A 5-step framework for effective problem solving in a team
There are endless benefits to working collaboratively on solutions to work-based challenges. You build trust within the team, you encourage collaboration, you ensure collective buy-in – and, with any luck, you solve the problem too!
But all too often we lack the time, energy and process to do it well.
Fear not – I’ve got a useful framework for solution-focused problem solving that I’ve developed and used successfully for years.
Now you can try it too!
You’ll find the full step-by-step breakdown below. Or you can join my free online workshop on this approach on Thursday 14 November 15:00-16:30 GMT.
If you’d like to join us and see how you can apply this method in your own team, you can book your place here.
It would be great to see you there.
What is solution-focused problem solving?
With solution-focused problem solving you can:
Give people permission to discuss and release what’s not working right now
Allow space for solutions and ideas to emerge
Encourage people to be constructive about how to achieve these solutions
Help individuals feel ownership and agency in solving the problem
Make improvements together with clear actions and follow-up
The good news is that, once it’s effectively embedded in the way you get things done, this framework can help you solve problems quickly and efficiently. Most importantly, it leads to solutions that everyone has had a chance to feed into, feels invested in, and is accountable for helping follow through on.
Here’s how it works.
Step one: What’s the problem?
While some leaders prefer to stick to “blue sky thinking” only when looking for solutions, I don’t think this is always effective. We need to see the whole picture. If people have been struggling then it’s important to hear them out – only then will they be able to move beyond the problem and think constructively. Often the group will be facing similar challenges, and it can be validating to have issues heard and acknowledged by peers.
Themes will naturally emerge from this discussion. Encourage the group to distil these into key topics, and write each on a post-it – virtual or otherwise.
The themes will vary depending on the problem you’re solving. In the workshops I’ve run about getting unstuck, themes have been things like budget, project management, communications and leadership, for example.
Allocate around 25% of the allotted time to this section – no more than 15 minutes in an hour-long session – before moving on.
Step two: Small group discussion
Now it’s time to move onto finding solutions – which makes up the majority of the session. For each theme, assign or let the group self-assign into a smaller pair or group. Each of these smaller groups will work on their theme in an attempt to find solutions.
It’s important to note that you don’t need to be an expert on the theme you’re discussing to come up with a viable solution – in fact often the reverse is true. For example, a digital product user will have plenty of useful insights about the issues they’re having that somebody working on that product may not have thought of. Or a policy or campaign specialist will benefit from hearing insights about online behaviours of supporters. Similarly, communications people will benefit from understanding the metrics their fundraising colleagues live by day to day. By inviting different opinions, we allow solutions to emerge.
Step three: Solutions
Now it’s time to build a vision of what things would look like in a best-case scenario. Solutions need to be constructive – instead of stating that an individual should stop exhibiting a certain behaviour, we ought to suggest what they could do instead.
For example, instead of saying: “in this vision, Person X doesn’t ignore me when I come into the office in the morning”, you might say: “when I come into the office in the morning, Person X says hello/offers me a cup of tea.”
This is important because people don’t always share the same vision of what the “instead” state looks like. So the more detail we can use to describe the desired/future state of how things are, the better. We need to explain what we see as an acceptable alternative, and then negotiate a solution that works for everyone.
Step four: Scaling
Encouraging collective and personal responsibility in making things happen is what builds great teams that get things done. Now we’ve cast the net wide to find our ideas, it’s time to narrow them down and come up with some concrete actions.
There are three questions to ask at this point:
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being nowhere, 10 being perfect) – how close do you think the organisation is to this best-case scenario, the vision you just built together?
What actions would move you further, 1 or 2 points up that scale?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to taking each of these actions?
If scores are 5 or under for the last question, this is not committed enough. Further discussion could uncover reasons why, and come up with actions you are ACTUALLY going to do.
If you then end up with a long list of actions, you need to prioritise.
For example, if you have a list of 10 actions, you know you will not do them all. Or you will assume that you can do them and then realise half way through this is impossible and chuck out half of them. Or you will do the actions you like the most and leave those which are harder aside. None of this is a strategic prioritisation process. It can also be damaging for your team's work-life balance – and your own.
Instead of falling into any of these scenarios, why not just prioritise actions from the outset? Decide together on the top 3 actions that will get you closest to your solution. These are the actions which are likely to also help you nudge some others along the way. For example, by changing your planning process, you will also bring clarity into decision-making and clarify some roles and responsibilities.
Step five: Follow-up
That’s your session done. But the process must continue.
The most important part of all is checking in to keep people accountable and ensure your action plan is progressing.
This could be in the form of regular check-ins, or running a buddy system to keep everyone on track.
If your workshop has unearthed challenges that will need a further session to unpick – don’t be daunted! It’s important to keep going. The more times you go through this process, the more efficient you and your team will become.
Working for a non-profit means every second counts, and it can be tempting to forgo precious team thinking time like this – but this is where innovation happens, and where critical trust is formed within teams. We need to get better at allowing ourselves time to think in order to learn, make effective decisions and accept accountability for them.
If you’d like to know more about solutions-focused problem solving, or would like my help in facilitating a session like the one above for your team, do get in touch.
If you have a go yourself, I’d love to hear how you get on.
And don’t forget that you can register for a taster session on Thursday 14th November 15:00 - 16:30 GMT!
