Some problem we work on a concrete. They have a clear scope and you know what has to be solved exactly. Sometimes, problems we need to address are however muddy, or unclear.
When something used to work, but doesn’t work any more, the problem is clearly framed: the thing is broken and must be repaired. However, if you have someting like a “software quality problem”, the problem isn’t clearly framed. Quality takes many form. It’s unclear what you have to solve.
To explore solutions you need first to frame the problem in a meaningful way. With this frame in place, you can explore the solution space and check how well the various solutions solve the problem. Without a proper frame, you might not even be able to identify when you have solved your problem, because the problem is defined in such a muddy way.
The “quality problem” mentionned previsouly could be reframed more precisely for instance as a problem or reliability, usability, or performance. It could be framed in terms of the number of tickets open per release, or about the time it takes to resolve tickets.
Depending on how you frame your problem, you will find different solutions. Using the wrong frame limits the solution space, or in the worst case, means you will solve the wrong problem. It’s worth investing the time to understand the problem and frame it correctly.
If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.– Albert Einstein
I’ve talked up to now about framing problems. Framing does however work even in a broader sense and can be used each time there is a challenge or an open question. Each time you should come up with a solution, there is some framing going on.
Something interesting about framing is, that in itself, it isn’t about proposing a solution. It’s about framing the solution space. As such, people are usually quite open to reframing problems or explore with new frames. Whereas if you propose solutions, you can except heated discussions, when it’s only about framing, usually the friction with other people is pretty low. While framing in itself is not a solution, it does however impact the solution that you will find. When people don’t agree on some solution, usually, people have different implicit frames for the problem. Working on understanding the frames is sometimes more productive than debating the solutions themselves.
A second thing interesting about framing is that you don’t need to be an expert in the solution to help framing problems. You need to be a an expert in the solution space, but not the actual solution. Going back the the example of “software quality problem”, you can help with framing if you know about software delivery in general. You don’t need to be a cloud expert or or process expert. This means that good framing skills are more transferable than skills about specific solutions.
I wrote long time ago about using breadth & depth to assess whether a thesis we good. In essence, this is a specific frame for the problem of thesis quality. Finding good frames for problems helps in many other cases. Framing problems is a great skill to learn.
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