What is the Best Approach to Solving a Problem
By: Behzad Benam
Tags: Six Thinking Hats, Bottom Up Approach, Problem Solving, Top Down Approach, Skills Development

The ability to solve a problem is a skill that encompasses many other basic skills. Not all problems are easy to solve, and complex problems require special skills that can be solved in a timely manner. However, focusing only on competencies is not a purposeful approach because learning new competencies and skills is a long-term process. We must first define a process to determine which skills are the most important skills we need for our particular problem.

Basically, there are two steps to solving problems, the first is to recognize the problem, and the second is to find the right solution.

The first step, recognizing the problem

Problem recognition means the ability to identify, understand, and describe a problem. The problem-solving process begins with identifying a problem. Deciding whether it is worthwhile for us to solve this problem should be done at this stage.

The critical points are importance and urgency. Only the important and urgent problems shall be done, and others shall be either planned, delegated, or eliminated.

Asking as many questions as possible at this stage helps to understand the scope of the problem. Basically, good questions can draw lines between a known area and an unknown area. Unknown areas are areas where our problem is usually located.

A good problem solver can find a good solution to a problem if it is clearly described. The ability to describe the problem is essential. If we generalize a problem, many answers can be the solution to that problem. In this case, it isn't easy to convince people about the solution because many other solutions are still valid. People look at the issue from different perspectives with different experiences.

Describing a problem means defining a goal and taking steps to achieve that goal. Also, you need to anticipate potential risks. We need to define the problem's scope and decide what should be done and what should not be done.

The second step, finding an appropriate solution

Patterns are standard solutions to specific problems. There are currently many patterns for a particular issue in each context. If our problem is a combination of several problems, we can combine different patterns. We have to break complex problems down into many simple cases. Therefore, we need a method for this step.

Not all solutions are suitable for the problem due to cost, effort, or other reasons. An evaluation method should be selected to assess all solutions based on key criteria.

Two problem-solving approaches

Many techniques are available that describe how to solve the problem more easily. Once the problem is recognized, there are generally two approaches. The first approach is to analyze the root cause of the problem and try to eliminate the root cause to get rid of the problem. For this approach, several cause and effect methods are available. The second approach is to look for measures to prevent the problem's negative effects by adding new mechanisms.

The first approach is a bottom-up approach. This means considering the issue as a negative effect and looking for possible causes, which could be the reason for this particular problem. To implement this approach, we need a lot of knowledge about the whole system; otherwise, if you do not consider one of the system's important components, you probably can not find all the main reasons for this problem.

The second approach is a top-down approach. This means defining a high-level goal that is to avoid the negative impact of the problem. We do not need all the details of the system to analyze it that way. We only need possible scenarios to be able to extract critical situations or scenarios that lead to problems. The focus here is on an operating system, not every component of the system that can cause a problem like the first approach.

The second approach is more suitable for starting the problem-solving process because we do not need much information about the system. However, this must be complemented by the first approach. The top-down analysis gaps can be closed if we analyze bottom-up after understanding the possible system components.

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Looking at the problem from different perspectives

One of the best practices is the six thinking hats technique for problem-solving. Different people with different experiences and backgrounds see the problem differently. In this technique, we have six different roles that help to achieve better results.