One solution won’t fit them all — Evaluating alternative solutions to your problem
Hi everybody, I’m Riccardo. I’m an iOS Engineer at Bending Spoons since 2015. My main focuses are related to App Development, Lib Development, and Tech growth.
This is the fourth part of a series of articles related to problem-solving. You can find the other parts here:
Welcome back! The company retreat and the holidays are now over: I am “finally” back to my laptop and I am ready to keep on untangling problem-solving.
Today we address the fourth question of Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle: What could we do about the problem we are facing?
This time, there is no specific tool to address the question. Rather, we should keep our minds open and brainstorm all the possible solutions to our current problem. The accent is on all because it is really important not to stop at the very first solution we can find: oftentimes it is not the optimal solution for our problem and we can find better alternatives if we spend some time thinking hard about them.
Therefore, I’d like to explore different techniques that can be useful to find alternative solutions. Remember that at this point we are not taking into consideration the feasibility or the effectiveness of the alternatives: we just want to list all the possibilities we have. Sorting out the right one will come in the next step.
One of the techniques I mostly use when I get stuck is to step back from the problem. I can work out, go out for a run, clean the dishes or cook. Anything but thinking about the problem directly. It has been proven that there are some kinds of problems that the brain can somehow sort out by itself. Have you ever found a solution to an issue while showering? That’s your brain solving problems on idle. ;)
Another interesting way to search for alternatives is to try and look at the problem from a different perspective. If I have so far approached the problem from the current situation, why not starting from the desired outcome instead and figure out the steps to get there?
A different technique exploits the side effects or properties of the problem. For example: imagine that you are feeling cold and you suspect that there is a hole somewhere in the walls. The hole lets cold air in from outside and we want to find where it is.
You could look at the walls, inch by inch, searching for the hole, or you could work smart and exploit the side effects: a flame will move if close enough to an air source. A better idea could be to light a candle and roam in the room, close to the walls. Inspect only the portion of it that moves or turns off the candle!
These techniques leverage lateral thinking, an approach that includes many more techniques than the ones I have outlined. Exploring them all would result in a far too long post, but the Wikipedia article linked lists more of them. It’s a truly fascinating topic I will explore more. If you have resources I should refer to, please share!
