The Creative Problem-Solving Clock

Six simple steps toward sanity

The Clock

Problem solving is a creative process. Here is a framework for getting results in a repeatable, predictable way.

The process is illustrated below. It is an iterative approach. I describe the picture in more detail in the sections that follow.

I solve problems by going around the circle at least twice, and more than that if required. In the real world, it is possible to begin the process at almost any point on the circle, but for convenience I begin my explanation at the most “logical” place, nine o’clock. And I'll switch from "I" to "we" because we are going to do this together!

The first time we go through the loop, the steps are a little different from those on subsequent trips.

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Getting Started

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Observe

Nine o’clock: We need to be aware. We have to have our antennae out all the time. We aggressively watch what is going on around us, and we try to sniff out problems.

Eleven o’clock: Having detected a problem, we engage with others to find out what they think. We use active listening, creating a Socratic dialog with our conversational partner, alternating teacher and student roles. We try to listen more than we talk, and we take good notes.

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Listen

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Empathize

One o’clock: I separate this from listening to make sure that you understand the difference. One can listen to get "objective" data; empathy is the bridge between listening in the fact-gathering sense and the beginning of the synthesis part of the process. We listen with our ears and synthesize with our brains; empathy involves use of the heart. It requires that we step outside ourselves and truly put ourselves in the other person's shoes. This is not always easy to do when what we are hearing does not agree with our previous notions. Hence we must empathize before we can synthesize. Managers who come from engineering sometimes skip this step because they are used to solving problems that are 99.44% technical in nature; unfortunately, this is not the case with most general management problems.

Three o’clock: Here we bring together all the pieces:

The data we have gathered through observing and listening
The affective elements discovered by seeing it from other people’s perspective
All our previous experience in dealing with problems of this type
Other “lateral” experience that may be relevant
Our “tool bag” of methods, processes, strategies, tactics, techniques, and tricks

We fabricate a trial solution to the problem, using everything we know.

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Synthesize

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Try It Out

Five o’clock: In this crucial step, we perform tests and do experiments to see if our solution is workable. Here is where we weed out those ideas that looked good on paper, but are unimplementable in the real world. We can’t discover this until we try it. Be especially hard on yourself in this phase; shooting down bad solutions is a vital part of the creative problem-solving process.

Seven o’clock: Here is where we document our solution and the tests and experiments we have performed. This is how we are going to present our solution to the rest of those involved, so we take the time and care to do a good job of it. If we don’t write it up, we will have a harder time selling the idea, and things that are not written down tend to fade quickly.

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Write It Up

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Round and Round We Go

We’ve gotten the trial solution out, and enough time has gone by for people to evaluate it. Now it is time to go through the loop again. Here is what the six steps look like this time:

Observe: See how people are reacting to the trial solution. Have we made a dent?
Listen: Talk with people about the pluses and minuses of the solution. Get them to tell us what they like and don’t like, what works and what doesn’t work.
Empathize: What factors could be influencing what we are hearing? Are people just resistant to change? Is someone’s personal ox being gored by the solution? Are there side-effects or unintended consequences that are causing people grief? Or, is there "irrational exuberance?"
Synthesize: We need to take the new data and fold it back into the synthesizing process. Can the original solution be tweaked, or does it need a major overhaul? Most of the time we can go forward by modifying or improving on the last pass. But we shouldn't be afraid to start our synthesis from scratch if we blew it the first time.
Try It Out: With each pass through this station, we should become more intelligent about how to test the solution. After all, we have the tests from the previous pass, plus new data on what to look out for. Beat the solution up worse than the critics will. Anticipate objections or problems, and see how the solution performs when confronted by them.
Write It Up: Using the original document as a starting point, modify what we need to, and point out what we have changed and improved.

When are we done? Closure is important; we don’t want to cycle through the loop forever. A good guideline is to stop when there is very little significant new information obtained during the observing and listening phases.

The process can begin at any point on the circle. We must be opportunistic when it comes to problem solving. Real life is “messy,” and sometimes the germ of an idea may come up, for example, through some random synthesizing going on at the time. While it might seem better to stop and go back to nine o’clock, sometimes the best thing to do is to seize the moment and go forward from there. Don’t forget, we will always do at least two complete cycles no matter where we start, so feedback is ensured. That’s why that step at seven o’clock is so important – it’s what precipitates the feedback.

Note also a very important beneficial side-effect: because we have been “writing it up” as we go through the process loop two or more times, we don’t have a huge documentation chore at the end. We will have progressively built up the “final documentation” as an organic part of creating the solution in an iterative way.

Solutions obtained using this method tend to “stick.” The art is to navigate through the six steps crisply and with all deliberate speed. Don’t skip steps, and don’t get stuck too long on any one step. Once you gain experience with the approach, you can improvise at will. But in the beginning, use the framework to add discipline to your creativity. You may be surprised and pleased with the results.

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Closure

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