katz drugstore and asked to be served — even though the store didn’t serve black people. She and her students returned day after day despite people yelling and throwing food. Eventually, the Katz store relented and started to serve people of all races. Clara and her students finally could enjoy a Coke and a burger without trouble.

Wangari’s Trees of Peace by Jeannette Winter Based on the true story of Wangari Maathai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, read how Wangari helped her country of Kenya whose forests were all but destroyed. She started planting trees which started a movement motivating other people to plant trees as well. This is an example of how narrative nonfiction book can also teach the plot structure of problem and solution .

Battle Bunny by Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett, illustrated by Matt Myers When Alex gets a silly, sappy picture book called Birthday Bunny, he picks up a pencil and turns it into something he’d like to read: Battle Bunny. An adorable rabbit’s journey through the forest becomes a secret mission to unleash an evil plan–a plan that only Alex can stop. Not only does this mentor text model problem and solution, but also voice and revision.

When Pigs Fly by James Burke One day, an exuberant pig declares that he will fly. His sister observes with disbelief and horror as one attempt after another fails. The brother pig is so disappointed that he decides to give up. That’s when his sister comes up with an idea — something he hasn’t tried before that will help her brother fly — a pretend airplane. The pigs’ expressive illustrations are absolutely perfect as is the message of persistence despite failure.

Piper and Purpa Forever! by Susan Lendroth, illustrated by Olivia Feng Most stories have a problem and a solution but this story is a great example showing a little girl’s ability to creatively problem solve with a beautiful solution to her problem. Piper loves her beloved purple sweater, Purpa, and is so sad when she grows out of it. Will she be able to keep her sweater somehow?

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Melissa Taylor, MA, is the creator of Imagination Soup. She's a mother, former teacher & literacy trainer, and freelance education writer. She writes Imagination Soup and freelances for publications online and in print, including Penguin Random House's Brightly website, USA Today Health, Adobe Education, Colorado Parent, and Parenting. She is passionate about matching kids with books that they'll love.

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Books with a Clear Problem and Solution

By thisreadingmama 5 Comments

When teaching kids how to comprehend and/or write fiction text, often times it’s good to start with books and stories that have a clear problem and solution text structure .

This means that the story line introduces characters and a problem at the beginning –> the character(s) try to solve the problem in the middle, which rises to a climax –> and at the end, the problem is solved, with the “good” guy winning.

The determining importance post , from our Reading Comprehension Series , has a great visual to SHOW this progression in fiction text. We also have lots of free, graphic organizers for fiction text structure here .

Books that Have a Clear Problem and Solution Text Structure - This Reading Mama

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Books with a Clear Problem and Solution Structure

Today, I’m sharing 16 of our favorite books that feature a clear problem and solution structure to help kids see how fiction texts are often composed. By the way, these texts aren’t just great for comprehension, but can also be used to help kids WRITE their own fiction stories as well, an extra bonus!

Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Waber is about boy named Ira, who becomes anxious quite about what his friend, Reggie, will think of him if he brings his teddy bear over to spend the night. This is a GREAT book for teaching text-to-self connections as well as the problem and solution text structure.

Dog Breath by Dav Pilkey is a pun-filled book about a family pet, Hally Tosis, who has incredibly bad breath. The Tosis family tries to help Hally get rid of the bad breath to no avail. But dog breath may actually be a good thing, especially when two thieves visit the Tosis family!

Oliver Button is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola is about a little boy named Oliver who is clearly different than all the other boys at school. He’d rather paint, tap dance, and read instead of playing sports like all the other boys, which earns him the name, “Sissy.” But once he shows his dancing skills at the school talent show, he receives a new name – “Star.”

Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion features a cute little family puppy who despises his baths. So much so, that he hides his bath brush and runs away. As he is away, he gets very dirty, from a white dog with black spots to a black dog with white spots. As hunger strikes, he heads home only to find that the family doesn’t recognize him.

The Little Engine by Watty Piper is a classic book that features a clear problem and solution structure as the little engine helps the broken down engine climb over the mountain to deliver toys to all the boys and girls on the other side of the mountain.

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina is such a fun and interactive book about a peddler who gets his caps stolen by a bunch of monkeys. He tries, in anger, to get his caps back, only to be mocked by the monkeys. What will he do to get all those caps back? Such a simple solution that kids may be able to predict as they read along.

Any of Kevin Henkes’ books are great for teaching the problem and solution text structure with fiction. One of my daughter’s favorites is Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse . Lily loves her purple plastic purse so much she brings it to school to share, but Mr. Slinger, her teacher, takes it from her. To get revenge, she draws a mean picture of her teacher only to have him see it. She begins to feel great remorse for her actions and wants to make amends. Will Mrs. Slinger forgive her?

Mo Willems is one of my kids’ favorite authors. Knuffle Bunny was probably the first book they were introduced to by him. Trixie and Daddy take a trip to the laudromat. On the way home, Trixie realizes Knuffle Bunny has been left behind. Follow the journey of Trixie and Daddy as they try to get Knuffle Bunny back. There are more Knuffle Bunny adventures including Knuffle Bunny Too , but I warn you to keep a tissue box handy when you read Knuffle Bunny Free .

Jamaica’s Find by Juanita Havill features a little girl, Jamaica, who finds a stuffed dog and hat at the park. She takes the hat to the lost and found, but decides to keep the stuffed dog for herself. She finds herself wondering if she’s done the right thing by keeping the dog. She finally decides to take it back to the lost and found and finds a friend along the way. This book is a great one to show that characters don’t always face external problems; sometimes characters have internal struggles and problems.

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig is about a donkey named Sylvester who finds a magic pebble. Just then, a lion comes to attack him and he wishes to be a rock. Sylvester is changed into a rock, but he can no longer hold the magic pebble to wish himself back into his usual form. His family looks high and low for him and is eventually returned to his family. William Steig has such a way with words and his books can fit into multiple comprehension strategies, such as asking questions .

Enemy Pie by Derek Muson is such a fantastic book for many comprehension strategies. It’s been one of my favorites for a long time and I LOVE reading it to kids who have never heard the story. When a bully (Jeremy Ross) moves into the neighborhood, the young boy’s summer is ruined. That is until the young boy’s father says he can help get rid of the bully (enemy) by making him some enemy pie. The boy wonders: What is “enemy pie” and how does it work? Will it get rid of enemies? What does it taste like? Will “enemy pie” solve all his problems?

Camilla worries about what others think of her so much that on the first day of school, she wakes up with a bad case of the stripes…and much more! Her body adds on the ailments of every fear she has until a kind, old lady helps her to learn that it’s okay to just be herself. A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon has an explicit external conflict, but kids have to read “in between the lines” to get the internal problem Camilla faces and eventually conquers.

The Stray Dog by Marc Simont is one of the books we used an example for our determining importance post with fiction . A family goes for a nice picnic away from the city only to meet a cute, stray dog. They leave the park without the dog, but think about him all week. The next weekend, the family returns to the park, hoping that the stray dog will show up again. He does, but now they have another obstacle to overcome. Such a cute book and one that requires kids to pay attention to the story that the pictures also tell.

If I had a dollar for every Elephant & Piggie book we’ve read {and re-read} this school year, I’d be rich! 🙂 All of his books contain a clear problem and solution format, but in such a fun and playful way that kids WANT to read these. While the words are written for the 1st grade level, older kids will enjoy them, too. Waiting is Not Easy! is one of Mo Willems’ newest Elephant & Piggie books and was also featured in our determining importance post with fiction from our Reading Comprehension Series .

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is another classic book that features a clear problem and solution structure. Max is banished to his room without supper because of his behavior and falls asleep only to “wake up” in a world of wild things. Max begins to long for home again and wakes up to find that his mother has left his supper in his room to eat. I love how Sendak asks kids to read between the lines a bit to figure out how his supper got there and why. So adorable and such a classic!

More Book Lists You May Enjoy:

50+ Texts for Modeling Comprehension Strategies compiled This Reading Mama

50+ Books for Modeling Comprehension Strategies
Books to Help you Teach Comprehension
Letter of the Week Book Lists & Letter Packs

Books that Have a Clear Problem and Solution Text Structure complied by This Reading Mama

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April 25, 2016 at 6:38 pm

This was helpful. Thanks, I have most of these books.

November 4, 2016 at 11:22 am

Is this list available somewhere in document form?

November 4, 2016 at 11:47 pm

I don’t believe so, but that’s a GREAT idea!

December 7, 2020 at 7:51 pm

Loved the tips and advice in your article. You explained it well and I guess I am going to apply these in my future writing project. You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children. Come and visit my blog on Tips on How to Write a Story That’s Perfect for Children Hope this will help.

Thanks Attilio

January 8, 2021 at 9:19 pm

This is useful information that helps me in my future writing. Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. It is also to train your mind to imagination to think big. Keep it up!

Become a Better Problem Solver by Telling Better Stories

One of the biggest obstacles to effective decision-making is failure to define the problem well. invoking the power of narrative and a simple story structure can help ensure that teams are solving the right problem..

Developing Strategy

Alex Nabaum/theispot.com

Like many companies at the end of 2021, a small European precision toolmaker was having trouble hiring and retaining talent. The executive team had a solution: Create a more attractive social space to encourage informal collaboration. But when the head of human resources presented the plan to the board (which included one of this article’s coauthors), the directors were puzzled. They didn’t know what problem the redesign was supposed to solve.

In retrospect, their confusion was understandable. The executive team had not spelled out the extent of the company’s recruitment challenges or made clear the link between the social space and attracting talent. Rather than seeking approval for the new space, they should have been discussing the best way to make the company a more attractive place to work or, more broadly, how to assemble the talent they needed given the expanding competition for talent across industries.

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This is a familiar pattern we have encountered in our teaching and executive consulting. In the face of complex problems and strategic decisions, executives often choose the wrong problem to solve. They focus on symptoms instead of causes, base their thinking on false assumptions and artificial constraints, and overlook key stakeholders. The answer, we have found, is to change the way the problem is defined. By doing so, business leaders can significantly expand their universe of alternatives and identify radically better solutions.

Seeking Problem Solvers

To find better answers, it is necessary to ask better questions. This is called problem framing . Often neglected, this initial step in the decision-making sequence sets the trajectory for generating alternative options. It is critical for two reasons: It can reveal new possible solutions, and it avoids wasting time, money, and effort on half-baked ideas.

In our study of more than 700 international executives, 60% identified poor problem formulation as one of the two most prevalent barriers to effective problem-solving in their organizations. (The other is insufficient stakeholder engagement.)

An effectively framed problem is simple to understand, which may explain why executives often underestimate the effort that good problem formulation requires.

About the Authors

Arnaud Chevallier is a professor of strategy, and Albrecht Enders is a professor of strategy and innovation at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland. They are the coauthors of Solvable: A Simple Solution to Complex Problems (FT Publishing, 2022). Jean-Louis Barsoux is a term research professor at IMD Lausanne.

1. D. Kahneman, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 79.

2. S. Finkelstein, “ Don’t Be Blinded by Your Own Expertise ,” Harvard Business Review 97, no. 3 (May-June 2019): 153-158.

3. L. Ross, D. Greene, and P. House, “The ‘False Consensus Effect’: An Egocentric Bias in Social Perception and Attribution Processes,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 13, no. 3 (May 1977 ): 279-301.

4. S.F.C. Schulz-Hardt, A. Brodbeck, A. Mojzisch, et al., “ Group Decision-Making in Hidden Profile Situations: Dissent as a Facilitator for Decision Quality ,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91, no. 6 (January 2007): 1080-1093.

5. “ Logitech International Q3 FY08 Earnings Conference Call Transcript ,” Seeking Alpha, Jan. 20, 2008, https://seekingalpha.com.

6. M. Wilson, “ Logitech Quadrupled Its Profits — With One Big Design Idea ,” Fast Company, Sept. 20, 2017, www.fastcompany.com.

7. “ Logitech International SA CEO Hosts Annual Investor Conference (Transcript) ,” Seeking Alpha, May 24, 2013, https://seekingalpha.com.

8. M. Stettner, “ Why Logitech’s CEO Fires, Rehires Himself ,” Investor’s Business Daily, Dec. 30, 2020, www.investors.com.

All storytelling is about problem-solving

“Stories are like mental flight simulators; they allow us to rehearse problems and become better at dealing with them.” —Heath, Chip and Dan (2007). Made to Stick .

Context, problem, solution

All storytelling is about problem-solving.

All stories are context; problem; solution. That’s it. And they occur in that order.

This is true for anecdotes told in seconds and grand narrative multi-series TV dramas. Context, problem, solution. Repeat.

But there is more! Storytelling is not just about problem-solving, it is also our primary mental tool for solving problems.

In 1716, Christopher Bullock wrote, “‘Tis impossible to be sure of anything but death and taxes. ” That is true, but we can make a broader, more powerful statement. It’s impossible to be sure of anything except problems (of which death and taxes are just two of the many we face).

Problems are inevitable. And problems are solvable. 1

Facing and solving problems is a pretty good description of life and business.

When you understand the problem-solving nature of stories, it becomes obvious why we love them so much. And when you see how to use stories for problem-solving, you will have a secret code to solve any problem before you.

Problem-solving with story is an all-purpose, money-making, timesaving, status-building, enjoyment tool. It is a meta-skill!

When I graduated with an electrical and mechanical engineering degree back in the 1980s, my first job was running electrical survey instruments in oilwells, so the oil company could know whether they had discovered oil.

It’s a basic fact of the oil industry that oil is not found in touristic, pleasant locations. And so, I was stuck on rigs in the jungles of Sumatra, offshore East Malaysia, and on the frozen seas of Northern China.

If my survey instruments failed, as they often did, an oil rig and an impatient company man were waiting for me to fix them—at a waiting cost of one million dollars per day.

My job was continuous problem-solving. If you asked me what an engineer does, I would say, “An engineer solves problems.” But I did not think about or understand storytelling at that time.

With the perspective of hindsight, I now appreciate how I learned that complex, high-pressure job. I learnt from the stories of my colleagues.

Each time we returned to base from a rig, the engineers would get together and share stories of problems encountered and overcome. Each story was a mental simulation of how to overcome future problems. A simulation with mental playback—or play forward to other possible solutions.

They were not just technical stories, but stories of how to behave, how to manage people, how to succeed, and how to avoid failure. We loved those stories.

You might be thinking, ‘ It’s not that simple… ’ ; storytelling is not really about problem-solving, it’s about entertainment, human connection and emotions, or something else. Let me provide some examples.

A tornado rips through Kansas, and Dorothy and her dog, Toto, are whisked away in their house to the magical land of Oz [context]. Dorothy must find her way home [problem]. She meets three friends, has lots of adventures, and eventually finds her way home [solution]. The three friends have problems too (no brain; no heart; no courage), which they solve along the way—stories within a story.

Nelson Mandela grew up in South Africa while the country was racially divided by the system of apartheid [context]. He became an activist, seeking equal opportunities and rights for black South Africans [problem]. He was jailed for 27 years but inspired change through his writing and communication. In 1994, he became the first black prime minister of a united South Africa [solution].

In 1937, Benjamin Franklin was proposed to become Clerk of the General Assembly for Philadelphia [context]. An influential rival spoke out against his nomination [problem]. Franklin knew it would be beneficial for him to become closer to this rival, so he sent him a note asking to borrow a rare book. The rival was surprised but agreed to send him the book. Franklin thanked him, and over time kept asking for other books, and the two built a comradeship [solution].

In contradiction to the title, I tell fifty stories in my book Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell . Last night, I went through the story index in the book and found context, problem, and solution in each one. Every story in the book is a problem-solving story.

Sequence is crucial

Note that the sequence is crucial! If you miss the sequence, it is not a story , and you lose all the benefits.

In 1996, when I started as a salesman in Norway, I made the mistake of just telling my clients the solution. Solutions on their own, out of context, are merely claims that are difficult to process. Put the solution in a story, and magic happens.

With context , the listener can imagine themselves in the story. As a problem is described, they can guess at possible solutions and then delight in the final solution , as if they were the one that solved it.

Business applications

When you understand and appreciate that stories are about problem-solving, and you notice story’s problem-solving power, you can seek out examples for all types of business problems, such as:

How to build trust with another person;
How to inspire a team;
How to help a client change;
How to close a deal;
How to get the right behaviour from a team;
How to get new ideas;
How to grow a company;
How to implement a new strategy…

It goes on and on. Endless, solvable problems. Solvable with stories. Context, problem, solution.

It takes (enjoyable) practice to master storytelling, but the more you learn, the more you will realise how fundamental story is to business and life.

You will not only learn to tell stories, but also to seek out the stories of your clients, partners, and colleagues. Storytelling and story listening go together as a matched set.

Happy storytelling.

1 David Deutsch (2011). The Beginning of Infinity .

Mike is an expert facilitator and story consultant who has helped numerous national and international companies, across many industries, to tap into story-powered sales. He is also the author of the international bestseller Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell . Connect with Mike on:

Twitter • Linkedin •

Episode 84: Storytelling For Problem Solving

A conversation with denise withers, founder and story coach at denise withers..

“I firmly believe that culture is essentially just a collection of stories that define how we think and how we behave. In a very simple organizational example, if you’re sitting in a meeting and somebody speaks up to question what their boss says and their boss tells them to shut up, that’s a story that everybody’s going to remember, everybody’s going to file away in their own story database and that story is going to define the way they behave and it’s going to influence whether or not they decide to speak up the next time in a meeting. And so you can come up with all the nice sayings that you want about how your organization works, but it’s the stories that we tell each other, it’s the stories that we see, it’s the stories that we experience that we actually internalize and remember and use to guide our decisions and our behaviors going forward.” – Denise Withers

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Denise Withers about her journey becoming a Story Coach and helping leaders drive change. She shares the importance of developing your Narrative Intelligence to improve our abilities to learn, solve problems, and make sense of the world. We then discuss stories’ influence on culture, change initiatives, and leadership development. Listen in to learn more about why we need to think beyond just telling stories and start noticing the problem the story is solving.

Show Highlights

[2:10] How Denise Got Her Start As A Story Coach

[9:30] How To Use Story To Learn, Solve Problems, And Make Sense Of The World.

[16:20] How To Use Story In Change Initiatives.

[30:00] How To Use Backcasting To Free Up Resources.

[39:00] Helping People Think Beyond Just Telling Stories

Links | Resources

Denise on Twitter

Denise on LinkedIn

About the Guest

Denise Withers has spent the last 30+ years helping leaders use stories to drive change, through her work as an award-winning filmmaker and certified coach. Working with clients across sectors, she’s inspired millions of people to take action on issues like climate change, clean energy, and equity, through channels from Discovery to the UN.

About Voltage Control

Voltage Control is a change agency that helps enterprises sustain innovation and teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.

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Full Transcript

Douglas: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Thanks for listening. If you’d like to join us live for a session sometime, you can join our weekly Control the Room Facilitation Lab. It’s a free event to meet fellow facilitators and explore new techniques so you can apply the things you learn in the podcast in real-time with other facilitators. Sign up today at voltagecontrol.com/facilitation-lab.

If you’d like to learn more about my new book, Magical Meetings, you can download the Magical Meetings Quick Start Guide, a free PDF reference with some of the most important pieces of advice from the book. Download a copy today at voltagecontrol.com/magical-meetings-quick-guide. Today I’m with Denise Withers, story coach for the planet. Denise helps leaders use stories to solve tough problems and create narrative change. She’s also the author of the book Story Design: The Creative Way to Innovate, and the host of the podcast Forward: How stories drive change. Welcome to the show, Denise.

Denise: Thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited about our conversation.

Douglas: I am excited as well. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. Picked up the book. Gosh, it’s been a while. I think we first spoke, it’s been months now and we’re finally here doing the recording, so really looking forward to digging in. So far my conversations with you have been really, I would say, inspiring. I know we’ll probably go even deeper now, so really looking forward to it.

Denise: Yeah, that’s great. There’s so much you can do with stories. We could talk for hours.

Douglas: Absolutely. I guess before we get into kind of more current events, I’d love to hear how you got your start in the work of story design.

Denise: Yeah. I guess I started back in the ’80s. I studied radio and television arts and I ended up becoming a documentary filmmaker for about 20 years. I was really lucky in my career that I launched my career just a little bit before all the specialty cable channels started out in Canada, if anybody remembers cable, and Discovery Channel had just gone on the air. So they were really hungry for content. So I was quite lucky to be able to get hired by a lot of the different shows on Discovery Channel and spent 20 years doing documentaries on everything from life and space to endangered species, to topics like HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was literally, it really was the best job in the world. I was traveling around the world, learning all kinds of new things and really helping leaders and organizations spread the word about the good work they were doing and make a change.

It all kind of came crashing to a halt around 2001, 2002 when reality TV took off. That just changed the business model for television and they weren’t really interested in documentaries anymore. So I tried reality TV for a year or so and I really just couldn’t do it. I literally woke up one morning and said, “This is no way for a grown-up to make a living,” and I walked away from TV. I ended up going to grad school, a new program here in British Columbia, Canada, focused on interactive arts and technology. This was when digital media was really starting to take off. I thought it was going to look at how we use different kinds of media, video versus audio, for different kinds of learning, because I really loved the learning part of the work that I’d been doing.

But what I discovered was at the time, nobody was talking about this thing called engagement that was second nature for us in television. If you didn’t make your program engaging, people would change the channel and the show would get terrible ratings and you’d be out of a job. So I ended up doing a Master of Science on what engagement is, how it works. So looking at the cognitive science behind it, the behavioral science, the developmental psychology, and then really exploring how do you put that all together? Are there ways that you can actually design media or design experiences to be more engaging? I ended up developing a set of guidelines for how you do that.

Ironically, it turned out that the most powerful tool we have for engagement is story. And so as part of that research, I started exploring this concept of narrative intelligence. I also was exposed to the idea of design, which now it’s really popular this idea of design thinking in business as a problem solving framework. That’s when it really all came together for me. I realized that what I’d been doing during my documentary work was really this thing called story design where you have basically a communications problem or an education problem that you need to solve and you design a story to solve that problem. The process I was using as a creative was very similar to the process that organizations and businesses and entrepreneurs are using in design thinking.

When I graduated, I ended up doing quite a lot of work in the post-secondary world because that’s where design thinking was really starting to take off. I spent the next few years really weaving together all of these tools. So everything from storytelling, design thinking, strategic foresight, appreciative inquiry, behavioral economics. Starting to bring all those things together to say, how can we change the way that we design solutions to problems? So how can we change our approach to change? That’s really what I’ve been doing for the last 15 years. So really it’s led into this movement to go beyond just using stories as a way to influence people and as a framework for communication to using stories as a way to learn and solve problems and make change.

Douglas: That’s an amazing story in itself. I think maybe the one thing that blows my mind the most is the epiphany that reality TV is really the thing you can point to as the reason why the television documentary really took a dive. From my personal experience, I remember it but I can’t say that I pointed to that one cause, but it makes so much sense in retrospect.

Denise: Yeah, it was quite clear reality TV appealed to the demographic that the advertisers wanted whereas documentaries appealed to an older demographic. The younger demographic spends more money. Anybody who thinks that the networks care about content is fooling themselves. The networks are in the business to make money. So if they could produce reality TV cheaper and get the demographic that the advertisers wanted, then they were going to be all over that. So yeah, we really got kicked to the curb quite quickly.

Douglas: And it’s not surprising that you didn’t find much passion in the reality TV space because it’s really a void of many stories.

Denise: Well, yeah, I would argue that. I mean, I’ve got one of my best friends is an editor on Survivor and she’s the best storyteller I know. She is a master at taking all of the stuff that’s filmed in the course of an episode of Survivor, which doesn’t have a story to it, it’s just a whole bunch of stuff that happened. Her expertise is in taking all of that and finding a compelling story to tell. So I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t have a story but there’s no room for a writer-director, which is what I was in the classical sense in that genre.

Douglas: That is fascinating the point that the story’s almost fabricated from all these threads that were kind of collected versus documentary style’s more around like showcasing the story that’s kind of already there.

Denise: Yes. And in fact, it’s actually a great metaphor. The work that she’s doing on Survivor is actually a great metaphor for what our narrative intelligence does. So narrative intelligence is really our natural ability to learn and solve problems from stories. When you think about intelligence, emotional intelligence, or linguistic intelligence, intelligence is all about the ability to analyze patterns in a specific domain like math or language, or sports and learn and solve problems from those patterns.

And so when you think about the way that our brain works, we get bombarded with random bits of information all the time and what our brain does, what our narrative intelligence does is it organizes all those bits of information into the pattern of a story with a problem, a quest for answers and a solution. And then it packages that and that’s how we make sense of the world. Everything that happens to us, that’s actually how we make sense of it. And so as an editor on Survivor, she’s doing the same thing. She’s taking all these random bits of information and she’s organizing them into a story so we can make sense of what’s happening in that situation.

Douglas: It also reminds me, when you’re talking about these patterns that we’re basically identifying and applying these models of the world that we know about or that we’ve learned, it reminds me of our pre-show chat and how you were talking about how cultures contain stories and being a part of culture means that you kind of are part of these stories or you identify with these stories and they can influence the way you see the world. It seems fairly similar these kinds of cultural stories or these stories that are aligned with the cultures and these patterns and models that we pick up through disciplines as well.

Denise: Yeah, absolutely. I firmly believe that culture is essentially just a collection of stories that define how we think and how we behave. In a very simple organizational example, if you’re sitting in a meeting and somebody speaks up to question what their boss says and their boss tells them to shut up, that’s a story that everybody’s going to remember, everybody’s going to file away in their own story database and that story is going to define the way they behave and it’s going to influence whether or not they decide to speak up the next time in a meeting. And so you can come up with all the nice sayings that you want about how your organization works, but it’s the stories that we tell each other, it’s the stories that we see, it’s the stories that we experience that we actually internalize and remember and use to guide our decisions and our behaviors going forward.

Douglas: As you were saying that, something really just emerged for me. Then you reinforce it further with these words like internalized and remember, stories can be a memory device. People talk about like memory palace planting these things that we want to remember in these visual kinds of spaces in our mind. But also stories can be a way of remembering things, the way we tell a story and the way we repeat that story. I know my mom has these stories about me being a seven-year-old that she likes to tell over and over and over again and it’s a way of remembering. Those are the things that you don’t forget because you kind of internalize them and you tell them.

Denise: Yeah, absolutely. Again, my working hypothesis is that we keep absolutely everything we know about the world in packets of stories in our own personal story database. And so that’s how we remember everything. And so the implications of that are actually huge because that means that stories are actually the source of all of our knowledge, our creativity, and our innovation. And then the piece that goes along with that, what we’re seeing, the neuroscience of stories is coming a long way because we’re getting all these advances in medical imaging and that kind of thing. What we’re learning is that the more often you tell a story, whether you tell it aloud or you tell it to yourself, the more deeply sort of “wired” or rooted it gets. That’s one reason why it’s so hard to make change.

When somebody starts a change initiative, whether it’s within an organization or it’s personal, I’m going to run five miles every day, or it’s social, we’re going to get everybody to switch over to electric cars, typically what we do is we think that we’re starting with a blank slate. We just look ahead to the future and we say, “This is the story that I’m going to create. I’m going to be a runner. I’m going to be an electric car owner.” What we forget is that people are already telling themselves stories about that situation. We’re not starting with a blank slate. And those stories are typically very deeply ingrained. And so the only way that you are going to get them to change their behavior is to replace the story that they’re telling themselves with one that they like better, one that shows them the path to a better future.

This is why we’re failing to get people to take action on things like climate change because the stories that we’re telling are all stories of sacrifice and loss. They’re not better stories. They don’t offer us a better future. So we’re not going to give up our old stories about I like my car, I like my warm house, I like my 30-minute shower. We have to reframe the way we try to change the climate narrative. We have to figure out what people actually really want more of and then design the solutions. This is where it gets into change design, design the solutions that they actually really want and will adopt. They’re not going to do it just because it’s the right thing to do.

Douglas: It reminds me too of some research that I’ve seen around resistance to change and how it’s tied into identity. Identity is just stories that we’re telling ourselves about who we are and who we believe we will be in the future. And if this change is coming along that makes us think that we’re not going to be the same way or be that same person that we always knew to be or always wanted to be, that can be really hard for folks and if they’re not willing to change that story or see how it might unfold differently or if we don’t confront that, then it’s going to be really difficult to actually see the actual change through.

Denise: Yeah, absolutely. When you think about it, a lot of the work that I do is one-to-one coaching. So narrative coaching at an individual level for change makers and for leaders. That’s exactly it, who are you now and who’s the person that you want to be, and what’s the journey that you need to undergo to become that person, and identity is a really strong part of that. It’s really fascinating to me to see, once people start to step into a new identity, change happens really fast.

Quite often, we see this a lot in coaching, if somebody says, “I want to be the CEO, I want to be the CEO.” You say, “Okay, well, what’s stopping you from being the CEO right now?” And they list 10 things that they think are stopping them from being a CEO right now. In reality, those are just stories that they’re telling themselves. They could actually start to be a CEO of their own company right now. There’s very few actual, real barriers. The biggest barriers, as you say, are the way that they see themselves right now. They tell themselves they have to do all of these things before they can be somebody different when the fact is you can actually start to be somebody different right now.

Douglas: I love that. I think in one of our earlier chats, I wrote down this notion of be the person you want to be. And so reframing the story, you’re giving yourself permission to do it.

Denise: Absolutely. That’s a really nice way to put it. You give yourself permission to do it. And again, we don’t realize that the stories we tell ourselves are typically our biggest barriers. They’re the things that hold us back.

Douglas: I also remember you saying that in your one-to-one coaching that you craft a change story with them. It sounds like that’s what you were describing here with this kind of workaround what is it that they want to do and how they reshape that. So I guess I’m curious how that looks when someone’s crafting the story. What does that entail?

Denise: Yeah. A change story is really, it brings together several different forms of stories that people call different things. So it’s a leadership story, it’s a future story, it’s a pitch story, and it’s based on kind of everything I’ve learned over the last five to 10 years. What I’m realizing is we hear a lot about you need to tell your story, you need to tell your story. That work is often focused on telling the story of what you’ve done in the past. What we’re actually seeing is that people are more drawn to the story of where you’re going. If you want to lead change, you need to be able to tell people the story of where you’re leading them, why it matters and how it’s going to make their life better. And within that, you do need to absolutely include why you’re the right person to be able to do it, which includes some of what you’ve achieved in the past.

But people are less interested in what you’ve done in the past and more interested in where you’re going in the future. So what I ended up doing was looking at different story models and putting together my own story structure that I call this change story. And so it really, I think there’s eight steps to it. One of the things it does to it, it also tries to weave you through the emotional flow of the journey where you have highs and lows. So you start out with there’s a problem. You’re struggling, whatever it is that you’re struggling with, but things don’t have to be this way. And then it moves right into the vision. Just imagine how much better life could be instead of where you are with your struggling.

So what’s stopping you, and then you get into obstacles. You’re being held back by limiting stories that you’re telling yourself about what is and is impossible. And then that’s where you really come in with your solution, which in classical storytelling is the magic gift. So you have the power to change whatever it is that’s stopping you with this magic gift and be able to make your future reality. And then this is where more of the pitch piece comes in. You remind people that it can be scary to make change. Making change like this can be scary. How do you know you can do it?

And then you move into courage or strengths, which is, if it’s individual coaching, well, you’ve done it before and you look at examples of how you’ve done it before. Or if you’re trying to get somebody to follow you, well, the reason we know we can do it is because here’s all the things that I’ve done before as a leader. And then you wrap up with reminding them of the urgency, why they need to take action now, really how crappy their life is right now and how much better it could be if they would just make this one change. And then you end with a call to action.

I love it. It has some parallels to some of the stuff from Nancy Duarte around the way the world is and the way the world could be as far as really good framing for presentations, but it’s so much more personally actionable.

Denise: Yeah. It absolutely includes, Nancy Duarte came up with that framework by analyzing some of the most powerful speeches of our time like Martin Luther King. One of the speeches that I love is JFK talking about going to the moon. It’s an example that I use quite a lot when I’m trying to help people under the power of vision. In his speech, he rallies people by saying Russia’s kicking our butt and if we can be the first ones to the moon, I guarantee that we’re going to become the technological leaders of the world. And so he sets this great challenge, we’re going to win the race to the moon. He has no freaking idea how they’re going to win the race but he tells the story to inspire a nation to go out and do it.

He didn’t spend 10 years figuring out the solution to the problem and then come and tell the story. He started with the story of this is what we’re going to do and galvanized a nation to get there. That’s the power of bringing story right up to the beginning of your change design cycle. You don’t leave it until the end when you want to just communicate, you bring it right up to the front. And so the work that I’m doing now with organizational clients is we are using this change story framework to design the change initiative itself, to design the change strategy itself. And so what happens is once you finish your strategy, you’ve also got your story that’s ready to go to bring other people along with you.

Douglas: Well, that makes so much sense because it reminds me of how a lot of companies, they hear about OKRs and they think, “Oh, wow, that’s going to be a silver bullet for us. We’ll adopt OKRs and we’ll have a really straightforward strategy and it’ll be aligned and we’ll be so much more successful.” And as Christina Wodtke so eloquently points out, OKRs are a strategy deployment vehicle, they’re not a strategy definition vehicle. And so while the stories can be really powerful, if there is no vision, if there’s no dream to anchor it, then it’s not going to be nearly as galvanizing. So it makes sense that you would start there and bring your clients to a point where they have that focal point to rally everyone around.

Denise: Yeah. The most important piece of this is that you develop the change story with the people that you’re trying to get to change. I’m just going to come back to climate because that’s where I’m doing a lot of my work right now. The vision that we’ve been trying to sell is this vision of a green future where everybody’s driving electric cars. And again, that in itself is not compelling. And so what we did, I’m working with the municipality here in Canada right now, we actually went out and we did story research. So we collected stories from the people that we want to change to find out, what do they want more of in their life? What’s holding them back? What are they really struggling with? Then we use that to craft a vision that they really want that also gets us to zero emissions.

So the things that they’re struggling with like they want to… This is a suburban community, so they want to stop commuting. Nobody wants to spend four hours a day in their car. They want more time with their families. They want to save money. They want to be able to spend more time in nature. So how do we craft a climate solution that creates that vision for them, that makes that their reality, and also reduces their emissions? Now that’s something they’re going to get behind. They’re not going to support it because it reduces emissions, they’re going to support it because it gives them the life they want.

Douglas: That’s amazing. It shows that tie back to the design thinking or just the kind of understanding the problem that we’re solving before we even begin to think about the approach.

Denise: Yeah. I think this is where the storytelling community, professional storytelling community has really kind of done itself a disservice because over the last 20 years or probably longer, stories have been positioned as this magical tool to convince people, to influence people, to sell them on ideas. What that’s made people think about it, I can have a crappy idea but if I have a great story, people will buy it anyway. What I’m saying is, especially when we start to talk about social and environmental change, that’s not working. We have to stop trying to sell crappy ideas. This is where the design thinking piece comes back in. We actually have to use stories to design better solutions, and then you don’t need the really slick million-dollar story to sell it because it’s a good solution and it will sell itself.

Douglas: So how does strategic foresight come into the work you do? You mentioned that earlier. I’m a big fan and think it’s super cool and not enough people are doing it. I’m just kind of curious how it actually shows up in the work that you’re doing around maybe climate.

Denise: Yeah. It shows up. Well, again, if you look at this change story, it shows up in two spots there. It shows up in the vision piece. Well, it shows up in the problems too. The problem, the vision, and the solution. So looking at trends, what are the trends that we’re faced with? How can they inform the solution that we develop? How can they inform the vision of the future? And how can they help us better understand the problem that our audience is struggling with? Not a climate example but a healthcare example, I was working with an organization that served a large south Asian population and we were trying to look ahead to say how are we going to change our care model so that we can engage this population better because it was a really big gap between the needs of the population and the care that was being provided.

So I actually ran kind of a future workshop for them where I brought in all the trends that we were starting to look at and I created several scenarios for them about possible futures for this region of the province that I live in. So the solutions included things like what happens if there’s an earthquake? What happens if we have all autonomous vehicles because a big part of the population drive for a living? What happens if the way that we all live changes where we’re not living in multi-generational houses and things like that? It was fascinating for me to bring in everybody that included urban planners and to see the shock on their faces when they started to think about the fact that the future, even just a few years down the road, is going to be different than it is right now.

We were able to bring in those trends. I look a lot of the World Economic Forum. They have great data available on what’s going on in trends, but we have a really hard time envisioning the future. We typically think of the future as looking exactly like today. And so I find that strategic foresight, bringing in the trends, helping clients play around with those trends and connect them to what they’re seeing in their own lives is a really nice way to get them to start to break free of the past and the current situation that they’re in and really let loose to imagine a better future.

Douglas: Super cool. I’m curious to come back to the model here that you have, which is the Story Specs and the story being comprised of the problem, the quest, and the resolution. I’m curious when you are helping people craft stories about their future, how does resolution show up in a story about the future?

Denise: Yeah, that’s interesting. That Story Specs model is, it’s really a simplified version of the hero’s journey because I find the hero’s journey is just way too complex for anybody, including me, to work with. So it really boils down to, it’s really story kind of boiled down. Typically if you’re talking about a story in the past, when you start to try to capture or understand the story, you do it in a linear way. So you start with, what was the problem you were trying to solve? What were all the things that you tried to do to solve that problem, so what was your quest, and how did the story end? And typically stories really only end in one of three ways; you succeed, you fail or you die trying.

The difference though is when you’re starting to think about a future story, you actually start with the end and then reverse engineer from there. So it is a different approach from a design perspective in working with clients. And quite often, even though in design thinking you often start it with what’s the problem that we have to solve, I find more and more these days I’m actually starting with, well, what’s the vision? What’s happily ever after? Where do we want to actually end up, and then how do we reverse engineer from there?

Douglas: Interesting. And I’m curious, once you do that, do folks then take a more kind of explorative approach to thinking about how they decompose the pieces that get them on that journey?

Denise: Yeah. I don’t know if it’s a more explorative approach but I do find it frees them up. One of the truths of design thinking for me has always been problem definition is absolutely the hardest part. And by starting with the future, you’re kind of shifting the problem a little bit and moving it into the future. But once you get clear on what it is you really want, like you get really crystal clear, a vision of where you want to go, figuring out how to get there really isn’t that hard. Like that’s never been the thing that stopped us. Typically what stops us is that we’re trying to solve the wrong problem or we don’t really know what we’re trying to create, why it matters. And so that’s the bulk of the work that I end up doing is really trying to clarify those things. It’s that Einstein quote. What is it? If I had an hour to save the world, I’d spend the first 59 minutes trying to figure out what the problem is.

Douglas: Yeah. Figure out all the right questions to ask. It’s like so good. Yeah, I love that. I think you’re so right. The problem is often so misunderstood or people struggle how to articulate it. And so moving into that visionary piece, especially if it truly is visionary work, if we’re talking about like what’s the next feature or what’s the next market we’re going to go into, maybe an explorative approach where we research and learn and gather might make sense, but I love this backtracking. It’s similar to how you might just take a big project and decide, hey, what’s the deadline for these little pieces? Well, when does it all need to be done, and let’s work our way backwards. It’s like that backwards design piece.

Denise: Yeah, exactly. Some people call this backcasting, I just reverse engineering. It’s all kind of the same thing for me. But the other reason that I really love it is quite often, again, clients come in and they’ve got this laundry list of things that they have to achieve on their project. Most of the time, 80% of the stuff on their laundry list turns out to be irrelevant. If you start with what you really need to have by the end, it changes the way that you design your solution and a lot of the stuff that’s on that list can quite often fall off. The beauty of that is, it often frees up resources for you to do other things or invest more deeply in the most important areas.

Douglas: Another note that I wrote down was around because you mentioned the word engagement and I was thinking about connection and how stories create connection and alignment. The JFK story that you told is 100% around alignment and connection like people were focused and galvanized on this common mission. I think that’s super powerful when we think about change efforts inside organizations.

Denise: Absolutely. You need to have everybody moving in the same direction. There’s a great little anecdote that goes with JFK piece, which is apparently a few years later he was visiting one of the NASA facilities and stopped to talk to a janitor in the hallway and said, “Tell me what you do here.” The janitor looked at him and said, “Well, Mr. President, I’m helping to put the first man on the moon.” You don’t get better alignment than that.

And so, again, the reason I say you want to develop your strategy as a story is it also gives you space to help everybody who needs to be involved in your story figure out what character they are. What role do they have to play? Are they Frodo? Talking about Lord of the Rings, are they Frodo? Are they the hero? Are they Aragorn, a supporter? Are they Gandalf? Are they the wizard? What role do they have to play? People really need that clarity and that understanding and coming back to identity, that sense of belonging. I’m part of this group, I have a really important contribution to make. It’s crystal clear to me why I belong and why this organization needs me.

Douglas: It’s interesting, unrelated to what you were just telling me but it just jogged a memory of mine of a client that we were working with. Their story that they were telling themselves around this problem and around this project was so heavily laden with their internal jargon and their brand identity that they didn’t really understand the story, because this Brandy word, I’m trying to be vague here, but this Brandy word meant different things to different people, especially as they applied it to the context of this project. And so a lot of the work that we were doing was helping to unpack it and like, wait, hold on, let’s remove the metaphor and let’s remove the fancy marketing shin and just get down to some real words around what we’re talking about. I’m just wondering if that’s ever come up in your work with stories because it seems like the jargon was getting in the way of good storytelling.

Denise: Yeah. Details always get in the way. And so one of the first things that I do with clients is we build the bullet point story. So if the change story has eight steps to it, there’s like one bullet for each step and you can tell that story in one minute. You have to be able to do that first to get really clear on what matters. And again, that’s where a lot of the stuff that doesn’t matter falls off and frees you up. One of the biggest barriers to change is all the baggage that we bring into it. So if we can drop that baggage as we kind of cross the threshold into the new world and the new identity and the new situation that we want to go into, now we have resources, we have energy, we have mental space to really focus on where we want to go as opposed to where we’ve been and all this stuff that we think is important and really isn’t.

Douglas: That reminds me of a funny thing a mentor once told me. He said, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.” He wasn’t telling me to lie or fib or make stuff up, but I think that my tendency was just to lay the facts on them so much that like, or to be so specific about what it was. He was like, “Is that going to catch people’s emotions and minds and imagination?” Like, give them fuel to be excited about this thing.

Denise: Yeah. It’s interesting. So my research into engagements back in grad school revealed that actually, the biggest factor in getting and keeping people’s attention was creating like a gap or a challenge for them, basically inviting them into solving a problem, because we’re just wired for that. And so once you invite them to solve a problem, they’re going to stay engaged for as long as that problem remains unsolved. And then as soon as it’s solved, the engagement ends.

Douglas: Well, that reminds me of Cunningham’s law. Have you heard of this?

Douglas: How do you learn anything on the internet? You post the wrong answer because everyone wants to tell you you’re wrong. It’s also a great way to get children engaged. If you point at something that’s clearly not an elephant and you say that’s an elephant, then they want to tell you that’s not an elephant, you’re wrong.

Denise: Right. Yeah.

Douglas: I guess as we’re kind of nearing an end here, I wanted to just hear from you what your advice would be for someone who’s wanting to get their start. What’s a good first step to start working in this area of story design?

Denise: Yeah. I think the easiest thing actually is to go out and do some really small, really simple narrative analysis or story collecting and analysis just so you can start to get a sense of how powerful it is. And so you can pick a question or a problem that you’re dealing with and go out and even just talk to three or five people may be outside your regular circle and get them to tell you a story about it. So let’s say you’re trying to get people in your office to recycle more. So you go out and you talk to people outside your office and you ask them to tell you stories about recycling, like how did they get started recycling? What’s the best recycling experience that they’ve ever had? Where have they seen great recycling done?

When you collect stories like that, even just if you get three or four stories, your narrative intelligence is naturally going to start to analyze the patterns in those stories and look for themes and look for commonalities. That’s where you can start to get great ideas that fuel innovation. If you’d only ever do this within your circle, you’re not going to get fresh ideas that way. You’re just going back to culture. You’re just going to reinforce the stories that you’re already telling yourselves. So that’s one way to get started is just go out and collect stories about a specific thing that you’re trying to work on outside of your regular circle and kind of start to learn what other people have to say.

The other thing you can do is next time you’re planning something, whether it’s a strategy or a program or even just a meeting, try actually planning it as a story using that really basic structure of what’s the problem we’re trying to solve? What are two or three that we think we need to do to solve it? And what’s our vision of success, what would happily ever after look like? And then build on that and say, who are the characters that we need to do this with us? What roles would they have to play? What superpowers do we need them to bring in?

And then look at what are some of the potential obstacles? Who are the bad guys that we’re going to have to fight? What are some of the potential barriers that we’re going to have to come up against? I think you’ll find that it’s a great tool for alignment for whoever’s working on the thing that you’re planning. And it’s also going to be a great tool for helping you both be creative and then share your ideas with other people and get them engaged.

Douglas: Awesome. Sounds like great advice. Let’s kind of bring things to an end here. And as we do, I’d love to give you an opportunity to leave our listeners with a final thought and maybe share a little bit of information around how they can find your work and the book, et cetera.

Denise: Yeah. The final thought I think is to really start to think beyond just telling stories and really start to focus on identifying and listening to and analyzing and processing stories. And as you do that, every time you hear a story, try to figure out what the problem in that story is. What’s that person trying to do? What are they trying to achieve? What problem are they trying to solve? That’s really, it’s not just going to beef up your narrative intelligence, it’s also going to make you a much better critical thinker and designer because you’re going to develop your problem definition skills.

So I think looking beyond what the hype is telling us in terms of everybody should be a storyteller, because that just makes us a whole lot of talkers with nobody listening, and really spend some time focusing on developing your listening, your story, listening to your story analysis skills and see what you can learn from that. In terms of where to find me, you can find me across social media. You can find me on my website, which is denisewithers.com, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, kind of all over the place. Most active on LinkedIn I think. And I’ve also got a TED Talk that should be available as of March 2022.

Douglas: Awesome. And we’ll have links in the show notes so you can just click straight through. Definitely check this stuff out. It’s so good. Denise, it’s been such a pleasure chatting with you. Really, really great stuff.

Denise: Well, thanks so much. I love talking about this stuff. If anybody has any questions, I really encourage them to reach out. I’m always happy to hear what people are doing. It’s a great learning experience for me to see how people are using their narrative intelligence and their natural ability to learn and solve problems with stories.

Douglas: Awesome. Thanks again for joining the show.

Denise: Thank you. Have a great day.

Douglas: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don’t forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. And if you want more, head over to our blog where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

The Most Impactful Visual Tools for Facilitating Team Alignment

In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, Douglas Ferguson talks with Jim Kalbach, Chief Evangelist at MURAL and author, about his facilitation journey and expertise in mapping. Jim shares a pivotal experience leading a workshop at LexisNexis and how it propelled his career. He discusses the influence of room setup on collaboration, the power of visual maps for team alignment, and his interest in Wardley maps. Jim also reflects on the evolution of facilitation with technology, the shift to remote workshops, and the future of facilitation as a widespread skill. The episode emphasizes the transformative role of facilitation and visual tools in improving group collaboration.

How Can Effective Facilitation Transform Team Dynamics and Collaboration?

In this podcast episode, Douglas Ferguson hosts Neallie Kani, a UX Specialist from Hogan Assessments, who shares her facilitation journey and the impact of leadership classes on her career. She discusses the importance of creating a comfortable environment for teams, inspired by Erik Skogsberg's calming facilitation approach. Neallie applies techniques like icebreakers and working agreements to enhance her meetings, emphasizing trial and error and monthly check-ins for continuous improvement. She uses visual aids like PowerPoint to align her team and stresses the significance of consistent reminders of team values. The conversation also touches on the importance of feedback, individual connections, and the transformative power of facilitation certification. Neallie encourages embracing learning and networking for professional growth.

How Can Facilitation Transform Professional Learning in Education?

In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, Douglas Ferguson converses with Susan Wilson Go Lab about her evolution from a K-12 district administrator to an expert in educational leadership and facilitation. Susan delves into her career progression, the significance of adapting to different organizational cultures, and the patience needed for effective change facilitation. Her reflections offer valuable insights into the world of professional learning and the art of facilitation.

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November 28, 2021

Teaching Problem and Solution with Picture Books

Teaching problem and solution gets a little easier with these picture books. Each book has problem and solution scenarios built into the plot, some more obvious than others. With their rich narratives and engaging illustrations, picture books offer a way to introduce and explore this concept. This blog post delves into the significance of teaching problem and solution through picture books and shares effective strategies.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase anything through them, I will get a small referral fee and you will be supporting me and my blog at no extra cost to you, so thank you! You can find more information here .

Why Use Picture Books for Teaching Problem and Solution?

Understanding problem and solution helps your students develop problem-solving and creative thinking skills. Exploring picture books with problem and solution plots helps them see a problem being introduced, how the character(s) try to solve it and how they finally resolve the issue.

In picture books with problem and solution scenarios, your students will see characters who:

use knowledge to solve problems independently
predict outcomes
think things through
make good decisions
try new ways to solve problems
make mistakes and try again
recognize breakthroughs
use trial and error to find a solution

Group of children engaging with teaching problem and solution materials on a table in a classroom setting.

Discussion Questions For Teaching Problem and Solution

Describe the different ways the characters were effective problem-solvers.
How did [character] solve the problem? What strategies did they use?
Why do you think [character] was an effective problem solver?
Why did [character’s] idea work in the end? Did they think about how their decisions would affect the outcome and other characters?
Did [character] make good decisions? Is there anything they could have done differently?
Think of possible solutions for [character’s] problem.
Did [character] work independently to solve the problem or did they work collaboratively? Was this the best strategy?
Does a thinker have to be brave, a risk-taker….?
Did their decision making surprise you? Why or why not?
Was [character] creative in their thinking? Explain your answer.
How did [character’s] way of thinking impact the outcome of the story?

Picture Books for Teaching Problem and Solution

Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty

Ada Twist scientific curiosity propels her to question, hypothesize, experiment, and unravel the world’s mysteries, including one close to home.

Ada Twist, Scientist fuels discussions around curiosity, inquiry, the pursuit of knowledge, and creative thinking and is a great choice for teaching problem and solution.

Ada's Violin is a children's book that beautifully illuminates the power of recycling.

Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay by Susan Hood

Ada Río dreams of playing the violin, but her financial circumstances prevent her from pursuing this aspiration. This changes with the arrival of an innovative music teacher who creates instruments from discarded rubbish.

Paraguay’s inspiring world-renowned Recycled Orchestra highlights the power of music, ingenuity, and the human spirit.

After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again) by Dan Santat

After the Fall by Dan Santat

A fresh retelling of the classic Humpty Dumpty story told from the egg’s perspective. Humpty Dumpty bravely faces his fear of heights, teaching us about courage, overcoming adversity, and the importance of self-esteem.

After the Fall promotes discussions around character traits, perspectives, and a growth mindset. It encourages students to understand and embrace their fears, foster adaptability, and celebrate resilience.

A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon

Camilla Cream loves lima beans but won’t eat them because her friends hate them. A mysterious illness causes her to become what others think she should be. Only when she embraces her true self does she recover.

A Bad Case of the Stripes serves as a reminder that individuality should be celebrated and that personal growth stems from self-acceptance and the courage to resist societal pressures.

Black Dog by Levi Pinfold

Black Dog takes us to a family home where a large black dog grows in size and menace, causing fear among the family members. Yet, the smallest one shows immense courage and open-mindedness to discover the truth about the dog.

Engage your students in discussions about overcoming fears, taking risks, and not letting fear control our perception. Encourage them to conquer their fears and take on challenges bravely.

A Chair For My Mother by Vera B. Williams

A Chair for My Mother illuminates the power of love, family, and community even in the most challenging times. Rosa, her mother, and her grandmother lose their home to a devastating fire.

The book gives us a glimpse into poverty, the importance of saving money, the impact of community kindness and generosity, and the power of perseverance, even in the face of adversity.

Chalk by Bill Thomson

Three friends find a bag of magical chalk at the park on a rainy day – whatever they draw becomes real. A sun clears clouds, butterflies fly, and dinosaurs leap from the 2D realm. When a child’s drawn dinosaur chases them, they must creatively resolve the problem.

Chalk promotes creativity, problem-solving, the power of imagination and consequences, teaching children that every action can have effects they must deal with.

Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin

When Farmer Brown’s cows stumble upon a typewriter, they start typing letters demanding electric blankets. Things escalate quickly as the cows strike, and Duck is the mediator. But the peace doesn’t last long when the ducks have their own demands!

Click, Clack, Moo story promotes dialogue about fair negotiations’ importance, communication’s power, and the essence of compromise.

Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin

Dragons may love tacos but hate spicy salsa. A boy discovers this peculiarity and hosts a taco party for his dragon friends. The party takes an unexpected turn when the salsa, much to the dragons’ dismay, turns out to be spicy, leading to a chaotic and fiery mess.

Dragons Love Tacos offers opportunities to discuss the concepts of problem-solving, cause and effect, and the importance of careful planning and reading labels!

Enemy Pie by Derek Munson

When Jeremy Ross moves to town, a boy’s life changes for the worse. He is Jeremy’s enemy. Dad advises making an enemy pie, but it will only work if he spends the whole day with his enemy. They end up having so much fun the boy doesn’t need the pie. Use to discuss kindness, conflict resolution, bullying, and problem-solving.

Ernest, the Moose Who Doesn't Fit by Catherine Rayner

Ernest the moose is so LARGE he can’t fit inside the book. Determined, he shimmies, shifts, and shuffles his body but he just won’t fit. With a bit of thought his friend, chipmunk, comes up with a solution. Reinforces themes of determination, problem-solving and creative thinking.

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Fossil by Bill Thomson

This is the second of two picture books with a problem and solution by Bill Thomson. A young boy and his dog stumble upon a fossil which springs to life when touched! The boy excitedly cracks open more rocks, revealing more living fossils. But the excitement quickly turns into terror when he discovers a pterodactyl, which swoops down and flies off with his dog.

Fossil encourages discussions on curiosity, discovery, the unexpected consequences of our actions and problem and solution.

How the Ladies Stopped the Wind by Bruce McMillan

The wind in Iceland is so strong a group of women decide to fix the problem. They plant trees to limit its effects and overcome problems through problem-solving, cooperation and persistence.

Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall

Jabari resolves to jump off the diving board for the first time. Despite his determination, fear and uncertainty hold him back. But with his father’s gentle encouragement, Jabari finds the courage to make the leap.

Jabari Jumps explores a growth mindset, courage, risk-taking, determination, and overcoming fears. It is also great for your students to make connections to Jabari’s fear of trying something new.

Journey by Aaron Becker

A lonely girl discovers a magic red marker and creates a door that transports her into an enchanting world filled with wondrous landscapes and adventure. She witnesses an evil emperor capture a majestic bird. She outsmarts the emperor’s army to free the bird.

The girl’s journey inspires courage in facing challenges, persistence in pursuing goals, and thinking outside the box to overcome obstacles.

King Bidgood's in the Bathtub by Audrey Wood

This is the first of two picture books with a problem and solution by Audrey Wood. King Bidgood enjoys having a bath so much he won’t get out. His page calls upon the court for help. Nothing works, so while everyone is despairing of what to do the page plugs the plug! Use to teach sequencing, creative thinking, problem & solution and prediction.

Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes

Lilly adores her school, teacher, and purple plastic purse. Her enthusiasm for her purse leads her on an unexpected journey of self-discovery, teaching her important lessons about self-management, forgiveness, integrity, and self-reflection.

Through Lilly’s experiences, readers learn the value of controlling their impulses and honesty. Lilly’s experiences teach the importance of second chances, making amends, and learning from our actions.

The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Audrey Wood

This is the second of two picture books with a problem and solution by Audrey Wood. The narrator attempts to convince a little mouse to share a recently picked succulent strawberry. Worried about a big, hungry bear, the mouse employs various strategies, including disguising and locking away the fruit, to keep it safe.

The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear promotes discussions on sharing, problem-solving, creative thinking and cause and effect.

The Lumberjack’s Beard by Duncan Beedie

Jim chops down trees in the forest without considering the repercussions. His actions make many animals homeless, so Jim allows them to reside in his huge beard. He replants the trees and waits for them to grow so the animals can return to their natural habitats.

The Lumberjack’s Beard encourages discussions about environmental conservation, cause and effect, and problem-solving and highlights how people can rectify mistakes.

The Marvellous Moon Map by Teresa Heapy

Mouse wants to find the moon with his own moon map. His friend, Bear thinks it would be better to plan and organise the trip. Mouse heads off alone but ends up lost with his map that can’t help him. Luckily, Bear helps him out him and they discover something better than the moon. Reinforces themes of friendship, organisation, creative thinking and problem-solving.

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe

Mufaro’s two daughters react differently to the King’s search for a wife – one is aggressive and selfish, the other kind and dignified. The king disguises himself to learn the true nature of both girls and chooses Nyasha, the kind and generous daughter, to be the queen. This African folktale promotes themes of jealousy, vanity and kindness.

Our Little Inventor by Sher Rill Ng

Nell has an ingenious invention to solve the pollution problem in the Big City. She sets off on a journey to the city, far from where she lives. She finds the pollution is much worse than she expected. Nell is dismayed when city leaders mock her. With unexpected help and Nell’s determination, she shows her machine to the city. Promotes girls in STEM, pollution, determination, perseverance, critical thinking and problem-solving.

Outfoxed by Claudia Boldt

Harold, a fox, is challenged by his father to catch a chicken. He decides to follow his heart and helps the chicken escape. Reinforces themes of empathy, independence, problem-solving and creative thinking.

The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch

Princess Elizabeth is a resourceful young girl who must outsmart a dragon to save her prince while dressed in a humble paper bag. The Paper Bag Princess invites discussions about empowerment, courage, independence, and challenging traditional gender roles by illustrating the strength of character over appearance. It emphasises that real heroines can save the day with their wit and courage, regardless of appearance.

Phileas's Fortune: A Story about Self-Expression by Agnes de Lestrade

Large factories churn out beautiful, ugly and funny words. People purchase, then swallow the words to communicate. Not all words are equal and the cost of each word varies. Phileas catches three discarded, random words to express his love for Cybele. Reinforces themes of communication, perseverance, problem-solving, risk-taking and creative thinking.

Rainbow Weaver by Teodora del Acoris is a book about recycling.

Rainbow Weaver by Linda Elovitz Marshall

Ixchel, a young Mayan girl, is passionate about continuing her community’s weaving tradition. Unable to use traditional materials, she innovatively uses colourful plastic bags, transforming waste into a woven rainbow fabric.

Rainbow Weaver sparks discussions on sustainability and recycling, empowering indigenous female characters, persistence and creative problem-solving.

Ralf by Jean Jullien

Ralf is always getting under everyones feet no matter what hr does. One night he smells smoke and stretches his body around the house trying to wake the family. After being saved, the family accept Ralf for who he is even if he still gets in the way. Reinforces themes of acceptance, caring, courage and problem & solution.

Star in the Jar by Sam Hay

A little boy finds a star and keeps it in a jar. He makes the decision to help the sad star get home., but wonders how to do this. He makes a star shape in the garden and the stars lift their little friend home.

Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

This is the first of two picture books with a problem and solution by Oliver Jeffers. When Floyd’s kite gets stuck in a tree, he throws his shoes in an attempt to free it. However, when that doesn’t work, Floyd resorts to increasingly outrageous objects (even people!) to dislodge the kite.

Stuck ignites discussions on cause and effect, creative problem-solving strategies, persistence in the face of obstacles, resourcefulness and initiative and adaptability in new situations.

Swimmy by Leo Lionni

After almost being eaten by a big fish, Swimmy works together with a school of fish to frighten off the big tuna. Use to promote problem & solution, cooperation, courage and overcoming fear.

This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers

This is the second of two picture books with a problem and solution by Oliver Jeffers. Wilfred is an organised boy who lives his life by rules. He claims a wandering moose as his new pet and names him Marcel. The moose is not keen on Wilfred’s rules and meets an old lady who claims him as her own. Wilfred recognises Marcel’s independence and learns how to compromise.

Wangari Maathai by Franck Prevot

The late Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai sparked a revolutionary movement in Africa to challenge deforestation. In a bold move, she championed African women to plant trees, ultimately helping cultivate lush farms and thriving communities. Maathai also provided seedlings to men, school children, and even soldiers, spurring further reforestation efforts and making a lasting impact.

When the Rain Comes by Alma Fullerton

In rural Sri Lanka, Malini helps plant the rice crop for the first time. The ox-cart arrives full of seedlings and the driver asks her to care for the ox. The skies darken and the monsoon rain falls, separating Malini from everyone. Rather than running for safety, she saves all the seeds from ruin. Use to teach responsibility, courage and problem & solution.

What are your favourite picture books for teaching problem and solution in the your classroom?

2 thoughts on “Solve It With Stories: Teaching Problem & Solution with Picture Books”

As far as I might be concerned, the most awesome aspect of kids’ books is the significant statements that epitomize a whole book in a sentence or two. Nobody will at any point settle on the “best” quotes, however here are a portion of my top choices!

An amazing post with great tips as always. Anyone will find your post useful. Keep up the good work.

Problem-Solving Strategies and Obstacles

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Sean is a fact-checker and researcher with experience in sociology, field research, and data analytics.

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From deciding what to eat for dinner to considering whether it's the right time to buy a house, problem-solving is a large part of our daily lives. Learn some of the problem-solving strategies that exist and how to use them in real life, along with ways to overcome obstacles that are making it harder to resolve the issues you face.

What Is Problem-Solving?

In cognitive psychology , the term 'problem-solving' refers to the mental process that people go through to discover, analyze, and solve problems.

A problem exists when there is a goal that we want to achieve but the process by which we will achieve it is not obvious to us. Put another way, there is something that we want to occur in our life, yet we are not immediately certain how to make it happen.

Maybe you want a better relationship with your spouse or another family member but you're not sure how to improve it. Or you want to start a business but are unsure what steps to take. Problem-solving helps you figure out how to achieve these desires.

The problem-solving process involves:

Discovery of the problem
Deciding to tackle the issue
Seeking to understand the problem more fully
Researching available options or solutions
Taking action to resolve the issue

Before problem-solving can occur, it is important to first understand the exact nature of the problem itself. If your understanding of the issue is faulty, your attempts to resolve it will also be incorrect or flawed.

Problem-Solving Mental Processes

Several mental processes are at work during problem-solving. Among them are:

Perceptually recognizing the problem
Representing the problem in memory
Considering relevant information that applies to the problem
Identifying different aspects of the problem
Labeling and describing the problem

Problem-Solving Strategies

There are many ways to go about solving a problem. Some of these strategies might be used on their own, or you may decide to employ multiple approaches when working to figure out and fix a problem.

An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that, by following certain "rules" produces a solution. Algorithms are commonly used in mathematics to solve division or multiplication problems. But they can be used in other fields as well.

In psychology, algorithms can be used to help identify individuals with a greater risk of mental health issues. For instance, research suggests that certain algorithms might help us recognize children with an elevated risk of suicide or self-harm.

One benefit of algorithms is that they guarantee an accurate answer. However, they aren't always the best approach to problem-solving, in part because detecting patterns can be incredibly time-consuming.

There are also concerns when machine learning is involved—also known as artificial intelligence (AI)—such as whether they can accurately predict human behaviors.

Heuristics are shortcut strategies that people can use to solve a problem at hand. These "rule of thumb" approaches allow you to simplify complex problems, reducing the total number of possible solutions to a more manageable set.

If you find yourself sitting in a traffic jam, for example, you may quickly consider other routes, taking one to get moving once again. When shopping for a new car, you might think back to a prior experience when negotiating got you a lower price, then employ the same tactics.

While heuristics may be helpful when facing smaller issues, major decisions shouldn't necessarily be made using a shortcut approach. Heuristics also don't guarantee an effective solution, such as when trying to drive around a traffic jam only to find yourself on an equally crowded route.

Trial and Error

A trial-and-error approach to problem-solving involves trying a number of potential solutions to a particular issue, then ruling out those that do not work. If you're not sure whether to buy a shirt in blue or green, for instance, you may try on each before deciding which one to purchase.

This can be a good strategy to use if you have a limited number of solutions available. But if there are many different choices available, narrowing down the possible options using another problem-solving technique can be helpful before attempting trial and error.

In some cases, the solution to a problem can appear as a sudden insight. You are facing an issue in a relationship or your career when, out of nowhere, the solution appears in your mind and you know exactly what to do.

Insight can occur when the problem in front of you is similar to an issue that you've dealt with in the past. Although, you may not recognize what is occurring since the underlying mental processes that lead to insight often happen outside of conscious awareness .

Research indicates that insight is most likely to occur during times when you are alone—such as when going on a walk by yourself, when you're in the shower, or when lying in bed after waking up.

How to Apply Problem-Solving Strategies in Real Life

If you're facing a problem, you can implement one or more of these strategies to find a potential solution. Here's how to use them in real life:

Create a flow chart . If you have time, you can take advantage of the algorithm approach to problem-solving by sitting down and making a flow chart of each potential solution, its consequences, and what happens next.
Recall your past experiences . When a problem needs to be solved fairly quickly, heuristics may be a better approach. Think back to when you faced a similar issue, then use your knowledge and experience to choose the best option possible.
Start trying potential solutions . If your options are limited, start trying them one by one to see which solution is best for achieving your desired goal. If a particular solution doesn't work, move on to the next.
Take some time alone . Since insight is often achieved when you're alone, carve out time to be by yourself for a while. The answer to your problem may come to you, seemingly out of the blue, if you spend some time away from others.

Obstacles to Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is not a flawless process as there are a number of obstacles that can interfere with our ability to solve a problem quickly and efficiently. These obstacles include:

Assumptions: When dealing with a problem, people can make assumptions about the constraints and obstacles that prevent certain solutions. Thus, they may not even try some potential options.
Functional fixedness : This term refers to the tendency to view problems only in their customary manner. Functional fixedness prevents people from fully seeing all of the different options that might be available to find a solution.
Irrelevant or misleading information: When trying to solve a problem, it's important to distinguish between information that is relevant to the issue and irrelevant data that can lead to faulty solutions. The more complex the problem, the easier it is to focus on misleading or irrelevant information.
Mental set: A mental set is a tendency to only use solutions that have worked in the past rather than looking for alternative ideas. A mental set can work as a heuristic, making it a useful problem-solving tool. However, mental sets can also lead to inflexibility, making it more difficult to find effective solutions.

How to Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills

In the end, if your goal is to become a better problem-solver, it's helpful to remember that this is a process. Thus, if you want to improve your problem-solving skills, following these steps can help lead you to your solution:

Recognize that a problem exists . If you are facing a problem, there are generally signs. For instance, if you have a mental illness , you may experience excessive fear or sadness, mood changes, and changes in sleeping or eating habits. Recognizing these signs can help you realize that an issue exists.
Decide to solve the problem . Make a conscious decision to solve the issue at hand. Commit to yourself that you will go through the steps necessary to find a solution.
Seek to fully understand the issue . Analyze the problem you face, looking at it from all sides. If your problem is relationship-related, for instance, ask yourself how the other person may be interpreting the issue. You might also consider how your actions might be contributing to the situation.
Research potential options . Using the problem-solving strategies mentioned, research potential solutions. Make a list of options, then consider each one individually. What are some pros and cons of taking the available routes? What would you need to do to make them happen?
Take action . Select the best solution possible and take action. Action is one of the steps required for change . So, go through the motions needed to resolve the issue.
Try another option, if needed . If the solution you chose didn't work, don't give up. Either go through the problem-solving process again or simply try another option.

You can find a way to solve your problems as long as you keep working toward this goal—even if the best solution is simply to let go because no other good solution exists.

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

35 problem-solving techniques and methods for solving complex problems

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How do you identify problems?

How do you identify the right solution.

Tips for more effective problem-solving

Complete problem-solving methods

Problem-solving techniques to identify and analyze problems
Problem-solving techniques for developing solutions

Problem-solving warm-up activities

Closing activities for a problem-solving process.

Before you can move towards finding the right solution for a given problem, you first need to identify and define the problem you wish to solve.

Here, you want to clearly articulate what the problem is and allow your group to do the same. Remember that everyone in a group is likely to have differing perspectives and alignment is necessary in order to help the group move forward.

Identifying a problem accurately also requires that all members of a group are able to contribute their views in an open and safe manner. It can be scary for people to stand up and contribute, especially if the problems or challenges are emotive or personal in nature. Be sure to try and create a psychologically safe space for these kinds of discussions.

Remember that problem analysis and further discussion are also important. Not taking the time to fully analyze and discuss a challenge can result in the development of solutions that are not fit for purpose or do not address the underlying issue.

Successfully identifying and then analyzing a problem means facilitating a group through activities designed to help them clearly and honestly articulate their thoughts and produce usable insight.

With this data, you might then produce a problem statement that clearly describes the problem you wish to be addressed and also state the goal of any process you undertake to tackle this issue.

Finding solutions is the end goal of any process. Complex organizational challenges can only be solved with an appropriate solution but discovering them requires using the right problem-solving tool.

After you’ve explored a problem and discussed ideas, you need to help a team discuss and choose the right solution. Consensus tools and methods such as those below help a group explore possible solutions before then voting for the best. They’re a great way to tap into the collective intelligence of the group for great results!

Remember that the process is often iterative. Great problem solvers often roadtest a viable solution in a measured way to see what works too. While you might not get the right solution on your first try, the methods below help teams land on the most likely to succeed solution while also holding space for improvement.

Every effective problem solving process begins with an agenda . A well-structured workshop is one of the best methods for successfully guiding a group from exploring a problem to implementing a solution.

In SessionLab, it’s easy to go from an idea to a complete agenda . Start by dragging and dropping your core problem solving activities into place . Add timings, breaks and necessary materials before sharing your agenda with your colleagues.

The resulting agenda will be your guide to an effective and productive problem solving session that will also help you stay organized on the day!

Tips for more effective problem solving

Problem-solving activities are only one part of the puzzle. While a great method can help unlock your team’s ability to solve problems, without a thoughtful approach and strong facilitation the solutions may not be fit for purpose.

Let’s take a look at some problem-solving tips you can apply to any process to help it be a success!

Clearly define the problem

Jumping straight to solutions can be tempting, though without first clearly articulating a problem, the solution might not be the right one. Many of the problem-solving activities below include sections where the problem is explored and clearly defined before moving on.

This is a vital part of the problem-solving process and taking the time to fully define an issue can save time and effort later. A clear definition helps identify irrelevant information and it also ensures that your team sets off on the right track.

Don’t jump to conclusions

It’s easy for groups to exhibit cognitive bias or have preconceived ideas about both problems and potential solutions. Be sure to back up any problem statements or potential solutions with facts, research, and adequate forethought.

The best techniques ask participants to be methodical and challenge preconceived notions. Make sure you give the group enough time and space to collect relevant information and consider the problem in a new way. By approaching the process with a clear, rational mindset, you’ll often find that better solutions are more forthcoming.

Try different approaches

Problems come in all shapes and sizes and so too should the methods you use to solve them. If you find that one approach isn’t yielding results and your team isn’t finding different solutions, try mixing it up. You’ll be surprised at how using a new creative activity can unblock your team and generate great solutions.

Don’t take it personally

Depending on the nature of your team or organizational problems, it’s easy for conversations to get heated. While it’s good for participants to be engaged in the discussions, ensure that emotions don’t run too high and that blame isn’t thrown around while finding solutions.

You’re all in it together, and even if your team or area is seeing problems, that isn’t necessarily a disparagement of you personally. Using facilitation skills to manage group dynamics is one effective method of helping conversations be more constructive.

Get the right people in the room

Your problem-solving method is often only as effective as the group using it. Getting the right people on the job and managing the number of people present is important too!

If the group is too small, you may not get enough different perspectives to effectively solve a problem. If the group is too large, you can go round and round during the ideation stages.

Creating the right group makeup is also important in ensuring you have the necessary expertise and skillset to both identify and follow up on potential solutions. Carefully consider who to include at each stage to help ensure your problem-solving method is followed and positioned for success.

Document everything

The best solutions can take refinement, iteration, and reflection to come out. Get into a habit of documenting your process in order to keep all the learnings from the session and to allow ideas to mature and develop. Many of the methods below involve the creation of documents or shared resources. Be sure to keep and share these so everyone can benefit from the work done!

Bring a facilitator

Facilitation is all about making group processes easier. With a subject as potentially emotive and important as problem-solving, having an impartial third party in the form of a facilitator can make all the difference in finding great solutions and keeping the process moving. Consider bringing a facilitator to your problem-solving session to get better results and generate meaningful solutions!

Develop your problem-solving skills

It takes time and practice to be an effective problem solver. While some roles or participants might more naturally gravitate towards problem-solving, it can take development and planning to help everyone create better solutions.

You might develop a training program, run a problem-solving workshop or simply ask your team to practice using the techniques below. Check out our post on problem-solving skills to see how you and your group can develop the right mental process and be more resilient to issues too!

Design a great agenda

Workshops are a great format for solving problems. With the right approach, you can focus a group and help them find the solutions to their own problems. But designing a process can be time-consuming and finding the right activities can be difficult.

Check out our workshop planning guide to level-up your agenda design and start running more effective workshops. Need inspiration? Check out templates designed by expert facilitators to help you kickstart your process!

In this section, we’ll look at in-depth problem-solving methods that provide a complete end-to-end process for developing effective solutions. These will help guide your team from the discovery and definition of a problem through to delivering the right solution.

If you’re looking for an all-encompassing method or problem-solving model, these processes are a great place to start. They’ll ask your team to challenge preconceived ideas and adopt a mindset for solving problems more effectively.

Six Thinking Hats
Lightning Decision Jam
Problem Definition Process
Discovery & Action Dialogue

Design Sprint 2.0

Open Space Technology

1. Six Thinking Hats

Individual approaches to solving a problem can be very different based on what team or role an individual holds. It can be easy for existing biases or perspectives to find their way into the mix, or for internal politics to direct a conversation.

Six Thinking Hats is a classic method for identifying the problems that need to be solved and enables your team to consider them from different angles, whether that is by focusing on facts and data, creative solutions, or by considering why a particular solution might not work.

Like all problem-solving frameworks, Six Thinking Hats is effective at helping teams remove roadblocks from a conversation or discussion and come to terms with all the aspects necessary to solve complex problems.

2. Lightning Decision Jam

Featured courtesy of Jonathan Courtney of AJ&Smart Berlin, Lightning Decision Jam is one of those strategies that should be in every facilitation toolbox. Exploring problems and finding solutions is often creative in nature, though as with any creative process, there is the potential to lose focus and get lost.

Unstructured discussions might get you there in the end, but it’s much more effective to use a method that creates a clear process and team focus.

In Lightning Decision Jam, participants are invited to begin by writing challenges, concerns, or mistakes on post-its without discussing them before then being invited by the moderator to present them to the group.

From there, the team vote on which problems to solve and are guided through steps that will allow them to reframe those problems, create solutions and then decide what to execute on.

By deciding the problems that need to be solved as a team before moving on, this group process is great for ensuring the whole team is aligned and can take ownership over the next stages.

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) #action #decision making #problem solving #issue analysis #innovation #design #remote-friendly The problem with anything that requires creative thinking is that it’s easy to get lost—lose focus and fall into the trap of having useless, open-ended, unstructured discussions. Here’s the most effective solution I’ve found: Replace all open, unstructured discussion with a clear process. What to use this exercise for: Anything which requires a group of people to make decisions, solve problems or discuss challenges. It’s always good to frame an LDJ session with a broad topic, here are some examples: The conversion flow of our checkout Our internal design process How we organise events Keeping up with our competition Improving sales flow

3. Problem Definition Process

While problems can be complex, the problem-solving methods you use to identify and solve those problems can often be simple in design.

By taking the time to truly identify and define a problem before asking the group to reframe the challenge as an opportunity, this method is a great way to enable change.

Begin by identifying a focus question and exploring the ways in which it manifests before splitting into five teams who will each consider the problem using a different method: escape, reversal, exaggeration, distortion or wishful. Teams develop a problem objective and create ideas in line with their method before then feeding them back to the group.

This method is great for enabling in-depth discussions while also creating space for finding creative solutions too!

Problem Definition #problem solving #idea generation #creativity #online #remote-friendly A problem solving technique to define a problem, challenge or opportunity and to generate ideas.

4. The 5 Whys

Sometimes, a group needs to go further with their strategies and analyze the root cause at the heart of organizational issues. An RCA or root cause analysis is the process of identifying what is at the heart of business problems or recurring challenges.

The 5 Whys is a simple and effective method of helping a group go find the root cause of any problem or challenge and conduct analysis that will deliver results.

By beginning with the creation of a problem statement and going through five stages to refine it, The 5 Whys provides everything you need to truly discover the cause of an issue.

The 5 Whys #hyperisland #innovation This simple and powerful method is useful for getting to the core of a problem or challenge. As the title suggests, the group defines a problems, then asks the question “why” five times, often using the resulting explanation as a starting point for creative problem solving.

5. World Cafe

World Cafe is a simple but powerful facilitation technique to help bigger groups to focus their energy and attention on solving complex problems.

World Cafe enables this approach by creating a relaxed atmosphere where participants are able to self-organize and explore topics relevant and important to them which are themed around a central problem-solving purpose. Create the right atmosphere by modeling your space after a cafe and after guiding the group through the method, let them take the lead!

Making problem-solving a part of your organization’s culture in the long term can be a difficult undertaking. More approachable formats like World Cafe can be especially effective in bringing people unfamiliar with workshops into the fold.

World Cafe #hyperisland #innovation #issue analysis World Café is a simple yet powerful method, originated by Juanita Brown, for enabling meaningful conversations driven completely by participants and the topics that are relevant and important to them. Facilitators create a cafe-style space and provide simple guidelines. Participants then self-organize and explore a set of relevant topics or questions for conversation.

6. Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)

One of the best approaches is to create a safe space for a group to share and discover practices and behaviors that can help them find their own solutions.

With DAD, you can help a group choose which problems they wish to solve and which approaches they will take to do so. It’s great at helping remove resistance to change and can help get buy-in at every level too!

This process of enabling frontline ownership is great in ensuring follow-through and is one of the methods you will want in your toolbox as a facilitator.

Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD) #idea generation #liberating structures #action #issue analysis #remote-friendly DADs make it easy for a group or community to discover practices and behaviors that enable some individuals (without access to special resources and facing the same constraints) to find better solutions than their peers to common problems. These are called positive deviant (PD) behaviors and practices. DADs make it possible for people in the group, unit, or community to discover by themselves these PD practices. DADs also create favorable conditions for stimulating participants’ creativity in spaces where they can feel safe to invent new and more effective practices. Resistance to change evaporates as participants are unleashed to choose freely which practices they will adopt or try and which problems they will tackle. DADs make it possible to achieve frontline ownership of solutions.

7. Design Sprint 2.0

Want to see how a team can solve big problems and move forward with prototyping and testing solutions in a few days? The Design Sprint 2.0 template from Jake Knapp, author of Sprint, is a complete agenda for a with proven results.

Developing the right agenda can involve difficult but necessary planning. Ensuring all the correct steps are followed can also be stressful or time-consuming depending on your level of experience.

Use this complete 4-day workshop template if you are finding there is no obvious solution to your challenge and want to focus your team around a specific problem that might require a shortcut to launching a minimum viable product or waiting for the organization-wide implementation of a solution.

8. Open space technology

Open space technology- developed by Harrison Owen – creates a space where large groups are invited to take ownership of their problem solving and lead individual sessions. Open space technology is a great format when you have a great deal of expertise and insight in the room and want to allow for different takes and approaches on a particular theme or problem you need to be solved.

Start by bringing your participants together to align around a central theme and focus their efforts. Explain the ground rules to help guide the problem-solving process and then invite members to identify any issue connecting to the central theme that they are interested in and are prepared to take responsibility for.

Once participants have decided on their approach to the core theme, they write their issue on a piece of paper, announce it to the group, pick a session time and place, and post the paper on the wall. As the wall fills up with sessions, the group is then invited to join the sessions that interest them the most and which they can contribute to, then you’re ready to begin!

Everyone joins the problem-solving group they’ve signed up to, record the discussion and if appropriate, findings can then be shared with the rest of the group afterward.

Open Space Technology #action plan #idea generation #problem solving #issue analysis #large group #online #remote-friendly Open Space is a methodology for large groups to create their agenda discerning important topics for discussion, suitable for conferences, community gatherings and whole system facilitation

Techniques to identify and analyze problems

Using a problem-solving method to help a team identify and analyze a problem can be a quick and effective addition to any workshop or meeting.

While further actions are always necessary, you can generate momentum and alignment easily, and these activities are a great place to get started.

We’ve put together this list of techniques to help you and your team with problem identification, analysis, and discussion that sets the foundation for developing effective solutions.

Let’s take a look!

The Creativity Dice
Fishbone Analysis
Problem Tree
SWOT Analysis
Agreement-Certainty Matrix
The Journalistic Six
LEGO Challenge
What, So What, Now What?
Journalists

Individual and group perspectives are incredibly important, but what happens if people are set in their minds and need a change of perspective in order to approach a problem more effectively?

Flip It is a method we love because it is both simple to understand and run, and allows groups to understand how their perspectives and biases are formed.

Participants in Flip It are first invited to consider concerns, issues, or problems from a perspective of fear and write them on a flip chart. Then, the group is asked to consider those same issues from a perspective of hope and flip their understanding.

No problem and solution is free from existing bias and by changing perspectives with Flip It, you can then develop a problem solving model quickly and effectively.

Flip It! #gamestorming #problem solving #action Often, a change in a problem or situation comes simply from a change in our perspectives. Flip It! is a quick game designed to show players that perspectives are made, not born.

10. The Creativity Dice

One of the most useful problem solving skills you can teach your team is of approaching challenges with creativity, flexibility, and openness. Games like The Creativity Dice allow teams to overcome the potential hurdle of too much linear thinking and approach the process with a sense of fun and speed.

In The Creativity Dice, participants are organized around a topic and roll a dice to determine what they will work on for a period of 3 minutes at a time. They might roll a 3 and work on investigating factual information on the chosen topic. They might roll a 1 and work on identifying the specific goals, standards, or criteria for the session.

Encouraging rapid work and iteration while asking participants to be flexible are great skills to cultivate. Having a stage for idea incubation in this game is also important. Moments of pause can help ensure the ideas that are put forward are the most suitable.

The Creativity Dice #creativity #problem solving #thiagi #issue analysis Too much linear thinking is hazardous to creative problem solving. To be creative, you should approach the problem (or the opportunity) from different points of view. You should leave a thought hanging in mid-air and move to another. This skipping around prevents premature closure and lets your brain incubate one line of thought while you consciously pursue another.

11. Fishbone Analysis

Organizational or team challenges are rarely simple, and it’s important to remember that one problem can be an indication of something that goes deeper and may require further consideration to be solved.

Fishbone Analysis helps groups to dig deeper and understand the origins of a problem. It’s a great example of a root cause analysis method that is simple for everyone on a team to get their head around.

Participants in this activity are asked to annotate a diagram of a fish, first adding the problem or issue to be worked on at the head of a fish before then brainstorming the root causes of the problem and adding them as bones on the fish.

Using abstractions such as a diagram of a fish can really help a team break out of their regular thinking and develop a creative approach.

Fishbone Analysis #problem solving ##root cause analysis #decision making #online facilitation A process to help identify and understand the origins of problems, issues or observations.

12. Problem Tree

Encouraging visual thinking can be an essential part of many strategies. By simply reframing and clarifying problems, a group can move towards developing a problem solving model that works for them.

In Problem Tree, groups are asked to first brainstorm a list of problems – these can be design problems, team problems or larger business problems – and then organize them into a hierarchy. The hierarchy could be from most important to least important or abstract to practical, though the key thing with problem solving games that involve this aspect is that your group has some way of managing and sorting all the issues that are raised.

Once you have a list of problems that need to be solved and have organized them accordingly, you’re then well-positioned for the next problem solving steps.

Problem tree #define intentions #create #design #issue analysis A problem tree is a tool to clarify the hierarchy of problems addressed by the team within a design project; it represents high level problems or related sublevel problems.

13. SWOT Analysis

Chances are you’ve heard of the SWOT Analysis before. This problem-solving method focuses on identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is a tried and tested method for both individuals and teams.

Start by creating a desired end state or outcome and bare this in mind – any process solving model is made more effective by knowing what you are moving towards. Create a quadrant made up of the four categories of a SWOT analysis and ask participants to generate ideas based on each of those quadrants.

Once you have those ideas assembled in their quadrants, cluster them together based on their affinity with other ideas. These clusters are then used to facilitate group conversations and move things forward.

SWOT analysis #gamestorming #problem solving #action #meeting facilitation The SWOT Analysis is a long-standing technique of looking at what we have, with respect to the desired end state, as well as what we could improve on. It gives us an opportunity to gauge approaching opportunities and dangers, and assess the seriousness of the conditions that affect our future. When we understand those conditions, we can influence what comes next.

14. Agreement-Certainty Matrix

Not every problem-solving approach is right for every challenge, and deciding on the right method for the challenge at hand is a key part of being an effective team.

The Agreement Certainty matrix helps teams align on the nature of the challenges facing them. By sorting problems from simple to chaotic, your team can understand what methods are suitable for each problem and what they can do to ensure effective results.

If you are already using Liberating Structures techniques as part of your problem-solving strategy, the Agreement-Certainty Matrix can be an invaluable addition to your process. We’ve found it particularly if you are having issues with recurring problems in your organization and want to go deeper in understanding the root cause.

Agreement-Certainty Matrix #issue analysis #liberating structures #problem solving You can help individuals or groups avoid the frequent mistake of trying to solve a problem with methods that are not adapted to the nature of their challenge. The combination of two questions makes it possible to easily sort challenges into four categories: simple, complicated, complex , and chaotic . A problem is simple when it can be solved reliably with practices that are easy to duplicate. It is complicated when experts are required to devise a sophisticated solution that will yield the desired results predictably. A problem is complex when there are several valid ways to proceed but outcomes are not predictable in detail. Chaotic is when the context is too turbulent to identify a path forward. A loose analogy may be used to describe these differences: simple is like following a recipe, complicated like sending a rocket to the moon, complex like raising a child, and chaotic is like the game “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” The Liberating Structures Matching Matrix in Chapter 5 can be used as the first step to clarify the nature of a challenge and avoid the mismatches between problems and solutions that are frequently at the root of chronic, recurring problems.

Organizing and charting a team’s progress can be important in ensuring its success. SQUID (Sequential Question and Insight Diagram) is a great model that allows a team to effectively switch between giving questions and answers and develop the skills they need to stay on track throughout the process.

Begin with two different colored sticky notes – one for questions and one for answers – and with your central topic (the head of the squid) on the board. Ask the group to first come up with a series of questions connected to their best guess of how to approach the topic. Ask the group to come up with answers to those questions, fix them to the board and connect them with a line. After some discussion, go back to question mode by responding to the generated answers or other points on the board.

It’s rewarding to see a diagram grow throughout the exercise, and a completed SQUID can provide a visual resource for future effort and as an example for other teams.

SQUID #gamestorming #project planning #issue analysis #problem solving When exploring an information space, it’s important for a group to know where they are at any given time. By using SQUID, a group charts out the territory as they go and can navigate accordingly. SQUID stands for Sequential Question and Insight Diagram.

16. Speed Boat

To continue with our nautical theme, Speed Boat is a short and sweet activity that can help a team quickly identify what employees, clients or service users might have a problem with and analyze what might be standing in the way of achieving a solution.

Methods that allow for a group to make observations, have insights and obtain those eureka moments quickly are invaluable when trying to solve complex problems.

In Speed Boat, the approach is to first consider what anchors and challenges might be holding an organization (or boat) back. Bonus points if you are able to identify any sharks in the water and develop ideas that can also deal with competitors!

Speed Boat #gamestorming #problem solving #action Speedboat is a short and sweet way to identify what your employees or clients don’t like about your product/service or what’s standing in the way of a desired goal.

17. The Journalistic Six

Some of the most effective ways of solving problems is by encouraging teams to be more inclusive and diverse in their thinking.

Based on the six key questions journalism students are taught to answer in articles and news stories, The Journalistic Six helps create teams to see the whole picture. By using who, what, when, where, why, and how to facilitate the conversation and encourage creative thinking, your team can make sure that the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the are covered exhaustively and thoughtfully. Reporter’s notebook and dictaphone optional.

The Journalistic Six – Who What When Where Why How #idea generation #issue analysis #problem solving #online #creative thinking #remote-friendly A questioning method for generating, explaining, investigating ideas.

18. LEGO Challenge

Now for an activity that is a little out of the (toy) box. LEGO Serious Play is a facilitation methodology that can be used to improve creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

The LEGO Challenge includes giving each member of the team an assignment that is hidden from the rest of the group while they create a structure without speaking.

What the LEGO challenge brings to the table is a fun working example of working with stakeholders who might not be on the same page to solve problems. Also, it’s LEGO! Who doesn’t love LEGO!

LEGO Challenge #hyperisland #team A team-building activity in which groups must work together to build a structure out of LEGO, but each individual has a secret “assignment” which makes the collaborative process more challenging. It emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, conflict, cooperation, patience and problem solving strategy.

19. What, So What, Now What?

If not carefully managed, the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the problem-solving process can actually create more problems and misunderstandings.

The What, So What, Now What? problem-solving activity is designed to help collect insights and move forward while also eliminating the possibility of disagreement when it comes to identifying, clarifying, and analyzing organizational or work problems.

Facilitation is all about bringing groups together so that might work on a shared goal and the best problem-solving strategies ensure that teams are aligned in purpose, if not initially in opinion or insight.

Throughout the three steps of this game, you give everyone on a team to reflect on a problem by asking what happened, why it is important, and what actions should then be taken.

This can be a great activity for bringing our individual perceptions about a problem or challenge and contextualizing it in a larger group setting. This is one of the most important problem-solving skills you can bring to your organization.

W³ – What, So What, Now What? #issue analysis #innovation #liberating structures You can help groups reflect on a shared experience in a way that builds understanding and spurs coordinated action while avoiding unproductive conflict. It is possible for every voice to be heard while simultaneously sifting for insights and shaping new direction. Progressing in stages makes this practical—from collecting facts about What Happened to making sense of these facts with So What and finally to what actions logically follow with Now What . The shared progression eliminates most of the misunderstandings that otherwise fuel disagreements about what to do. Voila!

20. Journalists

Problem analysis can be one of the most important and decisive stages of all problem-solving tools. Sometimes, a team can become bogged down in the details and are unable to move forward.

Journalists is an activity that can avoid a group from getting stuck in the problem identification or problem analysis stages of the process.

In Journalists, the group is invited to draft the front page of a fictional newspaper and figure out what stories deserve to be on the cover and what headlines those stories will have. By reframing how your problems and challenges are approached, you can help a team move productively through the process and be better prepared for the steps to follow.

Journalists #vision #big picture #issue analysis #remote-friendly This is an exercise to use when the group gets stuck in details and struggles to see the big picture. Also good for defining a vision.

Problem-solving techniques for developing solutions

The success of any problem-solving process can be measured by the solutions it produces. After you’ve defined the issue, explored existing ideas, and ideated, it’s time to narrow down to the correct solution.

Use these problem-solving techniques when you want to help your team find consensus, compare possible solutions, and move towards taking action on a particular problem.

Improved Solutions
Four-Step Sketch
15% Solutions
How-Now-Wow matrix
Impact Effort Matrix

21. Mindspin

Brainstorming is part of the bread and butter of the problem-solving process and all problem-solving strategies benefit from getting ideas out and challenging a team to generate solutions quickly.

With Mindspin, participants are encouraged not only to generate ideas but to do so under time constraints and by slamming down cards and passing them on. By doing multiple rounds, your team can begin with a free generation of possible solutions before moving on to developing those solutions and encouraging further ideation.

This is one of our favorite problem-solving activities and can be great for keeping the energy up throughout the workshop. Remember the importance of helping people become engaged in the process – energizing problem-solving techniques like Mindspin can help ensure your team stays engaged and happy, even when the problems they’re coming together to solve are complex.

MindSpin #teampedia #idea generation #problem solving #action A fast and loud method to enhance brainstorming within a team. Since this activity has more than round ideas that are repetitive can be ruled out leaving more creative and innovative answers to the challenge.

22. Improved Solutions

After a team has successfully identified a problem and come up with a few solutions, it can be tempting to call the work of the problem-solving process complete. That said, the first solution is not necessarily the best, and by including a further review and reflection activity into your problem-solving model, you can ensure your group reaches the best possible result.

One of a number of problem-solving games from Thiagi Group, Improved Solutions helps you go the extra mile and develop suggested solutions with close consideration and peer review. By supporting the discussion of several problems at once and by shifting team roles throughout, this problem-solving technique is a dynamic way of finding the best solution.

Improved Solutions #creativity #thiagi #problem solving #action #team You can improve any solution by objectively reviewing its strengths and weaknesses and making suitable adjustments. In this creativity framegame, you improve the solutions to several problems. To maintain objective detachment, you deal with a different problem during each of six rounds and assume different roles (problem owner, consultant, basher, booster, enhancer, and evaluator) during each round. At the conclusion of the activity, each player ends up with two solutions to her problem.

23. Four Step Sketch

Creative thinking and visual ideation does not need to be confined to the opening stages of your problem-solving strategies. Exercises that include sketching and prototyping on paper can be effective at the solution finding and development stage of the process, and can be great for keeping a team engaged.

By going from simple notes to a crazy 8s round that involves rapidly sketching 8 variations on their ideas before then producing a final solution sketch, the group is able to iterate quickly and visually. Problem-solving techniques like Four-Step Sketch are great if you have a group of different thinkers and want to change things up from a more textual or discussion-based approach.

Four-Step Sketch #design sprint #innovation #idea generation #remote-friendly The four-step sketch is an exercise that helps people to create well-formed concepts through a structured process that includes: Review key information Start design work on paper, Consider multiple variations , Create a detailed solution . This exercise is preceded by a set of other activities allowing the group to clarify the challenge they want to solve. See how the Four Step Sketch exercise fits into a Design Sprint

24. 15% Solutions

Some problems are simpler than others and with the right problem-solving activities, you can empower people to take immediate actions that can help create organizational change.

Part of the liberating structures toolkit, 15% solutions is a problem-solving technique that focuses on finding and implementing solutions quickly. A process of iterating and making small changes quickly can help generate momentum and an appetite for solving complex problems.

Problem-solving strategies can live and die on whether people are onboard. Getting some quick wins is a great way of getting people behind the process.

It can be extremely empowering for a team to realize that problem-solving techniques can be deployed quickly and easily and delineate between things they can positively impact and those things they cannot change.

15% Solutions #action #liberating structures #remote-friendly You can reveal the actions, however small, that everyone can do immediately. At a minimum, these will create momentum, and that may make a BIG difference. 15% Solutions show that there is no reason to wait around, feel powerless, or fearful. They help people pick it up a level. They get individuals and the group to focus on what is within their discretion instead of what they cannot change. With a very simple question, you can flip the conversation to what can be done and find solutions to big problems that are often distributed widely in places not known in advance. Shifting a few grains of sand may trigger a landslide and change the whole landscape.

25. How-Now-Wow Matrix

The problem-solving process is often creative, as complex problems usually require a change of thinking and creative response in order to find the best solutions. While it’s common for the first stages to encourage creative thinking, groups can often gravitate to familiar solutions when it comes to the end of the process.

When selecting solutions, you don’t want to lose your creative energy! The How-Now-Wow Matrix from Gamestorming is a great problem-solving activity that enables a group to stay creative and think out of the box when it comes to selecting the right solution for a given problem.

Problem-solving techniques that encourage creative thinking and the ideation and selection of new solutions can be the most effective in organisational change. Give the How-Now-Wow Matrix a go, and not just for how pleasant it is to say out loud.

How-Now-Wow Matrix #gamestorming #idea generation #remote-friendly When people want to develop new ideas, they most often think out of the box in the brainstorming or divergent phase. However, when it comes to convergence, people often end up picking ideas that are most familiar to them. This is called a ‘creative paradox’ or a ‘creadox’. The How-Now-Wow matrix is an idea selection tool that breaks the creadox by forcing people to weigh each idea on 2 parameters.

26. Impact and Effort Matrix

All problem-solving techniques hope to not only find solutions to a given problem or challenge but to find the best solution. When it comes to finding a solution, groups are invited to put on their decision-making hats and really think about how a proposed idea would work in practice.

The Impact and Effort Matrix is one of the problem-solving techniques that fall into this camp, empowering participants to first generate ideas and then categorize them into a 2×2 matrix based on impact and effort.

Activities that invite critical thinking while remaining simple are invaluable. Use the Impact and Effort Matrix to move from ideation and towards evaluating potential solutions before then committing to them.

Impact and Effort Matrix #gamestorming #decision making #action #remote-friendly In this decision-making exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas along these lines is a useful technique in decision making, as it obliges contributors to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing to them.

27. Dotmocracy

If you’ve followed each of the problem-solving steps with your group successfully, you should move towards the end of your process with heaps of possible solutions developed with a specific problem in mind. But how do you help a group go from ideation to putting a solution into action?

Dotmocracy – or Dot Voting -is a tried and tested method of helping a team in the problem-solving process make decisions and put actions in place with a degree of oversight and consensus.

One of the problem-solving techniques that should be in every facilitator’s toolbox, Dot Voting is fast and effective and can help identify the most popular and best solutions and help bring a group to a decision effectively.

Dotmocracy #action #decision making #group prioritization #hyperisland #remote-friendly Dotmocracy is a simple method for group prioritization or decision-making. It is not an activity on its own, but a method to use in processes where prioritization or decision-making is the aim. The method supports a group to quickly see which options are most popular or relevant. The options or ideas are written on post-its and stuck up on a wall for the whole group to see. Each person votes for the options they think are the strongest, and that information is used to inform a decision.

All facilitators know that warm-ups and icebreakers are useful for any workshop or group process. Problem-solving workshops are no different.

Use these problem-solving techniques to warm up a group and prepare them for the rest of the process. Activating your group by tapping into some of the top problem-solving skills can be one of the best ways to see great outcomes from your session.

Check-in/Check-out
Doodling Together
Show and Tell
Constellations
Draw a Tree

28. Check-in / Check-out

Solid processes are planned from beginning to end, and the best facilitators know that setting the tone and establishing a safe, open environment can be integral to a successful problem-solving process.

Check-in / Check-out is a great way to begin and/or bookend a problem-solving workshop. Checking in to a session emphasizes that everyone will be seen, heard, and expected to contribute.

If you are running a series of meetings, setting a consistent pattern of checking in and checking out can really help your team get into a groove. We recommend this opening-closing activity for small to medium-sized groups though it can work with large groups if they’re disciplined!

Check-in / Check-out #team #opening #closing #hyperisland #remote-friendly Either checking-in or checking-out is a simple way for a team to open or close a process, symbolically and in a collaborative way. Checking-in/out invites each member in a group to be present, seen and heard, and to express a reflection or a feeling. Checking-in emphasizes presence, focus and group commitment; checking-out emphasizes reflection and symbolic closure.

29. Doodling Together

Thinking creatively and not being afraid to make suggestions are important problem-solving skills for any group or team, and warming up by encouraging these behaviors is a great way to start.

Doodling Together is one of our favorite creative ice breaker games – it’s quick, effective, and fun and can make all following problem-solving steps easier by encouraging a group to collaborate visually. By passing cards and adding additional items as they go, the workshop group gets into a groove of co-creation and idea development that is crucial to finding solutions to problems.

Doodling Together #collaboration #creativity #teamwork #fun #team #visual methods #energiser #icebreaker #remote-friendly Create wild, weird and often funny postcards together & establish a group’s creative confidence.

30. Show and Tell

You might remember some version of Show and Tell from being a kid in school and it’s a great problem-solving activity to kick off a session.

Asking participants to prepare a little something before a workshop by bringing an object for show and tell can help them warm up before the session has even begun! Games that include a physical object can also help encourage early engagement before moving onto more big-picture thinking.

By asking your participants to tell stories about why they chose to bring a particular item to the group, you can help teams see things from new perspectives and see both differences and similarities in the way they approach a topic. Great groundwork for approaching a problem-solving process as a team!

Show and Tell #gamestorming #action #opening #meeting facilitation Show and Tell taps into the power of metaphors to reveal players’ underlying assumptions and associations around a topic The aim of the game is to get a deeper understanding of stakeholders’ perspectives on anything—a new project, an organizational restructuring, a shift in the company’s vision or team dynamic.

31. Constellations

Who doesn’t love stars? Constellations is a great warm-up activity for any workshop as it gets people up off their feet, energized, and ready to engage in new ways with established topics. It’s also great for showing existing beliefs, biases, and patterns that can come into play as part of your session.

Using warm-up games that help build trust and connection while also allowing for non-verbal responses can be great for easing people into the problem-solving process and encouraging engagement from everyone in the group. Constellations is great in large spaces that allow for movement and is definitely a practical exercise to allow the group to see patterns that are otherwise invisible.

Constellations #trust #connection #opening #coaching #patterns #system Individuals express their response to a statement or idea by standing closer or further from a central object. Used with teams to reveal system, hidden patterns, perspectives.

32. Draw a Tree

Problem-solving games that help raise group awareness through a central, unifying metaphor can be effective ways to warm-up a group in any problem-solving model.

Draw a Tree is a simple warm-up activity you can use in any group and which can provide a quick jolt of energy. Start by asking your participants to draw a tree in just 45 seconds – they can choose whether it will be abstract or realistic.

Once the timer is up, ask the group how many people included the roots of the tree and use this as a means to discuss how we can ignore important parts of any system simply because they are not visible.

All problem-solving strategies are made more effective by thinking of problems critically and by exposing things that may not normally come to light. Warm-up games like Draw a Tree are great in that they quickly demonstrate some key problem-solving skills in an accessible and effective way.

Draw a Tree #thiagi #opening #perspectives #remote-friendly With this game you can raise awarness about being more mindful, and aware of the environment we live in.

Each step of the problem-solving workshop benefits from an intelligent deployment of activities, games, and techniques. Bringing your session to an effective close helps ensure that solutions are followed through on and that you also celebrate what has been achieved.

Here are some problem-solving activities you can use to effectively close a workshop or meeting and ensure the great work you’ve done can continue afterward.

One Breath Feedback
Who What When Matrix
Response Cards

How do I conclude a problem-solving process?

All good things must come to an end. With the bulk of the work done, it can be tempting to conclude your workshop swiftly and without a moment to debrief and align. This can be problematic in that it doesn’t allow your team to fully process the results or reflect on the process.

At the end of an effective session, your team will have gone through a process that, while productive, can be exhausting. It’s important to give your group a moment to take a breath, ensure that they are clear on future actions, and provide short feedback before leaving the space.

The primary purpose of any problem-solving method is to generate solutions and then implement them. Be sure to take the opportunity to ensure everyone is aligned and ready to effectively implement the solutions you produced in the workshop.

Remember that every process can be improved and by giving a short moment to collect feedback in the session, you can further refine your problem-solving methods and see further success in the future too.

33. One Breath Feedback

Maintaining attention and focus during the closing stages of a problem-solving workshop can be tricky and so being concise when giving feedback can be important. It’s easy to incur “death by feedback” should some team members go on for too long sharing their perspectives in a quick feedback round.

One Breath Feedback is a great closing activity for workshops. You give everyone an opportunity to provide feedback on what they’ve done but only in the space of a single breath. This keeps feedback short and to the point and means that everyone is encouraged to provide the most important piece of feedback to them.

One breath feedback #closing #feedback #action This is a feedback round in just one breath that excels in maintaining attention: each participants is able to speak during just one breath … for most people that’s around 20 to 25 seconds … unless of course you’ve been a deep sea diver in which case you’ll be able to do it for longer.

34. Who What When Matrix

Matrices feature as part of many effective problem-solving strategies and with good reason. They are easily recognizable, simple to use, and generate results.

The Who What When Matrix is a great tool to use when closing your problem-solving session by attributing a who, what and when to the actions and solutions you have decided upon. The resulting matrix is a simple, easy-to-follow way of ensuring your team can move forward.

Great solutions can’t be enacted without action and ownership. Your problem-solving process should include a stage for allocating tasks to individuals or teams and creating a realistic timeframe for those solutions to be implemented or checked out. Use this method to keep the solution implementation process clear and simple for all involved.

Who/What/When Matrix #gamestorming #action #project planning With Who/What/When matrix, you can connect people with clear actions they have defined and have committed to.

35. Response cards

Group discussion can comprise the bulk of most problem-solving activities and by the end of the process, you might find that your team is talked out!

Providing a means for your team to give feedback with short written notes can ensure everyone is head and can contribute without the need to stand up and talk. Depending on the needs of the group, giving an alternative can help ensure everyone can contribute to your problem-solving model in the way that makes the most sense for them.

Response Cards is a great way to close a workshop if you are looking for a gentle warm-down and want to get some swift discussion around some of the feedback that is raised.

Response Cards #debriefing #closing #structured sharing #questions and answers #thiagi #action It can be hard to involve everyone during a closing of a session. Some might stay in the background or get unheard because of louder participants. However, with the use of Response Cards, everyone will be involved in providing feedback or clarify questions at the end of a session.

Save time and effort discovering the right solutions

A structured problem solving process is a surefire way of solving tough problems, discovering creative solutions and driving organizational change. But how can you design for successful outcomes?

With SessionLab, it’s easy to design engaging workshops that deliver results. Drag, drop and reorder blocks to build your agenda. When you make changes or update your agenda, your session timing adjusts automatically , saving you time on manual adjustments.

Collaborating with stakeholders or clients? Share your agenda with a single click and collaborate in real-time. No more sending documents back and forth over email.

Explore how to use SessionLab to design effective problem solving workshops or watch this five minute video to see the planner in action!

Over to you

The problem-solving process can often be as complicated and multifaceted as the problems they are set-up to solve. With the right problem-solving techniques and a mix of creative exercises designed to guide discussion and generate purposeful ideas, we hope we’ve given you the tools to find the best solutions as simply and easily as possible.

Is there a problem-solving technique that you are missing here? Do you have a favorite activity or method you use when facilitating? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!

thank you very much for these excellent techniques

Certainly wonderful article, very detailed. Shared!

Your list of techniques for problem solving can be helpfully extended by adding TRIZ to the list of techniques. TRIZ has 40 problem solving techniques derived from methods inventros and patent holders used to get new patents. About 10-12 are general approaches. many organization sponsor classes in TRIZ that are used to solve business problems or general organiztational problems. You can take a look at TRIZ and dwonload a free internet booklet to see if you feel it shound be included per your selection process.

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Giant Story Problems: Reading Comprehension through Math Problem-Solving

Resources & Preparation
Instructional Plan
Related Resources

This lesson focuses on reading comprehension skills as they apply to mathematics story problems, as well as on written and verbal mathematics communication skills. Working as a class, students read a story problem and answer a series of questions designed to bring out the essential points of the problem. Students then draw a picture on chart paper showing the details of the story problem. They write both an equation and a sentence to represent the problem. Finally, students repeat the process with new problems, working in small groups to create posters using images, text, and mathematical equations to represent a story problem.

Featured Resources

Sample Giant Story Problems : Use these sample problems for groups to solve.

From Theory to Practice

David and Phyllis Whitin talk about the value of writing in the mathematics curriculum in chapter one of Math Is Language Too: Talking and Writing in the Mathematics Classroom . They state that mathematics and language are both "ways for learners to make sense of their world" and that "writing and talking are ways that learners can make their mathematical thinking visible." One of the most concrete examples of mathematics as language is in the reading and solving of story problems. Story problems depend on reading comprehension skills for the development of successful problem-solving strategies. Having students collaborate on story problems gives them the opportunity to learn by talking, collaborating, and sharing ideas as they compare pictures, words, and numeric symbols for consistency. The Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, by The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, includes communication as a mathematics tool for all levels of learners and suggests collaboration as especially beneficial for young learners. Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
10. Students whose first language is not English make use of their first language to develop competency in the English language arts and to develop understanding of content across the curriculum.
12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

General classroom supplies (chart paper, colored markers, white construction paper, glue, crayons, and pencils)

Sample Giant Story Problems

Preparation

Prepare several appropriate story problems beforehand, either by using a large word-processing font or by writing them by hand. Story Problems should be on individual pieces of paper so that each group will receive only one story problem, and so that each group receives a different problem. More story problems can be written by the teacher, photocopied and enlarged from workbooks, or found online.
Prepare heterogeneous groups, balanced with student strengths according to problem-solving, drawing, and writing skills.

Student Objectives

Students will

participate in a shared problem-solving activity.
collaborate in small groups to develop a problem-solving strategy.
use drawings, words, and equations to model solutions to story problems.
effectively and clearly explain their problem-solving strategies to other students.
write about and reflect on their problem-solving strategies.

Session One

Post chart paper on the wall and gather students together near it. Inform them that they will work together to solve a math story, and that later they’ll work in groups to solve their own.
Start with a completely blank chart paper so that students can see the entire process.
What is this story problem about?
How many [subjects/objects] are there to begin with?
What is happening to these [subjects/objects]?
As students identify the information, highlight or underline the information that will be needed to solve the problem.
When important words and numbers have been highlighted, work through the story problem item by item to create a drawing that models the story. Have students volunteer to do the drawings on the chart paper. All pertinent information should be illustrated. For example, in a story problem about three people who have four cookies each, the drawing would show three people, each with four cookies. Any details will be up to the students doing the drawing.
When the drawing is finished, review with students the language of the story problem and compare it to the drawing, checking for accuracy: "Does this picture show what it says in the story?" Ask for an equation or number sentence that will show what the drawing says and which will solve the problem. If a student suggests an incorrect equation, write it on the board (not on the chart paper) and ask students to tell why it will or will not work. When a student states a correct equation, compare it with the drawing, then have him or her write it under the drawing with a marker after other students agree that the equation will work.
Ask students to find the actual question in the story problem that needs to be answered: "What does this story want to know?" Read it aloud. Ask for a complete sentence that answers the question. When a sentence has been agreed upon that includes specific information (e.g., the subject's name, the numbers involved, the items' names, etc.), have a student write the sentence under the equation, using conventional capitalization and punctuation, and writing all numbers as words (i.e., instead of writing "20" a student would write "twenty") to facilitate correct spelling of number words.
Review all parts of the chart, and leave it posted for Session Two. Samples of student work can be found at Giant Story Problems .

Session Two

glue problem on paper
read story problem
underline important words
write equation
write sentence
Have students get into groups. Each group will need one sheet of white construction paper (12x18), crayons, writing materials, and one story problem. (Every group should have a different problem.) If desired, assign each group a leader whose job it would be to make sure everyone in the group is participating.
While students work to solve their story problems, circulate among the groups to ask questions and make sure everyone is participating in the process. If students are having difficulty, try to ask leading questions rather than give them specific help with a strategy. If it appears that students are using an inappropriate strategy, help them refer back to the language of the story problem. As they work, let them know that they will be sharing their work with the class.
When all groups are finished, have students share their posters with the whole class, explaining their drawing by referring to their story problem, and telling why their mathematical solution will work to solve the problem.
How did drawing a picture help you solve the story problem?
What was the most interesting thing about this lesson?
Display all the Giant Story Problems on the wall.
Have students meet in groups to write their own story problems, then have the groups exchange problems to solve.
Have students practice spelling number words at FunBrain .
Prepare additional "giant" story problems to keep in a basket for students to work on at a math center or during choice time.
Photocopy "regular-sized" story problems from workbooks, cut them up individually, and put them in a basket for students to choose from. These can be used by individual students using the same procedure as "giant" story problems, but on regular-sized paper.

Student Assessment / Reflections

Teacher observation of whole group participation.
Teacher observation of small group participation.
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Algebra Topics - Introduction to Word Problems

Algebra topics -, introduction to word problems, algebra topics introduction to word problems.

Algebra Topics: Introduction to Word Problems

Lesson 9: introduction to word problems.

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What are word problems?

A word problem is a math problem written out as a short story or scenario. Basically, it describes a realistic problem and asks you to imagine how you would solve it using math. If you've ever taken a math class, you've probably solved a word problem. For instance, does this sound familiar?

Johnny has 12 apples. If he gives four to Susie, how many will he have left?

You could solve this problem by looking at the numbers and figuring out what the problem is asking you to do. In this case, you're supposed to find out how many apples Johnny has left at the end of the problem. By reading the problem, you know Johnny starts out with 12 apples. By the end, he has 4 less because he gave them away. You could write this as:

12 - 4 = 8 , so you know Johnny has 8 apples left.

Word problems in algebra

If you were able to solve this problem, you should also be able to solve algebra word problems. Yes, they involve more complicated math, but they use the same basic problem-solving skills as simpler word problems.

You can tackle any word problem by following these five steps:

Read through the problem carefully, and figure out what it's about.
Represent unknown numbers with variables.
Translate the rest of the problem into a mathematical expression.
Solve the problem.
Check your work.

We'll work through an algebra word problem using these steps. Here's a typical problem:

The rate to rent a small moving van is $30 per day, plus $0.50 per mile. Jada rented a van to drive to her new home. It took two days, and the van cost $360. How many miles did she drive?

It might seem complicated at first glance, but we already have all of the information we need to solve it. Let's go through it step by step.

Step 1: Read through the problem carefully.

With any problem, start by reading through the problem. As you're reading, consider:

What question is the problem asking?
What information do you already have?

Let's take a look at our problem again. What question is the problem asking? In other words, what are you trying to find out?

The rate to rent a small moving van is $30 per day, plus $0.50 per mile. Jada rented a van to drive to her new home. It took 2 days, and the van cost $360. How many miles did she drive?

There's only one question here. We're trying to find out how many miles Jada drove . Now we need to locate any information that will help us answer this question.

There are a few important things we know that will help us figure out the total mileage Jada drove:

The van cost $30 per day.
In addition to paying a daily charge, Jada paid $0.50 per mile.
Jada had the van for 2 days.
The total cost was $360 .

Step 2: Represent unknown numbers with variables.

In algebra, you represent unknown numbers with letters called variables . (To learn more about variables, see our lesson on reading algebraic expressions .) You can use a variable in the place of any amount you don't know. Looking at our problem, do you see a quantity we should represent with a variable? It's often the number we're trying to find out.

Since we're trying to find the total number of miles Jada drove, we'll represent that amount with a variable—at least until we know it. We'll use the variable m for miles . Of course, we could use any variable, but m should be easy to remember.

Step 3: Translate the rest of the problem.

Let's take another look at the problem, with the facts we'll use to solve it highlighted.

The rate to rent a small moving van is $30 per day , plus $0.50 per mile . Jada rented a van to drive to her new home. It took 2 days , and the van cost $360 . How many miles did she drive?

We know the total cost of the van, and we know that it includes a fee for the number of days, plus another fee for the number of miles. It's $30 per day, and $0.50 per mile. A simpler way to say this would be:

$30 per day plus $0.50 per mile is $360.

If you look at this sentence and the original problem, you can see that they basically say the same thing: It cost Jada $30 per day and $0.50 per mile, and her total cost was $360 . The shorter version will be easier to translate into a mathematical expression.

Let's start by translating $30 per day . To calculate the cost of something that costs a certain amount per day, you'd multiply the per-day cost by the number of days—in other words, 30 per day could be written as 30 ⋅ days, or 30 times the number of days . (Not sure why you'd translate it this way? Check out our lesson on writing algebraic expressions .)

$30 per day and $.50 per mile is $360

$30 ⋅ day + $.50 ⋅ mile = $360

As you can see, there were a few other words we could translate into operators, so and $.50 became + $.50 , $.50 per mile became $.50 ⋅ mile , and is became = .

Next, we'll add in the numbers and variables we already know. We already know the number of days Jada drove, 2 , so we can replace that. We've also already said we'll use m to represent the number of miles, so we can replace that too. We should also take the dollar signs off of the money amounts to make them consistent with the other numbers.

30 ⋅ 2 + .5 ⋅ m = 360

Now we have our expression. All that's left to do is solve it.

Step 4: Solve the problem.

This problem will take a few steps to solve. (If you're not sure how to do the math in this section, you might want to review our lesson on simplifying expressions .) First, let's simplify the expression as much as possible. We can multiply 30 and 2, so let's go ahead and do that. We can also write .5 ⋅ m as 0.5 m .

60 + .5m = 360

Next, we need to do what we can to get the m alone on the left side of the equals sign. Once we do that, we'll know what m is equal to—in other words, it will let us know the number of miles in our word problem.

We can start by getting rid of the 60 on the left side by subtracting it from both sides .

The only thing left to get rid of is .5 . Since it's being multiplied with m , we'll do the reverse and divide both sides of the equation with it.

.5 m / .5 is m and 300 / 0.50 is 600 , so m = 600 . In other words, the answer to our problem is 600 —we now know Jada drove 600 miles.

Step 5: Check the problem.

To make sure we solved the problem correctly, we should check our work. To do this, we can use the answer we just got— 600 —and calculate backward to find another of the quantities in our problem. In other words, if our answer for Jada's distance is correct, we should be able to use it to work backward and find another value, like the total cost. Let's take another look at the problem.

According to the problem, the van costs $30 per day and $0.50 per mile. If Jada really did drive 600 miles in 2 days, she could calculate the cost like this:

$30 per day and $0.50 per mile

30 ⋅ day + .5 ⋅ mile

30 ⋅ 2 + .5 ⋅ 600

According to our math, the van would cost $360, which is exactly what the problem says. This means our solution was correct. We're done!

While some word problems will be more complicated than others, you can use these basic steps to approach any word problem. On the next page, you can try it for yourself.

Let's practice with a couple more problems. You can solve these problems the same way we solved the first one—just follow the problem-solving steps we covered earlier. For your reference, these steps are:

If you get stuck, you might want to review the problem on page 1. You can also take a look at our lesson on writing algebraic expressions for some tips on translating written words into math.

Try completing this problem on your own. When you're done, move on to the next page to check your answer and see an explanation of the steps.

A single ticket to the fair costs $8. A family pass costs $25 more than half of that. How much does a family pass cost?

Here's another problem to do on your own. As with the last problem, you can find the answer and explanation to this one on the next page.

Flor and Mo both donated money to the same charity. Flor gave three times as much as Mo. Between the two of them, they donated $280. How much money did Mo give?

Problem 1 Answer

Here's Problem 1:

A single ticket to the fair costs $8. A family pass costs $25 more than half that. How much does a family pass cost?

Answer: $29

Let's solve this problem step by step. We'll solve it the same way we solved the problem on page 1.

Step 1: Read through the problem carefully

The first in solving any word problem is to find out what question the problem is asking you to solve and identify the information that will help you solve it . Let's look at the problem again. The question is right there in plain sight:

So is the information we'll need to answer the question:

A single ticket costs $8 .
The family pass costs $25 more than half the price of the single ticket.

Step 2: Represent the unknown numbers with variables

The unknown number in this problem is the cost of the family pass . We'll represent it with the variable f .

Step 3: Translate the rest of the problem

Let's look at the problem again. This time, the important facts are highlighted.

A single ticket to the fair costs $8 . A family pass costs $25 more than half that . How much does a family pass cost?

In other words, we could say that the cost of a family pass equals half of $8, plus $25 . To turn this into a problem we can solve, we'll have to translate it into math. Here's how:

First, replace the cost of a family pass with our variable f .

f equals half of $8 plus $25

Next, take out the dollar signs and replace words like plus and equals with operators.

f = half of 8 + 25

Finally, translate the rest of the problem. Half of can be written as 1/2 times , or 1/2 ⋅ :

f = 1/2 ⋅ 8 + 25

Step 4: Solve the problem

Now all we have to do is solve our problem. Like with any problem, we can solve this one by following the order of operations.

f is already alone on the left side of the equation, so all we have to do is calculate the right side.
First, multiply 1/2 by 8 . 1/2 ⋅ 8 is 4 .
Next, add 4 and 25. 4 + 25 equals 29 .

That's it! f is equal to 29. In other words, the cost of a family pass is $29 .

Step 5: Check your work

Finally, let's check our work by working backward from our answer. In this case, we should be able to correctly calculate the cost of a single ticket by using the cost we calculated for the family pass. Let's look at the original problem again.

We calculated that a family pass costs $29. Our problem says the pass costs $25 more than half the cost of a single ticket. In other words, half the cost of a single ticket will be $25 less than $29.

We could translate this into this equation, with s standing for the cost of a single ticket.

1/2s = 29 - 25

Let's work on the right side first. 29 - 25 is 4 .
To find the value of s , we have to get it alone on the left side of the equation. This means getting rid of 1/2 . To do this, we'll multiply each side by the inverse of 1/2: 2 .

According to our math, s = 8 . In other words, if the family pass costs $29, the single ticket will cost $8. Looking at our original problem, that's correct!

So now we're sure about the answer to our problem: The cost of a family pass is $29 .

Problem 2 Answer

Here's Problem 2:

Answer: $70

Let's go through this problem one step at a time.

Start by asking what question the problem is asking you to solve and identifying the information that will help you solve it . What's the question here?

To solve the problem, you'll have to find out how much money Mo gave to charity. All the important information you need is in the problem:

The amount Flor donated is three times as much the amount Mo donated
Flor and Mo's donations add up to $280 total

The unknown number we're trying to identify in this problem is Mo's donation . We'll represent it with the variable m .

Here's the problem again. This time, the important facts are highlighted.

Flor and Mo both donated money to the same charity. Flor gave three times as much as Mo . Between the two of them, they donated $280 . How much money did Mo give?

The important facts of the problem could also be expressed this way:

Mo's donation plus Flor's donation equals $280

Because we know that Flor's donation is three times as much as Mo's donation, we could go even further and say:

Mo's donation plus three times Mo's donation equals $280

We can translate this into a math problem in only a few steps. Here's how:

Because we've already said we'll represent the amount of Mo's donation with the variable m , let's start by replacing Mo's donation with m .

m plus three times m equals $280

Next, we can put in mathematical operators in place of certain words. We'll also take out the dollar sign.

m + three times m = 280

Finally, let's write three times mathematically. Three times m can also be written as 3 ⋅ m , or just 3 m .

m + 3m = 280

It will only take a few steps to solve this problem.

To get the correct answer, we'll have to get m alone on one side of the equation.
To start, let's add m and 3 m . That's 4 m .
We can get rid of the 4 next to the m by dividing both sides by 4. 4 m / 4 is m , and 280 / 4 is 70 .

We've got our answer: m = 70 . In other words, Mo donated $70 .

The answer to our problem is $70 , but we should check just to be sure. Let's look at our problem again.

If our answer is correct, $70 and three times $70 should add up to $280 .

We can write our new equation like this:

70 + 3 ⋅ 70 = 280

The order of operations calls for us to multiply first. 3 ⋅ 70 is 210.

70 + 210 = 280

The last step is to add 70 and 210. 70 plus 210 equals 280 .

280 is the combined cost of the tickets in our original problem. Our answer is correct : Mo gave $70 to charity.

/en/algebra-topics/distance-word-problems/content/

Rajesh Setty

Bringing ideas to life. with love, a story on problem solving – contributed by sridhar krishnan.

Sridhar Krishnan shares a wonderful story about problem solving. Enjoy!

So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into An empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag. 1. If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven. 2. If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven. 3. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail. They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer’s field.

As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed damsel/girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag. Now, imagine that you were standing in the field. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her? Careful analysis would produce three possibilities: 1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble. 2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat. 3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment. Take a moment to ponder over the story.

The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl’s dilemma cannot be solved with traditional logical thinking.

Think of the consequences if she chooses the above logical answers. What would you recommend to the girl do?

Please see the solution after you come up with your own solution

What the girl really did:

The $.02 : Most complex problems may have a simple solution; just change the way you think about them.

Number Line

\mathrm{Lauren's\:age\:is\:half\:of\:Joe's\:age.\:Emma\:is\:four\:years\:older\:than\:Joe.\:The\:sum\:of\:Lauren,\:Emma,\:and\:Joe's\:age\:is\:54.\:How\:old\:is\:Joe?}
\mathrm{Kira\:went\:for\:a\:drive\:in\:her\:new\:car.\:She\:drove\:for\:142.5\:miles\:at\:a\:speed\:of\:57\:mph.\:For\:how\:many\:hours\:did\:she\:drive?}
\mathrm{The\:sum\:of\:two\:numbers\:is\:249\:.\:Twice\:the\:larger\:number\:plus\:three\:times\:the\:smaller\:number\:is\:591\:.\:Find\:the\:numbers.}
\mathrm{If\:2\:tacos\:and\:3\:drinks\:cost\:12\:and\:3\:tacos\:and\:2\:drinks\:cost\:13\:how\:much\:does\:a\:taco\:cost?}
\mathrm{You\:deposit\:3000\:in\:an\:account\:earning\:2\%\:interest\:compounded\:monthly.\:How\:much\:will\:you\:have\:in\:the\:account\:in\:15\:years?}
How do you solve word problems?
To solve word problems start by reading the problem carefully and understanding what it's asking. Try underlining or highlighting key information, such as numbers and key words that indicate what operation is needed to perform. Translate the problem into mathematical expressions or equations, and use the information and equations generated to solve for the answer.
How do you identify word problems in math?
Word problems in math can be identified by the use of language that describes a situation or scenario. Word problems often use words and phrases which indicate that performing calculations is needed to find a solution. Additionally, word problems will often include specific information such as numbers, measurements, and units that needed to be used to solve the problem.
Is there a calculator that can solve word problems?
Symbolab is the best calculator for solving a wide range of word problems, including age problems, distance problems, cost problems, investments problems, number problems, and percent problems.
What is an age problem?
An age problem is a type of word problem in math that involves calculating the age of one or more people at a specific point in time. These problems often use phrases such as 'x years ago,' 'in y years,' or 'y years later,' which indicate that the problem is related to time and age.

word-problems-calculator

Middle School Math Solutions – Simultaneous Equations Calculator Solving simultaneous equations is one small algebra step further on from simple equations. Symbolab math solutions...

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A Better Framework for Solving Tough Problems

Start with trust and end with speed.

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When it comes to solving complicated problems, the default for many organizational leaders is to take their time to work through the issues at hand. Unfortunately, that often leads to patchwork solutions or problems not truly getting resolved.

But Anne Morriss offers a different framework. In this episode, she outlines a five-step process for solving any problem and explains why starting with trust and ending with speed is so important for effective change leadership. As she says, “Let’s get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it.”

Morriss is an entrepreneur and leadership coach. She’s also the coauthor of the book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems .

Key episode topics include: strategy, decision making and problem solving, strategy execution, managing people, collaboration and teams, trustworthiness, organizational culture, change leadership, problem solving, leadership.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: How to Solve Tough Problems Better and Faster (2023)
Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast
Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org .

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR On Strategy , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock new ways of doing business.

When it comes to solving complicated problems, many leaders only focus on the most apparent issues. Unfortunately that often leads to patchwork or partial solutions. But Anne Morriss offers a different framework that aims to truly tackle big problems by first leaning into trust and then focusing on speed.

Morriss is an entrepreneur and leadership coach. She’s also the co-author of the book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems . In this episode, she outlines a five-step process for solving any problem. Some, she says, can be solved in a week, while others take much longer. She also explains why starting with trust and ending with speed is so important for effective change leadership.

This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in October 2023. Here it is.

CURT NICKISCH: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Curt Nickisch.

Problems can be intimidating. Sure, some problems are fun to dig into. You roll up your sleeves, you just take care of them; but others, well, they’re complicated. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your brain around a problem, much less fix it.

And that’s especially true for leaders in organizations where problems are often layered and complex. They sometimes demand technical, financial, or interpersonal knowledge to fix. And whether it’s avoidance on the leaders’ part or just the perception that a problem is systemic or even intractable, problems find a way to endure, to keep going, to keep being a problem that everyone tries to work around or just puts up with.

But today’s guest says that just compounds it and makes the problem harder to fix. Instead, she says, speed and momentum are key to overcoming a problem.

Anne Morriss is an entrepreneur, leadership coach and founder of the Leadership Consortium and with Harvard Business School Professor Francis Frei, she wrote the new book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leaders Guide to Solving Hard Problems . Anne, welcome back to the show.

ANNE MORRISS: Curt, thank you so much for having me.

CURT NICKISCH: So, to generate momentum at an organization, you say that you really need speed and trust. We’ll get into those essential ingredients some more, but why are those two essential?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, the essential pattern that we observed was that the most effective change leaders out there were building trust and speed, and it didn’t seem to be a well-known observation. We all know the phrase, “Move fast and break things,” but the people who were really getting it right were moving fast and fixing things, and that was really our jumping off point. So when we dug into the pattern, what we observed was they were building trust first and then speed. This foundation of trust was what allowed them to fix more things and break fewer.

CURT NICKISCH: Trust sounds like a slow thing, right? If you talk about building trust, that is something that takes interactions, it takes communication, it takes experiences. Does that run counter to the speed idea?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, this issue of trust is something we’ve been looking at for over a decade. One of the headlines in our research is it’s actually something we’re building and rebuilding and breaking all the time. And so instead of being this precious, almost farbege egg, it’s this thing that is constantly in motion and this thing that we can really impact when we’re deliberate about our choices and have some self-awareness around where it’s breaking down and how it’s breaking down.

CURT NICKISCH: You said break trust in there, which is intriguing, right? That you may have to break trust to build trust. Can you explain that a little?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, well, I’ll clarify. It’s not that you have to break it in order to build it. It’s just that we all do it some of the time. Most of us are trusted most of the time. Most of your listeners I imagine are trusted most of the time, but all of us have a pattern where we break trust or where we don’t build as much as could be possible.

CURT NICKISCH: I want to talk about speed, this other essential ingredient that’s so intriguing, right? Because you think about solving hard problems as something that just takes a lot of time and thinking and coordination and planning and designing. Explain what you mean by it? And also, just how we maybe approach problems wrong by taking them on too slowly?

ANNE MORRISS: Well, Curt, no one has ever said to us, “I wish I had taken longer and done less.” We hear the opposite all the time, by the way. So what we really set out to do was to create a playbook that anyone can use to take less time to do more of the things that are going to make your teams and organizations stronger.

And the way we set up the book is okay, it’s really a five step process. Speed is the last step. It’s the payoff for the hard work you’re going to do to figure out your problem, build or rebuild trust, expand the team in thoughtful and strategic ways, and then tell a real and compelling story about the change you’re leading.

Only then do you get to go fast, but that’s an essential part of the process, and we find that either people under emphasize it or speed has gotten a bad name in this world of moving fast and breaking things. And part of our mission for sure was to rehabilitate speed’s reputation because it is an essential part of the change leader’s equation. It can be the difference between good intentions and getting anything done at all.

CURT NICKISCH: You know, the fact that nobody ever tells you, “I wish we had done less and taken more time.” I think we all feel that, right? Sometimes we do something and then realize, “Oh, that wasn’t that hard and why did it take me so long to do it? And I wish I’d done this a long time ago.” Is it ever possible to solve a problem too quickly?

ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely. And we see that all the time too. What we push people to do in those scenarios is really take a look at the underlying issue because in most cases, the solution is not to take your foot off the accelerator per se and slow down. The solution is to get into the underlying problem. So if it’s burnout or a strategic disconnect between what you’re building and the marketplace you’re serving, what we find is the anxiety that people attach to speed or the frustration people attach to speed is often misplaced.

CURT NICKISCH: What is a good timeline to think about solving a problem then? Because if we by default take too long or else jump ahead and we don’t fix it right, what’s a good target time to have in your mind for how long solving a problem should take?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we’re playful in the book and talking about the idea that many problems can be solved in a week. We set the book up five chapters. They’re titled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and we’re definitely having fun with that. And yet, if you count the hours in a week, there are a lot of them. Many of our problems, if you were to spend a focused 40 hours of effort on a problem, you’re going to get pretty far.

But our main message is, listen, of course it’s going to depend on the nature of the problem, and you’re going to take weeks and maybe even some cases months to get to the other side. What we don’t want you to do is take years, which tends to be our default timeline for solving hard problems.

CURT NICKISCH: So you say to start with identifying the problem that’s holding you back, seems kind of obvious. But where do companies go right and wrong with this first step of just identifying the problem that’s holding you back?

ANNE MORRISS: And our goal is that all of these are going to feel obvious in retrospect. The problem is we skip over a lot of these steps and this is why we wanted to underline them. So this one is really rooted in our observation and I think the pattern of our species that we tend to be overconfident in the quality of our thoughts, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems.

And so we want to invite you to start in a very humble and curious place, which tends not to be our default mode when we’re showing up for work. We convince ourselves that we’re being paid for our judgment. That’s exactly what gets reinforced everywhere. And so we tend to counterintuitively, given what we just talked about, we tend to move too quickly through the diagnostic phase.

CURT NICKISCH: “I know what to do, that’s why you hired me.”

ANNE MORRISS: Exactly. “I know what to do. That’s why you hired me. I’ve seen this before. I have a plan. Follow me.” We get rewarded for the expression of confidence and clarity. And so what we’re inviting people to do here is actually pause and really lean into what are the root causes of the problem you’re seeing? What are some alternative explanations? Let’s get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it.

CURT NICKISCH: So what do you recommend for this step, for getting to the root of the problem? What are questions you should ask? What’s the right thought process? What do you do on Monday of the week?

ANNE MORRISS: In our experience of doing this work, people tend to undervalue the power of conversation, particularly with other people in the organization. So we will often advocate putting together a team of problem solvers, make it a temporary team, really pull in people who have a particular perspective on the problem and create the space, make it as psychologically safe as you can for people to really, as Chris Argyris so beautifully articulated, discuss the undiscussable.

And so the conditions for that are going to look different in every organization depending on the problem, but if you can get a space where smart people who have direct experience of a problem are in a room and talking honestly with each other, you can make an extraordinary amount of progress, certainly in a day.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, that gets back to the trust piece.

ANNE MORRISS: Definitely.

CURT NICKISCH: How do you like to start that meeting, or how do you like to talk about it? I’m just curious what somebody on that team might hear in that meeting, just to get the sense that it’s psychologically safe, you can discuss the undiscussable and you’re also focusing on the identification part. What’s key to communicate there?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we sometimes encourage people to do a little bit of data gathering before those conversations. So the power of a quick anonymous survey around whatever problem you’re solving, but also be really thoughtful about the questions you’re going to ask in the moment. So a little bit of preparation can go a long way and a little bit of thoughtfulness about the power dynamic. So who’s going to walk in there with license to speak and who’s going to hold back? So being thoughtful about the agenda, about the questions you’re asking about the room, about the facilitation, and then courage is a very infectious emotion.

So if you can early on create the conditions for people to show up bravely in that conversation, then the chance that you’re going to get good information and that you’re going to walk out of that room with new insight in the problem that you didn’t have when you walked in is extraordinarily high.

CURT NICKISCH: Now, in those discussions, you may have people who have different perspectives on what the problem really is. They also bear different costs of addressing the problem or solving it. You talked about the power dynamic, but there’s also an unfairness dynamic of who’s going to actually have to do the work to take care of it, and I wonder how you create a culture in that meeting where it’s the most productive?

ANNE MORRISS: For sure, the burden of work is not going to be equitably distributed around the room. But I would say, Curt, the dynamic that we see most often is that people are deeply relieved that hard problems are being addressed. So it really can create, and more often than not in our experience, it does create this beautiful flywheel of action, creativity, optimism. Often when problems haven’t been addressed, there is a fair amount of anxiety in the organization, frustration, stagnation. And so credible movement towards action and progress is often the best antidote. So even if the plan isn’t super clear yet, if it’s credible, given who’s in the room and their decision rights and mandate, if there’s real momentum coming out of that to make progress, then that tends to be deeply energizing to people.

CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if there’s an organization that you’ve worked with that you could talk about how this rolled out and how this took shape?

ANNE MORRISS: When we started working with Uber, that was wrestling with some very public issues of culture and trust with a range of stakeholders internally, the organization, also external, that work really started with a campaign of listening and really trying to understand where trust was breaking down from the perspective of these stakeholders?

So whether it was female employees or regulators or riders who had safety concerns getting into the car with a stranger. This work, it starts with an honest internal dialogue, but often the problem has threads that go external. And so bringing that same commitment to curiosity and humility and dialogue to anyone who’s impacted by the problem is the fastest way to surface what’s really going on.

CURT NICKISCH: There’s a step in this process that you lay out and that’s communicating powerfully as a leader. So we’ve heard about listening and trust building, but now you’re talking about powerful communication. How do you do this and why is it maybe this step in the process rather than the first thing you do or the last thing you do?

ANNE MORRISS: So in our process, again, it’s the days of the week. On Monday you figured out the problem. Tuesday you really got into the sandbox in figuring out what a good enough plan is for building trust. Wednesday, step three, you made it better. You created an even better plan, bringing in new perspectives. Thursday, this fourth step is the day we’re saying you got to go get buy-in. You got to bring other people along. And again, this is a step where we see people often underinvest in the power and payoff of really executing it well.

CURT NICKISCH: How does that go wrong?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, people don’t know the why. Human behavior and the change in human behavior really depends on a strong why. It’s not just a selfish, “What’s in it for me?” Although that’s helpful, but where are we going? I may be invested in a status quo and I need to understand, okay, if you’re going to ask me to change, if you’re going to invite me into this uncomfortable place of doing things differently, why am I here? Help me understand it and articulate the way forward and language that not only I can understand, but also that’s going to be motivating to me.

CURT NICKISCH: And who on my team was part of this process and all that kind of stuff?

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. I may have some really important questions that may be in the way of my buy-in and commitment to this plan. So certainly creating a space where those questions can be addressed is essential. But what we found is that there is an architecture of a great change story, and it starts with honoring the past, honoring the starting place. Sometimes we’re so excited about the change and animated about the change that what has happened before or what is even happening in the present tense is low on our list of priorities.

Or we want to label it bad, because that’s the way we’ve thought about the change, but really pausing and honoring what came before you and all the reasonable decisions that led up to it, I think can be really helpful to getting people emotionally where you want them to be willing to be guided by you. Going back to Uber, when Dara Khosrowshahi came in.

CURT NICKISCH: This is the new CEO.

ANNE MORRISS: The new CEO.

CURT NICKISCH: Replaced Travis Kalanick, the founder and first CEO, yeah.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and had his first all-hands meeting. One of his key messages, and this is a quote, was that he was going to retain the edge that had made Uber, “A force of nature.” And in that meeting, the crowd went wild because this is also a company that had been beaten up publicly for months and months and months, and it was a really powerful choice. And his predecessor, Travis was in the room, and he also honored Travis’ incredible work and investment in bringing the company to the place where it was.

And I would use words like grace to also describe those choices, but there’s also an incredible strategic value to naming the starting place for everybody in the room because in most cases, most people in that room played a role in getting to that starting place, and you’re acknowledging that.

CURT NICKISCH: You can call it grace. Somebody else might call it diplomatic or strategic. But yeah, I guess like it or not, it’s helpful to call out and honor the complexity of the way things have been done and also the change that’s happening.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and the value. Sometimes honoring the past is also owning what didn’t work or what wasn’t working for stakeholders or segments of the employee team, and we see that around culture change. Sometimes you’ve got to acknowledge that it was not an equitable environment, but whatever the worker, everyone in that room is bringing that pass with them. So again, making it discussable and using it as the jumping off place is where we advise people to start.

Then you’ve earned the right to talk about the change mandate, which we suggest using clear and compelling language about the why. “This is what happened, this is where we are, this is the good and the bad of it, and here’s the case for change.”

And then the last part, which is to describe a rigorous and optimistic way forward. It’s a simple past, present, future arc, which will be familiar to human beings. We love stories as human beings. It’s among the most powerful currency we have to make sense of the world.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. Chronological is a pretty powerful order.

ANNE MORRISS: Right. But again, the change leaders we see really get it right, are investing an incredible amount of time into the storytelling part of their job. Ursula Burns, the Head of Xerox is famous for the months and years she spent on the road just telling the story of Xerox’s change, its pivot into services to everyone who would listen, and that was a huge part of her success.

CURT NICKISCH: So Friday or your fifth step, you end with empowering teams and removing roadblocks. That seems obvious, but it’s critical. Can you dig into that a little bit?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Friday is the fun day. Friday’s the release of energy into the system. Again, you’ve now earned the right to go fast. You have a plan, you’re pretty confident it’s going to work. You’ve told the story of change the organization, and now you get to sprint. So this is about really executing with urgency, and it’s about a lot of the tactics of speed is where we focus in the book. So the tactics of empowerment, making tough strategic trade-offs so that your priorities are clear and clearly communicated, creating mechanisms to fast-track progress. At Etsy, CEO Josh Silverman, he labeled these projects ambulances. It’s an unfortunate metaphor, but it’s super memorable. These are the products that get to speed out in front of the other ones because the stakes are high and the clock is sticking.

CURT NICKISCH: You pull over and let it go by.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, exactly. And so we have to agree as an organization on how to do something like that. And so we see lots of great examples both in young organizations and big complex biotech companies with lots of regulatory guardrails have still found ways to do this gracefully.

And I think we end with this idea of conflict debt, which is a term we really love. Leanne Davey, who’s a team scholar and researcher, and anyone in a tech company will recognize the idea of tech debt, which is this weight the organization drags around until they resolve it. Conflict debt is a beautiful metaphor because it is this weight that we drag around and slows us down until we decide to clean it up and fix it. The organizations that are really getting speed right have figured out either formally or informally, how to create an environment where conflict and disagreements can be gracefully resolved.

CURT NICKISCH: Well, let’s talk about this speed more, right? Because I think this is one of those places that maybe people go wrong or take too long, and then you lose the awareness of the problem, you lose that urgency. And then that also just makes it less effective, right? It’s not just about getting the problem solved as quickly as possible. It’s also just speed in some ways helps solve the problem.

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. It really is the difference between imagining the change you want to lead and really being able to bring it to life. Speed is the thing that unlocks your ability to lead change. It needs a foundation, and that’s what Monday through Thursday is all about, steps one through four, but the finish line is executing with urgency, and it’s that urgency that releases the system’s energy, that communicates your priorities, that creates the conditions for your team to make progress.

CURT NICKISCH: Moving fast is something that entrepreneurs and tech companies certainly understand, but there’s also this awareness that with big companies, the bigger the organization, the harder it is to turn the aircraft carrier around, right? Is speed relative when you get at those levels, or do you think this is something that any company should be able to apply equally?

ANNE MORRISS: We think this applies to any company. The culture really lives at the level of team. So we believe you can make a tremendous amount of progress even within your circle of control as a team leader. I want to bring some humility to this and careful of words like universal, but we do think there’s some universal truths here around the value of speed, and then some of the byproducts like keeping fantastic people. Your best people want to solve problems, they want to execute, they want to make progress and speed, and the ability to do that is going to be a variable in their own equation of whether they stay or they go somewhere else where they can have an impact.

CURT NICKISCH: Right. They want to accomplish something before they go or before they retire or finish something out. And if you’re able to just bring more things on the horizon and have it not feel like it’s going to be another two years to do something meaningful.

ANNE MORRISS: People – I mean, they want to make stuff happen and they want to be around the energy and the vitality of making things happen, which again, is also a super infectious phenomenon. One of the most important jobs of a leader, we believe, is to set the metabolic pace of their teams and organizations. And so what we really dig into on Friday is, well, what does that look like to speed something up? What are the tactics of that?

CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if that universal truth, that a body in motion stays in motion applies to organizations, right? If an organization in motion stays in motion, there is something to that.

ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely.

CURT NICKISCH: Do you have a favorite client story to share, just where you saw speed just become a bit of a flywheel or just a positive reinforcement loop for more positive change at the organization?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. We work with a fair number of organizations that are on fire. We do a fair amount of firefighting, but we also less dramatically do a lot of fire prevention. So we’re brought into organizations that are working well and want to get better, looking out on the horizon. That work is super gratifying, and there is always a component of, well, how do we speed this up?

What I love about that work is there’s often already a high foundation of trust, and so it’s, well, how do we maintain that foundation but move this flywheel, as you said, even faster? And it’s really energizing because often there’s a lot of pent-up energy that… There’s a lot of loyalty to the organization, but often it’s also frustration and pent-up energy. And so when that gets released, when good people get the opportunity to sprint for the first time in a little while, it’s incredibly energizing, not just for us, but for the whole organization.

CURT NICKISCH: Anne, this is great. I think finding a way to solve problems better but also faster is going to be really helpful. So thanks for coming on the show to talk about it.

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, Curt, it was such a pleasure. This is my favorite conversation. I’m delighted to have it anytime.

HANNAH BATES: That was entrepreneur, leadership coach, and author Anne Morriss – in conversation with Curt Nickisch on HBR IdeaCast.

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about business strategy from Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review.

When you’re ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world’s top business and management experts, you’ll find it all at HBR.org.

This episode was produced by Mary Dooe, Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Special thanks to Rob Eckhardt, Maureen Hoch, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.

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Partner Center

These science-based tips can help you manage conflicts in relationships

Direct communication as well as cooperative and constructive problem-solving are key.

Key takeaways

Summary is AI-generated, newsroom-reviewed.

Conflicts in relationships are not inherently bad and can foster growth.
Effective conflict management involves direct communication and mutual understanding.
How couples initiate these difficult conversations also matters.

Did our AI help? Share your thoughts.

Conflicts are inevitable even in the most loving of relationships.

Goals, needs and interests will differ on matters great and small — parenting styles, delegation of chores, whether the toilet seat should be up.

Contrary to popular belief, though, conflicts in and of themselves are not a sign that there’s something wrong with the relationship, experts say.

If managed well, conflicts provide “the opportunity to enhance and grow in our relationships,” said Nickola Overall , a professor of psychology at the University of Auckland specializing in the science of relationships.

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“It’s not about conflict resolution,” since many problems that couples fight about may never fully go away, but about “conflict management,” said Julie Gottman , who researches relationships along with her husband, John Gottman .

But if conflicts are not properly managed or are avoided, they can result in negative consequences for the health of both partners and their relationship. Research shows that while partners in satisfying relationships live longer and have fewer health problems than their single or dissatisfied counterparts, strain and conflict are common. Conflict is especially potent in romantic relationships and associated with worse mental health symptoms , unhealthier patterns of the stress hormone, cortisol, and diminished immune and cardiovascular health .

Avoiding or withdrawing from conflict deprives partners of the opportunity to improve the situation and potentially signals a lack of engagement in the relationship, leading to reduced satisfaction. “You can really use conflict to understand your partner at a much deeper level than you may already know your partner,” Julie Gottman said.

But both partners need the motivation to address the problem and the ability to take their partner’s perspective, Overall said.

And perhaps the most difficult thing: “I think we have to be brave enough to really communicate how we feel and what the underlying issues are,” she said.

Direct communication is key to conflict management

Relationship researchers and clinicians study how conflicts affect relationships by bringing couples into a laboratory, videotaping their interactions while they discuss an intractable problem and analyzing those interactions. They consistently find that unhappy couples are more likely to express greater disagreement, hostility and criticism while happy couples are more likely to express greater validation, affection and humor.

But surprisingly, relationship research has also shown that couples expressing anger and hostility toward one another during arguments could sometimes be predictive of positive relationship outcomes over time.

Conversely, more positive interactions during conflicts — such as agreement and use of humor — could help the relationship in the short term but fail to produce change for the underlying problem in the long run.

These counterintuitive findings suggest that whether interactions are more positive or negative is just one factor in how conflicts turn out. How direct we are in our communication of the issues also matters.

In one study of recorded interactions of 61 romantic couples, Overall and her colleagues found that more direct communication strategies — both negative and positive — were associated with greater success in addressing the problem 12 months later and predicted increased relationship satisfaction even if they were initially perceived as relatively unsuccessful.

By contrast, indirect strategies — positive or negative — did not predict later change in the underlying problem.

Emotions such as anger and hostility can be useful to a conflict and to the relationship, Overall said. They can help convey “that a problem is serious and that the problem needs to be changed, and that the partner needs to do something about helping to resolve this problem,” she said. It also indicates an investment in the relationship.

But these emotions need to match the context of the situation.

In a 2020 longitudinal study of 268 couples, Overall found that while an increase in average levels of hostility and criticism is associated with worsening problems and decreasing satisfaction, it was associated with better outcomes if this expression of hostility was more variable.

But if someone gets upset about everything, “then the information signal gets lost and instead you’re just informing the partner that you’re negative all the time,” Overall said. Then “the potential benefits of expressing negativity and anger and hostility lose its power because it becomes nondiagnostic of the problem,” she said

Cooperative, constructive problem-solving

Constructive problem-solving — through reasoning, negotiations and solution-oriented discussions — can convey the salient pieces of information needed to manage an ongoing conflict: that the issue is important, that the partners are committed to resolving it and that they care about the relationship.

Direct communication is “good for minor problems. It’s good for serious problems,” Overall said. And it doesn’t carry the negative side effects of the negative emotions.

In their recent book, “Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict Into Connection,” the Gottmans recommend an intervention they call the “ Dreams Within Conflict ,” which postpones solving the problem and instead has each partner ask the other questions about their values about the issue, why it is important, their feelings about the issue and what their ideal dream is for it.

“The goal is mutual understanding,” John Gottman said. In their couples workshops, the Gottmans have found that this strategy helps 87 percent of couples “move from gridlock on an issue to dialogue,” he said.

How we initiate these difficult conversations also matters because it can predict not only how the conversation will go, but also indicate how the relationship will go, Julie Gottman said.

The Gottmans recommend what they call a softened start-up: First, describe yourself and the situation, not your partner, and then a positive need “that gives your partner a chance to shine for you,” Julie Gottman said. For example: “I’m really worried. There’s the feeling that the bills haven’t been paid on time. Would you please pay the bills tonight?”

Remaining flexible in how we respond to our partner’s specific needs is important since becoming overly strategic in solving problems can have some costs, Overall said. “When the emotions are completely taken out and you’re just trying to be very rational and reasoning, you’re actually taking away the emotional connection and what makes us human,” she said.

The emotion — be it anger, warmth or sadness — also conveys important information about how much we care about our partner and the relationship, she said.

Expressing gratitude or laughing about yourself or together can also be very powerful in a relationship and in a conflict, John Gottman said.

These strategies for more effective conflict management may help to clearly communicate what matters — our partner, our relationship and our facing challenges together.

“It’s about how can I express, how can I be brave enough to engage in constructive ways when it matters,” Overall said.

Do you have a question about human behavior or neuroscience? Email [email protected] and we may answer it in a future column.

Nvidia and Microsoft are solving a big problem with Copilot+

The Surface Laptop running local AI models.

When Microsoft announced Copilot+ PCs a few weeks back, one question reigned supreme : Why can’t I just run these AI applications on my GPU? At Computex 2024 , Nvidia finally provided an answer.

Nvidia and Microsoft are working together on an Application Programming Interface (API) that will allow developers to run their AI-accelerated apps on RTX graphics cards . This includes the various Small Language Models (SLMs) that are part of the Copilot runtime, which are used as the basis for features like Recall and Live Captions.

With the toolkit, developers can allow apps to run locally on your GPU instead of the NPU. This opens up the door to not only more powerful AI applications, as the AI capabilities of GPUs are generally higher than NPUs, but also the ability to run on PCs that don’t currently fall under the Copilot+ umbrella.

It’s a great move. Copilot+ PCs currently require a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that’s capable of at least 40 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS). At the moment, only the Snapdragon X Elite satisfies that criteria. Despite that, GPUs have much higher AI processing capabilities, with even low-end models reaching to 100 TOPS, and higher-end options scaling even higher.

In addition to running on the GPU, the new API adds retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capabilities to the Copilot runtime. RAG gives the AI model access to specific information locally, allowing it to provide more helpful solutions. We saw RAG on full display with Nvidia’s Chat with RTX earlier this year.

Outside of the API, Nvidia announced the RTX AI Toolkit at Computex. This developer suite, arriving in June, combines various tools and SDKs that allow developers to tune AI models for specific applications. Nvidia says that by using the RTX AI Toolkit, developers can make models four times faster and three times smaller compared to using open-source solutions.

We’re seeing a wave of tools that enable developers to build specific AI applications for end users. Some of that is already showing up in Copilot+ PCs, but I suspect we’ll see far more AI applications at this point next year. We have the hardware to run these apps, after all; now we just need the software.

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Qualcomm is invading PCs, and says it’s ‘not going anywhere’
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How to watch Nvidia’s Computex 2024 keynote — and what to expect

Microsoft's big Copilot+ announcement last week was certainly impressive. Combining both an embrace of AI and Arm, it went along way toward not just catching up with MacBooks -- but actually surpassing them.

But Microsoft's time in the spotlight won't last too long. Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is next week, and the rumored Mac announcements will either make Copilot+ look a lot less impressive -- or make Apple appear out of touch. Rumored AI announcements

It's not just you -- Microsoft is putting Copilot just about anywhere, and now it's available on Telegram as a bot that's part of its "copilot-for-social" project. Windows Latest reports that to use the bot, you'll need to confirm your phone number by sending your contact in the chat. The company is expanding its AI integration into one of the most popular messaging apps, but it might not end there.

Microsoft claims that it won't save your phone number for anything other than verification, but it's needed because the service is currently unavailable for anyone in the EU, at least for now. If anyone in the EU tries to access it, they will be blocked.

We were just inundated with a whole slew of new Windows laptops. These aren't your average notebooks, though -- they're part of Microsoft's new Copilot+ PC program -- built from the ground up with AI and ARM chips in mind.

A lot of these laptops emphasize the same performance and battery life gains caused by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips. Those are impressive, but comparing all these laptops against each other, it's Samsung's entry that makes me the most excited. Design efficiency

Surprise eyeing 2,000 acres along McMicken Dam for open space, parks

By 2030, Surprise wants roughly 850 acres of open space available for residents and visitors to enjoy recreationally.

To reach that goal, it’s been eyeing 2,000 acres along the McMicken Dam, where it looks to establish a preserve that includes areas for parks, wildlife corridors and hiking and biking trails.

First, the city must partner with the Maricopa County Flood Control District, the owner of the roughly 14-mile-long structure that divides Surprise between its largely developed half in the southeast and its vacant land in the northwest.

Under a joint-use agreement the city wants to secure with county leaders in the coming years, Surprise could manage and maintain the swath of desert west of Loop 303, between Peoria and Grand avenues.

It would run through the heart of the city.

“This would be very much at the center of the city with this large open space greenway and potential corridor project,” Strategic Initiatives Director Eric Fitzer told city leaders last month, noting the city’s anticipated growth to the north and west of the dam.

What is the city planning to do with the land?

If Surprise partners with the Flood Control District, the city intends to conserve most of the land, keeping it as open space.

The southernmost portion of the land, stretching out of the White Tank Mountain Regional Park, would be maintained as a wildlife corridor, where animals like javelina and mule deer can continue to roam.

Other parts of the land will provide opportunities to develop recreational areas.

“Every city needs a vast amount of open space and parks associated with it, as well as to preserve those areas for the usage and enjoyment of our citizens,” Fitzer told The Arizona Republic last week.

A 13-mile stretch of the Maricopa Trail — the 315-mile-long path looping around the Valley — runs along McMicken Dam in Surprise.

The city wants to expand on those trails, creating more opportunities for hikers and bicyclists, Fitzer said.

There are also areas where the city could develop parks.

One would potentially fit around the Maricopa Trail’s Sun Valley Trailhead, where Bell Road turns into Sun Valley Parkway.

A portion of the land south of Grand Avenue could also be used for a regional park. The city, Fitzer said, is looking at public-private partnerships to develop the concept. Such a park could include amenities like sports fields.

What responsibilities would Surprise have?

As part of the potential joint-use agreement, the city is committed to maintaining the land around McMicken Dam, while Flood Control maintains oversight of the structure.

The city’s responsibilities include cleaning up the desert, making sure people don’t illegally dump trash, and mending broken fences, among other things.

Based on estimates the county provided Surprise, the city anticipates spending about $200,000 to $300,000 annually on maintenance, Fitzer said.

“We don’t foresee a lot (of maintenance) but just in case, there is going to be some allocation for that,” he said.

Asked whether such maintenance would require additional staff, Fitzer noted that the city doesn’t anticipate needing more employees.

“But that’s always a possibility,” he acknowledged.

Whether the land would require a lot of water, Fitzer said that’s unlikely.

“It would be a preserve, so we don’t use a lot of water in this area,” he said. “However, if some of the regional parks potentially are foreseen then at that point there would need to be water allocated out there.”

Solving the Surprise’s open space problem

While Surprise has more than 300 acres of developed parks , it doesn’t own any land designated as open space.

The potential joint-use agreement looks to resolve that.

It would also help the city reach a goal outlined in its 2015 Parks and Recreation Master Plan , a living document meant to guide officials’ and leaders’ decisions about new and existing parks.

In it, the city set out to have 847 acres of open space in its inventory of recreational areas by 2030, when Surprise’s population is estimated to reach 234,579.

The open space concept, Councilmember Chris Judd said during the May 21 meeting, would be something for residents to “truly enjoy.”

“This really positions us well going into the future to sort of handle our open space problems,” he said.

What’s next?

Surprise officials will continue discussions with Flood Control to establish a partnership, Fitzer said.

According to him, getting the joint-use agreement going is about a one- to two-year process. The agreement itself would require approval from both the Surprise City Council and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

Shawn Raymundo covers the West Valley cities of Glendale, Peoria and Surprise. Reach him at [email protected] or follow him on X @ShawnzyTsunami.

How one agency uses AI to track and manage thousands of campaign assets — building its own library of 'collective knowledge'

Saatchi & Saatchi struggled to find reusable assets in its vast backlog of marketing materials.
The marketing agency started using an AI search engine called Lucy to simplify the process.
This article is part of " CXO AI Playbook " — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

For "CXO AI Playbook," Business Insider takes a look at mini case studies about AI adoption across industries, company sizes, and technology DNA. We've asked each of the featured companies to tell us about the problems they're trying to solve with AI, who's making these decisions internally, and their vision for using AI in the future.

Saatchi & Saatchi is a global communications and marketing agency that works with major brands , including Toyota and Tide. The agency, which is headquartered in London, is part of Publicis Communications , a hub of Publicis Groupe.

Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?

For each client and campaign, Saatchi & Saatchi creates a collection of assets, including images, videos, final presentations, strategic insights, and briefs. These items accumulate over the years as the agency continues working with clients, Jeremiah Knight, its chief operating officer, told Business Insider.

Often, teams need to review documents from past campaigns, such as when a company launches a product, he said, but the challenge is, "How do you find that stuff after you've created it?"

Sometimes, the people who worked on the original campaign can't remember where those documents are saved, or they might have left the agency, Knight added. Employees also don't always follow file-system hierarchies.

That can create a "needle in the haystack" situation to find necessary information, Knight said.

Key staff and partners

The agency realized that automation could help improve asset organization, Knight said, so he worked with the company's CEO and chief financial officer on a solution.

"Once you paint the picture of the problem and how valuable the solution might be, we all understood this would be a great thing for us to undertake," Knight added.

AI in action

About two years ago, Saatchi & Saatchi contracted with Lucy , an AI-powered search engine, to help find specific items in its system.

Lucy is integrated into the agency's Microsoft Teams chat function. Users can ask it questions through Teams, and Lucy searches the agency's files and sends results in Teams, Knight said.

To access the documents, users are directed to log in to the Lucy web interface. They can also search and find information directly through the web interface without going through Teams.

"It's sort of a library of everything of our collective knowledge," Knight said, including creative assets, campaign data, and other information.

To help train the artificial-intelligence model to produce the desired results, the agency hosted trainings on how to use Lucy and encouraged everyone to use it and provide feedback.

"The more you play with it, the more you use it, the better it gets," Knight said. "We had to get over that hurdle to make sure that they continuously use it and help us train the model."

Did it work, and how did leaders know?

Lucy has helped Saatchi & Saatchi index information, Knight said. So if someone forgets to use the correct filing structure or saves information in the wrong place, the tool can usually find it.

"Not only is that a time saver, it actually is helping direct people straight to the documents that are the most valuable to answer the question, 'How can we learn from what we've done before?'" he said.

The AI implementation is still a work in progress , Knight added: "This is one of the most exciting times to play and experiment and see what's possible, unlock so many things creatively and workflow-wise for different departments."

What's next?

Saatchi & Saatchi continues to leverage generative AI across its agency in multiple ways, such as creative conceptualizing , minimizing repetitive tasks, and analyzing data, Knight said.

He said the investment in the technology would continue as the agency sought to create efficiencies. In January, Publicis Groupe announced plans to invest $326 million in AI over the next three years, including a proprietary tool, CoreAI.

"AI helps with every single business problem," he said. "The less time you spend hunting for things, the faster you can create business value for your clients."

We want to hear from you. If you are interested in sharing your company's AI journey, email [email protected] .

Main content

Jaguars unveil "stadium of the future" whose cost could hit $1.4 billion

The Jacksonville Jaguars showcased the team's vision for a dramatic overhaul of TIAA Bank Field that would wrap it in reflective material, build a shade-delivering roof that fans have long demanded, and make numerous other changes that team owner Shad Khan said would make it the Jaguars’ long-time home and spur downtown development.

The rough estimate for the cost of the top-to-bottom renovation of TIAA Bank Field could be up to $1.4 billion. The city and Khan would share the expense if they can reach an agreement on the stadium and an accompanying extension of the team’s lease for playing at the city-owned stadium.

The Jaguars laid out a timeline that would have the rebuilt stadium ready for football in 2028. But any deal would require intense negotiations between the Jaguars and incoming mayor-elect Donna Deegan. Ultimate approval would be up to a new City Council taking office July 1 for four-year terms.

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More: More shade, less capacity highlight Jaguars plans for 'stadium of the future'

"It's a beautiful vision for economic revitalization,” Deegan said in a statement after the Jaguars posted an animated video of its design. “Infrastructure, especially in our older historic neighborhoods, will be one of the key priorities of my administration. I look forward to the coming negotiations and a deal that is good for taxpayers which keeps the Jaguars in Jacksonville for generations to come."

The city has financed renovations on a smaller scale at the stadium since it was built in 1995 . The negotiations this time will have more at stake because the current lease for the Jaguars to use TIAA Bank Field will end after the 2029-30 season unless extended.

“There’s going to be a lot of give and take, and the lease negotiations will be happening at the same time as the negotiations on the renovation,” Jaguars President Mark Lamping said. “We would not invest the amount of money that Shad is prepared to invest in the city-owned building without a lease extension, nor would the city.”

He said he expects the Jaguars and the city will reach an agreement on the stadium and the lease.

"I have a lot of confidence that Mayor Deegan shares the same belief we do which is the Jaguars are really important to Jacksonville, and Jacksonville is really important to the Jaguars," he said.

How much could the overhaul cost?

The stadium would be the most expensive civic building in city history, dwarfing the $350 million Duval County Courthouse complex.

A proposed memorandum of understanding between the city and Khan would establish a framework for future negotiations on a stadium deal.

Another document, also first reported by Florida Politics, shows how that framework might work in terms of dollars put up by the city, the Jaguars and Khan’s development firm Iguana Investments.

That document shows a rough estimated cost between $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion for the extensive improvements to the stadium. In the example of how the city and Khan could split that cost, the city share would be 67% of the price, or a range of $800 million to $934 million. The Jaguars would pay the rest of the bill.

Compared to the cost of renovating the existing stadium, the investment summary says the estimated cost of a new stadium would be $1.9 billion to $2.1 billion.

The Jaguars also want to team up with the city in creating an entertainment district outside the stadium.

The rough estimate for the cost of that district would be $500 million to $668 million. Khan would pay 86% of that cost for the entertainment district, or between $475 million and $568 million, according to a summary showing how the cost could be broken down.

Taken together, the total cost of the "reimagined stadium" and the entertainment district would clock in between $1.75 billion and $2.068 billion, according to the investment summary example.

The city's portion of that total package would be $875 million to $1.034 billion, or 50% of the entire venture.

Khan and the city also have been in talks about a proposed University of Florida graduate campus being built in the sports complex if UF were to select the site where the Jacksonville fairgrounds is located. The city and the fairgrounds association have reached an agreement for the fairgrounds to move to a Westside regional park.

Khan has a pending contract to purchase the fairgrounds property. The proposed memorandum of understanding shows Khan would donate the 14-acre site to the University of Florida if it chose that location.

What would the renovated stadium look like?

Even a renovated stadium would create a brand-new appearance, based on renderings and the video illustrating the conceptual design by HOK, the architectural firm selected by the Jaguars.

The Jaguars released a 4-minute video Wednesday that shows swooping animated views of what the “reimagined stadium” would look like inside and outside the venue.

"This venue is much more than just a stadium," the narrator says. "It's a reflection of our city and community, celebrating the essence of who we are while casting a vision of who we're becoming."

Peter Broeder, design principal for HOK, called it a “transformational opportunity” whose impact reaches into the rest of downtown and surrounding neighborhoods.

The most obvious difference is the addition of a roof that would protect fans from scorching sun in early-season games as well as rainstorms throughout the year. Broeder compared the “roof membrane” to the finish on sunglasses in how it will disperse sunlight throughout the interior of the stadium. It would be a fixed roof, not a roof that can be opened and closed.

The exterior of the stadium would be wrapped by a “first-of-its-kind mirrored material” that will provide an energy-efficient facade, according to the Jaguars. The stadium would not have air conditioning, but the material used in constructing the building would cut heat retention by 70% and lower temperatures by 10 to 15 degrees.

The reconstruction of the stadium also would open four corners of the building to create breezeways so more air can circulate through the stadium. Broeder said the construction will remove a large amount of the seating bowl "in a surgical fashion" for those four breezeways.

“We’re going to be protecting from the sun and from the rain, but we’re going to be maximizing air flow throughout the building,” Broeder said.

Fans would enter the stadium by walking through a “subtropical Floridian park” on their way to the main concourse, which would be 30 feet above the ground and have wide-open views of the St. Johns River and downtown, according to the Jaguars.

The stadium would have capacity for 62,000 fans for Jaguars games and could expand to 71,500 seats for college football games, plus more capacity for concerts. The capacity now for Jaguars games is about 67,000 fans and that can go up to 77,000 for a college game.

Lighting and digital technology would enable changes in the stadium’s appearance, adding to that part of the fan experience.

The stadium’s concourses would be greatly expanded and have 13 new elevators and 32 new escalators, making it easier for fans to move around the stadium. The upper concourse would circle the entire stadium.

What would the surrounding development entail?

In addition to the stadium, the Jaguars also are interested in creating an entertainment district next to the stadium. The Jaguars previously sought to do that on parking Lot J but fell short of getting the super-majority support by City Council on a development that would have built restaurants, bars, apartments and a hotel.

Lamping said the entertainment district would foster the same kind of development in the sports complex that the Brooklyn neighborhood has seen on the other side of downtown, creating a kind of “barbell” approach to downtown development that would continue into the core of downtown from both ends.

Khan said in a statement that throughout a process that started in July 2016 with discussions about the stadium's future and advanced to conceptual designs, “our objective has always been the same – lock in a promising future for the Jaguars and help our downtown become an economic engine to lift all off Jacksonville, particularly areas that have been underserved.”

When the City Council balked at the Lot J development, opponents praised the concept but said the city’s cost was too high given other needs for taxpayer dollars.

The same debate could play out regarding the stadium because unlike stadiums for other NFL teams that benefitted from huge commitments of state tax dollars, Florida legislators have staunchly opposed using state dollars for stadiums used by professional sports teams.

What is the projected timeline?

The “early work” for construction would begin in February 2025 and full construction would kick off in February 2026, according to the proposed memorandum of understanding. Construction would finish in July 2028, so for two seasons, the Jaguars would not play home games at the stadium .

Lamping said possible alternative sites during those two years would be to play Jaguars home games at the University of Florida’s stadium in Gainesville or Camping World Stadium in Orlando. To keep playing the games in Jacksonville, it would cost $125 million to $130 million to make the baseball park at the sports complex or Hodges Stadium at the University of North Florida able to host an NFL game.

The two-year construction timeframe would require the Florida-Georgia games to play elsewhere in 2026 and 2027 but then come back to Jacksonville in 2028. The annual Gator Bowl also would move to a temporary location during the construction.

Lamping said construction that’s done in a way that enables Jaguars games to still be played at TIAA Bank Field would require work to start and stop over a longer, four-year period. He said in that scenario, the stadium might have limited capacity until the job is done and it would add around $190 million to the bottom-line cost.

“From the Jaguars perspective, we would like to see it done in the least disruptive, shortest, least expensive fashion, and that would be to do it over two years,” Lamping said. “But again, that’s just us. There are many other people that need to weigh in on this.”

What's next?

Lamping said the NFL owners, who must approve any agreement between the city and the Jaguars, will be looking at the history of what the local share of funding has been for recent stadium deals in other small-market cities.

“We know what we want to build,” Lamping said in reference to the public release of HOK’s conceptual design. “You saw it today and we have a good idea of what it’s going to cost. It's going to cost somewhere between $1.3 and $1.4 billion. But we don’t know that’s what the city wants and we don’t know that’s what the community wants.”

Starting next Monday, the Jaguars will host 14 town hall meetings over 10 days across the city. Those meetings will share details with residents and get their feedback.

In the schedule put forward by the Jaguars, the team and the city then would seek to have a final agreement hammered out by March 2024 and NFL approval by May for how to proceed with the stadium.

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