Questioning Assumptions

The singlemost important device for solving problems is,
- the question.

When Edwin Land's daughter was a small child, she wasn't highly educated and she wasn't especially clever.  However, she once asked her father why they had to wait for photographs to be developed.  Edwin Land was a scientist and started thinking about the problem.  As a consequence, the Polaroid camera was developed.

It would have been very easy to take for granted the fact that you had to wait for photographs to be developed, as it had always be so.  But because she knew nothing about the process, she was not inhibited by her experience (so much for received wisdom).

The questions we ask need not be complex, technical or brilliant.  If the daughter had qualified the question by asking if it was possible to get the photos 2-3 days quicker, a better process may have been developed, but it is unlikely that a revolutionary one would have resulted. 

It is the simple questions that provoke the richest ideas because they do not constrain our thinking and they test our fundamental assumptions.

Questions enable us first to identify our assumptions, and then to ask why they are so.

Solving a difficult problem is not a matter of 'scientific breakthrough' but of questioning your assumptions and breaking away from habitual thinking. When faced with a particularly difficult problem, we need to be bold with our questions. 

Your goal is to find a gap, an inconsistency, an exception, a condition whereby your assumptions do not hold.   This provides you with a new perspective and a path a solution.

There is a hierarchy of questioning that will challenge your assumptions

1. Find out what assumptions you are making
2. Ask if they are true
3. Doubt that they are true
4. Deny that they are true

Mapping as a Tool for Solving Problems

Who was the greatest medical doctor?   Hippocrates?  Pasteur?  In 2003 a poll named Dr John Snow as the greatest doctor ever.

Who?

In 1854, an outbreak of cholera had claimed 500 lives in London.  This was before the  germ theory of epidemic diseases and the prevailing theory was of ‘miasma’ or ‘bad air’.  Snow believed the cause of a local outbreak was related to the water supply.   In a ground-breaking study, he used a map to show how the deaths were clustered about a street water-pump.  This convinced the authorities to remove the pump handle and the outbreak was contained.

Snow used a map to create a new understanding.  There was nothing new in the data he had, but by mapping it using geographical co-ordinates, he was able to gain a new insight into the problem.

Maps enable you to take a new view of your information.  By using different map axes, you can display the data in different ways.  They display the relationships between the data. Any clusters in the data, begs the question ‘why are they clustered’.   Similarly, gaps in the data beg different questions. 

There are two main considerations in the use of mapping

1. What axes to use. 
2. What questions to ask.

In my blog about Assumption mapping, the axes used are ‘strength of belief’ and ‘relative importance’.  This could show, for example, which assumptions are not strongly held, but important, which gives considerable scope for exploration.  Furthermore, if you were to colour-code the assumptions by stakeholder groups, you could see clusters of a different type.  You need new ways to think about the data.

The key is to create a map that reveals something new and significant.

Problem Mapping Tools

A basic requirement for creative problem solving is some form of ‘mapping tool’.  This is because we first need to identify all the relevant factors of the problem and then we play with them to see the relationships that exist or may be created between them.

Mapping is a key tool for tackling difficult problems. It is the basis for a number of data analysis tools and provides a variety of benefits:

1.    A meaningful symbolic model can be constructed
2.    Complex information can be summarized effectively
3.    A variety of information types can be accommodated
4.    Areas of confusion or disagreement are can be identified
5.    Creates a record that people can agree upon
6.    Establishes relationships between elements
7.    Key factors can be identified and highlighted
8.    Complex interactions can be identified
9.    Acts as a prompt to further discussion
10.   The multi-dimensional nature of problems can be meaningfully captured

Whiteboards and flipcharts are typical tools for this. 

In addition, there are a number of software tools, many of them free of charge.  However, probably the majority of them have a drawback when it comes to mapping ideas.  These products force you to start with an initial idea and then relate all subsequent ideas to it in a ‘parent, child, sibling’ structure. The problem is that a strict hierarchy of ideas may not be appropriate, obvious, fixed or even desirable - it may even be advantageous NOT to have ANY implied relationship imposed on the factors, as the relationship between the factors is what you want to discover.  Simply noting the relevant factors and establishing the relationship between them provides much more flexibility.

With this in mind, the product I would recommend is VUE (Visual Understanding Environment), from Tufts University (http://vue.tufts.edu/index.cfm).  However, should you require it, VUE also offers you a Parent, child, Sibling structure.  VUE has too  many additional features to be listed here, but a key benefit is that it is completely free of charge.

Divergent Thinking

Convergent thinking is that which we use to find a single solution to a problem.  Conversely, divergent thinking is that which we use to find many possible answers to a problem.  When trying to find a solution to a difficult problem, it is divergent thinking that is required.

Unfortunately, as we get older, our aptitude for it disappears.  Some years ago a study* involving 1600 schoolchildren assesed their ability for divergent thinking. they tested the kids in later years and found that the decline was quite alarming.  Perhaps this is due to our society’s emphasis on convergent thinking processes. (Email subscribers can see the graphic via this link)

There is a way to get a measure of a group, department, organisation’s divergent thinking ability.  What’s more, it provides a concrete, numerical measure.

You need 6-12 representative individuals with paper and pencils.  You ask them to write down as many items as possible that are’ blue’, or ‘round’, for example - a simple, general question which doesn’t require special knowledge.

It should be simple enough to enable the group get around 100+ ideas (for statistical significance). It should not take more than 5-10 minutes. 

You then go through the lists to count the items that are on everybody’s list, then items that are on all but one lists, then on all but two lists and so on.  Finally, you count the total number of unique items.

If everybody basically has the same list then they are not good at divergent thinking – great team players perhaps, but not an original thought between them.  On the other hand, if all the lists have completely different items, then they are all fabulously original, but are probably all highly individual
and will barely be able to communicate with each other.  A strong, creative team lies somewhere between the two.

Hopefully, the person that doesn’t get any unique ideas isn't the boss.


*Land & Jarman "Breakpoint & Beyond,  - Mastering the Future Today" 1993, Hapercollins

Visual Problems

When we do a jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces lay before us, our eye wanders over them, noting features, looking for similarities. It is a fantastic feat; we go over them again and again, creating a myriad of imagined connections between the pieces. We move pieces around to create new patterns and connections, gradually our ideas coalesce, from simple similarities we build more complex patterns and the picture emerges. It is not a logical process, it is an emergent one, we work on the whole of the problem at once, pieces become joined here and there. Suddenly we see how the small parts go together, logic plays no part whatever, it is all about processing images and ideas. The result is a perfectly ordered solution that has been created from total and complete chaos.

And nobody needs to learn how to do a jigsaw puzzle, it is obvious- you never get any instructions on the box.

What does this tell us? We do not need to learn how to be creative, it is natural, not only that, it is compelling – we are creatures of creativity, we are born to make sense of the world through our creativity. Our logic is learned but our creativity is inherent, but it becomes hampered by our habits of logic, rules and assumptions. Creativity is subtle, elusive, intangible and uncertain. It is this uncertainty that causes us to doubt its merit, we have come to prefer the certainty of logic and mathematics.

But as we have seen, some problems do not yield to logic.

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Solution Mapping II, The Purpose of Nonsense

I once took part in a brain storming session in which I felt particularly uncomfortable. On the one hand, I was an experienced manager, I was responsible for significant revenue, had a number of capable people reporting to me, and I was someone who was expected to deal with problems responsibly and effectively – and I felt I had something useful to contribute.

On the other hand, I was sitting there being expected to come up with wildly improbable solutions to problems and it didn’t really sit well with me as it just felt silly, and I didn’t engage with the process.

This does not seem to me to be an isolated example, I am sure that this happens to any number of participants in a similar position. However, this is a serious obstacle to finding creative solutions to problems. So how should we deal with it?

The problem is that ‘silly’ suggestions have no obvious practical purpose, they have no value.

However, if you use the ‘solution mapping matrix’, then even the most wildly improbable suggestions play a part – they acquire a value.

In Part I of this blog, I showed that you will not get ‘breakthrough’ solutions from possible/desirable ideas. These come from the impossible/undesirable segments, therefore, you need improbable ideas.

If each segment of your map is equally populated then the process is working well, if not, people may still be operating within their comfort zone and you need to stretch them further.

You can do this by asking for more impossible/undesirable solutions and give a purpose to nonsense ideas.

Solution Mapping - Part 1

Do this.  Take a sheet of paper, imagine that this piece of paper represents ‘all  solutions to a problem’.  Now, draw a line up the centre and at the top write “Possible” and at the bottom write “Impossible”. Next, draw a line across the centre, label the left end “Undesirable” and the right end “Desirable”.

Normally, when you look for a solution to a problem, you search in sector defined as ‘Desirable and Possible’, this is logical, because these are the type of solutions you want.

But if you have a particularly difficult problem and you can’t find any solutions in that sector?  Logic will not provide a solution.

Since this piece of paper represents ‘all solutions’, the only place you will find a solution (if one exists) is in one of the other sectors.  The problem is that these are all  undesirable and/or impossible.  Therefore, you have two options,

• You can modify one of these unacceptable solutions in some way so as to move it into the desirable/possible sector, or
• You can do something to move either of the axes so that the solution becomes desirable or possible.

To do this you need to change are your assumptions, or the operating environment, etc.

Solutions mapping has a further benefit.  If you are brainstorming for possible solutions, you place each one in the appropriate sector.  As the session proceeds you will build up a map of the solutions you are getting and if you are not getting a similar number of undesirable/impossible solutions, you are not pushing the envelope sufficiently!  Make sure you get many of these solutions,

- Because these are what provide breakthrough solutions.