How Long Should Windows Attempting Repairs
Reprint: R1209F The rigor with which a problem is defined is the most important factor in finding a skilful solution. Many organizations, however, are non proficient at articulating their problems and identifying which ones are crucial to their strategies. They may fifty-fifty be trying to solve the wrong issues—missing opportunities and wasting resources in the process. The fundamental is to ask the right questions. The author describes a process that his firm, InnoCentive, has used to help clients define and articulate business, technical, social, and policy challenges and so present them to an online community of more than 250,000 solvers. The iv-step procedure consists of asking a series of questions and using the answers to create a problem statement that will elicit novel ideas from an array of experts. EnterpriseWorks/VITA, a nonprofit organisation, used this process to find a low-cost, lightweight, and convenient product that expands access to clean drinking water in the developing earth.
"If I were given one hour to salve the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the trouble and 1 infinitesimal resolving it," Albert Einstein said.
Those were wise words, merely from what I have observed, most organizations don't heed them when tackling innovation projects. Indeed, when developing new products, processes, or even businesses, most companies aren't sufficiently rigorous in defining the bug they're attempting to solve and articulating why those bug are important. Without that rigor, organizations miss opportunities, waste resources, and end upwardly pursuing innovation initiatives that aren't aligned with their strategies. How many times take you seen a project become downwardly one path only to realize in retrospect that it should have gone down another? How many times take y'all seen an innovation program deliver a seemingly breakthrough issue just to discover that it can't be implemented or it addresses the wrong problem? Many organizations demand to become better at request the right questions and then that they tackle the right problems.
I offer here a process for defining problems that any organization tin can employ on its own. My firm, InnoCentive, has used it to aid more than 100 corporations, government agencies, and foundations amend the quality and efficiency of their innovation efforts and, equally a result, their overall performance. Through this process, which we call challenge-driven innovation, clients define and articulate their business, technical, social, and policy bug and present them as challenges to a community of more than than 250,000 solvers—scientists, engineers, and other experts who hail from 200 countries—on InnoCentive.com, our innovation market. Successful solvers have earned awards of $5,000 to $i meg.
Since our launch, more than than ten years ago, we have managed more than 2,000 problems and solved more than than half of them—a much higher proportion than well-nigh organizations attain on their ain. Indeed, our success rates accept improved dramatically over the years (34% in 2006, 39% in 2009, and 57% in 2022), which is a function of the increasing quality of the questions we pose and of our solver customs. Interestingly, even unsolved problems take been tremendously valuable to many clients, allowing them to abolish ill-fated programs much earlier than they otherwise would take and then redeploy their resources.
In our early on years, we focused on highly specific technical problems, merely we take since expanded, taking on everything from basic R&D and product development to the health and prophylactic of astronauts to banking services in developing countries. Nosotros now know that the rigor with which a problem is defined is the well-nigh of import factor in finding a suitable solution. Just nosotros've seen that virtually organizations are not proficient at articulating their problems clearly and concisely. Many take considerable difficulty even identifying which problems are crucial to their missions and strategies.
In fact, many clients accept realized while working with us that they may not be tackling the right issues. Consider a company that engages InnoCentive to find a lubricant for its manufacturing machinery. This exchange ensues:
InnoCentive staffer: "Why do y'all need the lubricant?"
Client's engineer: "Because we're now expecting our machinery to practice things it was non designed to do, and it needs a particular lubricant to operate."
InnoCentive staffer: "Why don't you supervene upon the machinery?"
Client's engineer: "Because no 1 makes equipment that exactly fits our needs."
This raises a deeper question: Does the company need the lubricant, or does information technology need a new way to brand its product? It could be that rethinking the manufacturing process would give the firm a new basis for competitive advantage. (Asking questions until yous become to the root cause of a problem draws from the famous Five Whys trouble-solving technique developed at Toyota and employed in Six Sigma.)
The instance is like many we've seen: Someone in the bowels of the arrangement is assigned to fix a very specific, most-term problem. But considering the firm doesn't use a rigorous process for understanding the dimensions of the problem, leaders miss an opportunity to address underlying strategic bug. The state of affairs is exacerbated by what Stefan Thomke and Donald Reinertsen accept identified equally the fallacy of "The sooner the project is started, the sooner information technology volition exist finished." (Run across "Half-dozen Myths of Product Development," HBR May 2022.) Organizational teams speed toward a solution, fearing that if they spend too much time defining the trouble, their superiors will punish them for taking so long to get to the starting line.
Ironically, that arroyo is more likely to waste time and money and reduce the odds of success than i that strives at the outset to achieve an in-depth agreement of the problem and its importance to the firm. With this in mind, we developed a four-step process for defining and articulating bug, which nosotros have honed with our clients. It consists of asking a series of questions and using the answers to create a thorough problem statement. This process is of import for two reasons. Start, it rallies the system effectually a shared understanding of the trouble, why the firm should tackle it, and the level of resource information technology should receive. Firms that don't engage in this process often allocate besides few resources to solving major issues or too many to solving low-priority or wrongly divers ones. It's useful to assign a value to the solution: An organization volition be more willing to devote considerable fourth dimension and resources to an try that is shown to represent a $100 million market opportunity than to an initiative whose value is much less or is unclear. 2d, the procedure helps an arrangement bandage the widest possible net for potential solutions, giving internal and external experts in disparate fields the information they demand to cleft the problem.
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To illustrate how the procedure works, we'll describe an initiative to aggrandize access to clean drinking water undertaken by the nonprofit EnterpriseWorks/VITA, a division of Relief International. EWV's mission is to foster economic growth and raise the standard of living in developing countries by expanding access to technologies and helping entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses.
The organization chose Jon Naugle, its technical director, as the initiative'south "trouble champion." Individuals in this office should have a deep understanding of the field or domain and be capable program administrators. Considering problem champions may also be charged with implementing solutions, a proven leader with the say-so, responsibleness, and resources to see the project through can exist invaluable in this role, specially for a larger and more strategic undertaking. Naugle, an engineer with more than 25 years of agronomical and rural-development experience in Eastward and West Africa and the Caribbean, fit the nib. He was supported past specialists who understood local market weather condition, available materials, and other critical issues related to the commitment of drinking water.
Footstep 1: Establish the Need for a Solution
The purpose of this step is to clear the problem in the simplest terms possible: "We are looking for X in social club to achieve Z as measured by W." Such a argument, akin to an lift pitch, is a phone call to arms that clarifies the importance of the issue and helps secure resources to address information technology. This initial framing answers three questions:
What is the bones need?
This is the essential problem, stated conspicuously and concisely. It is important at this stage to focus on the need that's at the center of the problem instead of jumping to a solution. Defining the scope is also of import. Clearly, looking for lubricant for a piece of machinery is unlike from seeking a radically new manufacturing process.
The basic need EWV identified was access to make clean drinking water for the estimated 1.1 billion people in the globe who lack it. This is a pressing outcome even in areas that take enough of rainfall, considering the water is non effectively captured, stored, and distributed.
What is the desired outcome?
Answering this question requires understanding the perspectives of customers and other beneficiaries. (The 5 Whys approach can be very helpful.) Again, avoid the temptation to favor a item solution or arroyo. This question should be addressed qualitatively and quantitatively whenever possible. A high-level just specific goal, such as "improving fuel efficiency to 100 mpg past 2022," can be helpful at this stage.
In answering this question, Naugle and his team realized that the result had to be more than access to water; the admission had to be convenient. Women and children in countries such as Uganda often must walk long distances to fetch water from valleys and and so carry it uphill to their villages. The desired outcome EWV divers was to provide water for daily family needs without requiring enormous expenditures of time and energy.
Who stands to do good and why?
Answering this question compels an organization to identify all potential customers and beneficiaries. It is at this stage that y'all understand whether, say, you are solving a lubricant problem for the engineer or for the head of manufacturing—whose definitions of success may vary considerably.
If the problem y'all want to solve is industrywide, it'southward crucial to understand why the marketplace has failed to address information technology.
By pondering this question, EWV came to meet that the benefits would accrue to individuals and families every bit well as to regions and countries. Women would spend less time walking to recollect h2o, giving them more time for working in the field or in outside employment that would bring their families needed income. Children would be able to attend school. And over the longer term, regions and countries would do good from the improved teaching and productivity of the population.
Step 2: Justify the Need
The purpose of answering the questions in this pace is to explain why your organization should attempt to solve the problem.
Is the effort aligned with our strategy?
In other words, volition satisfying the need serve the arrangement'due south strategic goals? It is non unusual for an organization to be working on problems that are no longer in sync with its strategy or mission. In that case, the effort (and perhaps the whole initiative) should be reconsidered.
In the instance of EWV, simply improving access to make clean drinking h2o wouldn't be plenty; to fit the system's mission, the solution should generate economic development and opportunities for local businesses. It needed to involve something that people would purchase.
In add-on, you lot should consider whether the trouble fits with your house's priorities. Since EWV's other projects included providing access to affordable products such as cookstoves and treadle pumps, the drinking water project was appropriate.
What are the desired benefits for the company, and how will we measure them?
In for-profit companies, the desired benefit could exist to reach a revenue target, attain a certain market share, or achieve specific cycle-time improvements. EWV hoped to further its goal of beingness a recognized leader in helping the earth'due south poor by transferring technology through the individual sector. That benefit would be measured by market impact: How many families are paying for the solution? How is it affecting their lives? Are sales and installation creating jobs? Given the potential benefits, EWV deemed the priority to be high.
How will we ensure that a solution is implemented?
Presume that a solution is found. Someone in the organization must be responsible for carrying information technology out—whether that means installing a new manufacturing engineering science, launching a new concern, or commercializing a product innovation. That person could exist the problem champion, but he or she could besides be the manager of an existing segmentation, a cross-functional team, or a new department.
At EWV, Jon Naugle was too put in accuse of carrying out the solution. In addition to his technical background, Naugle had a track tape of successfully implementing similar projects. For instance, he had served as EWV's country director in Niger, where he oversaw a component of a World Banking concern airplane pilot project to promote small-scale private irrigation. His part of the project involved getting the private sector to manufacture treadle pumps and manually drill wells.
It is important at this stage to initiate a high-level chat in the organization well-nigh the resource a solution might require. This can seem premature—later all, y'all're withal defining the problem, and the field of possible solutions could be very large—only information technology'due south really not besides early to brainstorm exploring what resource your organization is willing and able to devote to evaluating solutions and then implementing the best one. Even at the showtime, you may take an inkling that implementing a solution volition be much more expensive than others in the system realize. In that case, it's important to communicate a crude estimate of the money and people that will be required and to make certain that the organization is willing to go along down this path. The result of such a discussion might be that some constraints on resourcing must be built into the trouble statement. Early on in its drinking water project, EWV ready a cap on how much it would devote to initial research and the testing of possible solutions.
At present that you have laid out the need for a solution and its importance to the organization, you must define the problem in detail. This involves applying a rigorous method to ensure that yous have captured all the information that someone—including people in fields far removed from your manufacture—might demand to solve the problem.
Stride three: Contextualize the Problem
Examining past efforts to notice a solution can save time and resource and generate highly innovative thinking. If the problem is industrywide, it's crucial to understand why the market has failed to address it.
What approaches have we tried?
The aim here is to detect solutions that might already be in your organization and place those that information technology has disproved. By answering this question, you can avoid reinventing the bike or going downwards a expressionless cease.
In previous efforts to aggrandize access to clean h2o, EWV had offered products and services ranging from manually drilled wells for irrigation to filters for household water treatment. As with all its projects, EWV identified products that low-income consumers could afford and, if possible, that local entrepreneurs could manufacture or service. Equally Naugle and his team revisited those efforts, they realized that both solutions worked only if a h2o source, such equally surface water or a shallow aquifer, was shut to the household. Equally a effect, they decided to focus on rainwater—which falls everywhere in the earth to a greater or lesser extent—as a source that could reach many more people. More specifically, the team turned its attending to the concept of rainwater harvesting. "Rainwater is delivered straight to the stop user," Naugle says. "It'due south as close as you can become to a piped water system without having a piped water supply."
What have others tried?
EWV's investigation of previous attempts at rainwater harvesting involved reviewing research on the topic, conducting 5 field studies, and surveying 20 countries to ask what technology was being used, what was and was not working, what prevented or encouraged the use of various solutions, how much the solutions cost, and what role government played.
"1 of the primal things we learned from the surveys," Naugle says, "was that once you take a difficult roof—which many people do—to use as a collection surface, the most expensive matter is storage."
Here was the trouble that needed to exist solved. EWV found that existing solutions for storing rainwater, such as concrete tanks, were also expensive for depression-income families in developing countries, so households were sharing storage tanks. But because no one took ownership of the communal facilities, they often savage into busted. Consequently, Naugle and his team homed in on the concept of a low-cost household rainwater-storage device.
Their research into prior solutions surfaced what seemed initially similar a promising approach: storing rainwater in a 525-gallon jar that was almost as tall equally an developed and 3 times as wide. In Thailand, they learned, 5 million of those jars had been deployed over five years. Later farther investigation, however, they found that the jars were made of cement, which was available in Thailand at a low toll. More important, the country's good roads fabricated it possible to manufacture the jars in one location and transport them in trucks around the country. That solution wouldn't work in areas that had neither cement nor high-quality roads. Indeed, through interviews with villagers in Uganda, EWV found that even empty polyethylene barrels large enough to hold only fifty gallons of water were difficult to carry along a path. It became clear that a feasible storage solution had to exist light plenty to be carried some distance in areas without roads.
What are the internal and external constraints on implementing a solution?
Now that you have a meliorate idea of what you want to attain, it's time to revisit the upshot of resources and organizational delivery: Practise you have the necessary support for soliciting and then evaluating possible solutions? Are you lot sure that you tin obtain the money and the people to implement the most promising 1?
External constraints are just as important to evaluate: Are there issues concerning patents or intellectual-property rights? Are there laws and regulations to be considered? Answering these questions may crave consultation with various stakeholders and experts.
Do y'all take the necessary back up for soliciting and evaluating possible solutions? Do you have the money and the people to implement the most promising one?
EWV's exploration of possible external constraints included examining government policies regarding rainwater storage. Naugle and his squad constitute that the governments of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam supported the idea, but the strongest proponent was Uganda'southward minister of water and the environment, Maria Mutagamba. Consequently, EWV decided to test the storage solution in Uganda.
Step four: Write the Trouble Statement
Now it'southward fourth dimension to write a full clarification of the problem y'all're seeking to solve and the requirements the solution must come across. The trouble argument, which captures all that the organisation has learned through answering the questions in the previous steps, helps found a consensus on what a feasible solution would exist and what resource would exist required to achieve it.
A full, clear clarification too helps people both inside and exterior the organisation apace grasp the issue. This is especially of import because solutions to complex issues in an manufacture or subject area oft come from experts in other fields (run into "Getting Unusual Suspects to Solve R&D Puzzles," HBR May 2007). For case, the method for moving mucilaginous oil from spills in Chill and subarctic waters from drove barges to disposal tanks came from a chemist in the cement manufacture, who responded to the Oil Spill Recovery Constitute's description of the problem in terms that were precise but not specific to the petroleum industry. Thus the institute was able to solve in a thing of months a challenge that had stumped petroleum engineers for years. (To read the institute's full problem statement, visit hbr.org/problem-statement1.)
Here are some questions that can help you develop a thorough problem argument:
Is the problem really many problems?
The aim here is to drill down to root causes. Circuitous, seemingly insoluble issues are much more than approachable when broken into discrete elements.
For EWV, this meant making information technology articulate that the solution needed to be a storage product that individual households could beget, that was light enough to be easily transported on poor-quality roads or paths, and that could be easily maintained.
What requirements must a solution meet?
EWV conducted extensive on-the-ground surveys with potential customers in Uganda to identify the must-have versus the prissy-to-accept elements of a solution. (Run across the sidebar "Elements of a Successful Solution.") It didn't matter to EWV whether the solution was a new device or an adaptation of an existing one. Likewise, the solution didn't need to be ane that could exist mass-produced. That is, it could exist something that local pocket-size-scale entrepreneurs could industry.
Experts in rainwater harvesting told Naugle and his team that their target cost of $20 was unachievable, which meant that subsidies would be required. But a subsidized production was confronting EWV'due south strategy and philosophy.
Which problem solvers should we engage?
The dead finish EWV hit in seeking a $20 solution from those experts led the organization to conclude that it needed to enlist as many experts outside the field as possible. That is when EWV decided to engage InnoCentive and its network of 250,000 solvers.
What information and linguistic communication should the problem statement include?
To engage the largest number of solvers from the widest diverseness of fields, a trouble argument must meet the twin goals of being extremely specific but non unnecessarily technical. It shouldn't contain manufacture or discipline jargon or presuppose knowledge of a particular field. It may (and probably should) include a summary of previous solution attempts and detailed requirements.
With those criteria in mind, Naugle and his team crafted a problem statement. (The following is the abstract; for the full problem argument, visit hbr.org/problem-statement2.) "EnterpriseWorks is seeking design ideas for a low-cost rainwater storage system that can be installed in households in developing countries. The solution is expected to facilitate access to clean water at a household level, addressing a problem that affects millions of people worldwide who are living in impoverished communities or rural areas where access to clean water is limited. Domestic rainwater harvesting is a proven applied science that can be a valuable option for accessing and storing water twelvemonth round. All the same, the high cost of available rainwater storage systems makes them well beyond the reach of depression-income families to install in their homes. A solution to this problem would not only provide convenient and affordable access to deficient water resource but would also allow families, particularly the women and children who are normally tasked with water collection, to spend less time walking distances to collect water and more than time on activities that tin can bring in income and improve the quality of life."
To appoint the largest number of solvers from the widest diversity of fields, a problem argument must meet the twin goals of being extremely specific but non unnecessarily technical.
What practice solvers demand to submit?
What information about the proposed solution does your organization demand in gild to invest in it? For example, would a well-founded hypothetical approach exist sufficient, or is a full-blown image needed? EWV decided that a solver had to submit a written explanation of the solution and detailed drawings.
What incentives exercise solvers need?
The point of request this question is to ensure that the right people are motivated to address the problem. For internal solvers, incentives can be written into task descriptions or offered as promotions and bonuses. For external solvers, the incentive might exist a cash award. EWV offered to pay $xv,000 to the solver who provided the all-time solution through the InnoCentive network.
How volition solutions be evaluated and success measured?
Addressing this question forces a company to be explicit about how it will evaluate the solutions information technology receives. Clarity and transparency are crucial to arriving at feasible solutions and to ensuring that the evaluation process is fair and rigorous. In some cases a "nosotros'll know information technology when we see it" approach is reasonable—for example, when a visitor is looking for a new branding strategy. Most of the time, even so, information technology is a sign that earlier steps in the process accept non been approached with sufficient rigor.
EWV stipulated that information technology would evaluate solutions on their ability to come across the criteria of depression cost, loftier storage capacity, low weight, and easy maintenance. It added that it would prefer designs that were modular (so that the unit would be easier to transport) and adaptable or salvageable or had multiple functions (so that owners could reuse the materials after the product's lifetime or sell them to others for various applications). The overarching goal was to keep costs low and to help poor families justify the purchase.
The Winner
Ultimately, the solution to EWV'south rainwater-storage problem came from someone outside the field: a German language inventor whose company specialized in the pattern of tourist submarines. The solution he proposed required no elaborate mechanism; in fact, it had no pumps or moving parts. Information technology was an established industrial technology that had not been practical to water storage: a plastic bag within a plastic bag with a tube at the top. The outer bag (made of less-expensive, woven polypropylene) provided the structure's strength, while the inner bag (made of more-expensive, linear low-density polyethylene) was impermeable and could hold 125 gallons of water. The two-pocketbook approach allowed the inner bag to be thinner, reducing the cost of the product, while the outer bag was strong enough to contain a ton and a half of water.
The construction folded into a packet the size of a briefcase and weighed about eight pounds. In brusque, the solution was affordable, commercially viable, could be easily transported to remote areas, and could be sold and installed by local entrepreneurs. (Retailers make from $4 to $viii per unit of measurement, depending on the volume they purchase. Installers of the gutters, downspout, and base of operations earn about $half dozen.)
EWV developed an initial version and tested information technology in Uganda, where the organization asked end users such questions equally What exercise yous call back of its weight? Does it meet your needs? Even mundane issues like color came into play: The woven outer bags were white, which women pointed out would immediately look dirty. EWV modified the design on the basis of this input: For instance, it changed the color of the device to brown, expanded its size to 350 gallons (while keeping the target toll of no more $20 per 125 gallons of water storage), altered its shape to get in more stable, and replaced the original siphon with an outlet tap.
Afterwards xiv months of field testing, EWV rolled out the commercial product in Uganda in March 2022. By the end of May 2022, l to 60 shops, village sales agents, and cooperatives were selling the production; more than 80 entrepreneurs had been trained to install it; and 1,418 units had been deployed in eight districts in southwestern Republic of uganda.
EWV deems this a success at this phase in the rollout. Information technology hopes to make the units available in 10 countries—and have tens or hundreds of thousands of units installed—within 5 years. Ultimately, information technology believes, millions of units will be in use for a diversity of applications, including household drinking water, irrigation, and construction. Interestingly, the chief obstacle to getting people to buy the device has been skepticism that something that comes in such a small-scale package (the size of a typical five-gallon jerrican) tin hold the equivalent of 70 jerricans. Believing that the remedy is to bear witness villagers the installed production, EWV is currently testing various promotion and marketing programs.As the EWV story illustrates, critically analyzing and clearly articulating a problem tin yield highly innovative solutions. Organizations that apply these simple concepts and develop the skills and discipline to ask better questions and define their issues with more rigor can create strategic advantage, unlock truly groundbreaking innovation, and drive meliorate concern functioning. Asking better questions delivers better results.
A version of this article appeared in the September 2022 event of Harvard Concern Review.
Source: https://hbr.org/2012/09/are-you-solving-the-right-problem
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