How to tackle a problem that you never seen before
Sometimes you might be confronted with problems you never solved before. Here are two steps to help getting started faster and actually come up with meaningful solutions.
In the past two weeks, we had 4 calls with potential clients. The first two: absolute fail… My task was to take notes and compile a proposal on how we would solve the issue the clients were facing.
Guess what happened… Before jumping on the calls, I knew nothing about the companies. I was totally overwhelmed and had no idea on facts to pay attention to. My notes were useless and my proposals did not have many valuable ideas.
After the first two calls and two non-insightful proposals, I knew I had to change something. I wanted to find out how one would go about understanding and solving an entirely new problem in a business setting.
This is where a friend of mine introduced me to consulting frameworks. If you have already worked at a consulting firm or are currently prepping for the interview process, you already know what they are. In either case, there are actually a few key lessons we can learn about solving complex problems. Here are a few tips that I found very insightful and that you might want to use when facing a problem you never dealt with before.
1. Understand the Problem and Clarify the Goals
I talked about the importance of understanding the tasks you should do in an earlier article. For some reason, I didn’t realize that you can actually follow the same approach when talking to clients rather than to your colleagues or boss.
Start by rephrasing the problem that the client is facing in your own words. Make sure you ask “Why …?” at least 2 or 3 times to get to the root cause of the problem. Once you understand what is going on, you can clarify the goals. Ask something like “So what do you want to change about the issue you are facing? Where opportunities have you identified?” If they don’t have any, that's fine too. Then it’s your job to come up with fresh recommendations.
This first step is usually all input you will get from the initial client meeting. The next few steps will help craft the proposal to solve the problem.
2. Break the Issue down. Starting at the top and then branching down
So let’s say your client is looking to launch a new product that he has already invested a lot of money in. Your goal is to find out the best possible strategy to launch the product.
This problem includes a lot of factors to consider. Starting from the root challenge you identified, break down your solution approach in the following way:
Understand the customers the clients are looking to target. Where are they located? What do they need/want?
Understand the market and competition of the product your client is launching. Will he be able to make money next to the competition?
Understand your client’s products and company. Is their product good enough to outperform the competition? What makes your client company and product unique?
This breakdown, together with a few nice graphics and initial research findings, is what you will send back to the client in the project proposal. You can apply this to any kind of business or even personal problem you are facing.
Be sure to always understand the root cause first and then break the problem down to come up with a plan to solve it.
I hope you find any value in what I talked about today. If you did, as always, share this with your friends or colleagues to get them on the same track.
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