Why the Problem You're Trying to Solve Might Not Be the Real Problem

A customer complains. A deadline slips. Sales slow down. People keep leaving. A project goes off track. Costs increase.

The natural response is to ask: how do we fix it?

But there is a question worth asking first: what problem are we actually trying to solve?

It sounds simple. In practice, it is one of the most important questions a business can ask. Because what you can see is not always what is actually wrong — and solving the wrong problem, even brilliantly, still leaves you with a problem.

Symptoms are easier to see than causes

Imagine customer complaints are increasing. The immediate conclusion might be that the customer service team needs more training. So training is arranged. For a while, things improve. Then the complaints return.

Why? Perhaps customer service was never the real problem.

• —Customers were given unrealistic expectations during the sales process.
• —An internal handover was failing.
• —The product had changed but the supporting processes hadn't.
• —Employees couldn't access the information they needed quickly enough.
• —Several small operational problems combined to create one very visible customer problem.

The complaint was real. It just wasn't necessarily the cause.

The danger of solving what is easiest to see

Businesses naturally gravitate towards tangible solutions: a new system, another person, a restructure, more training, a new process, a new KPI, another meeting.

These actions create momentum. They make it feel as though something is being done. But activity and progress are not the same thing.

• —A new CRM will not solve unclear sales ownership.
• —More people will not fix a broken process.
• —Training will not solve conflicting incentives.
• —A restructure will not automatically create accountability.
• —Another KPI will not help if nobody understands what action it is supposed to drive.
• —And another meeting certainly won't fix a problem caused by too many meetings.

Before choosing the solution, it is worth spending more time understanding the problem.

Start by separating the problem from the evidence

One useful discipline is to distinguish between what you know and what you think it means. Consider this statement: “Our operations team isn't performing.”

That sounds like a problem statement. It isn't. It is a conclusion.

What do we actually know?

• —Orders are taking 18% longer to process.
• —Three major deadlines were missed last quarter.
• —Customer queries are being reopened more frequently.
• —Overtime has increased.

Ask “why?” — but don't stop at the first convincing answer

One of the simplest ways to get beneath a business problem is to keep asking why. Not mechanically. Curiously.

Suppose a team repeatedly misses deadlines.

• —Why? Because work isn't being completed quickly enough.
• —Why? Because priorities keep changing.
• —Why? Because urgent requests are continually entering the team.
• —Why? Because different departments can all assign work directly.
• —Why? Because there is no agreed method for prioritising demand across the business.

The original problem looked like a delivery speed issue. The deeper problem may be that the organisation has no effective way of deciding what the team should work on first.

Look across the system, not just within the team

Many business problems sit between functions rather than inside them. Sales promises something. Operations has to deliver it. Finance has to approve it. Technology has to enable it. Customer service has to explain it. Leadership measures the outcome.

When something goes wrong, the issue can appear in one department even though its cause began somewhere else. That is why operational problems are rarely solved effectively from a single viewpoint.

Follow the work from beginning to end and ask:

• —Where does information enter?
• —Who makes decisions?
• —Where are the handovers?
• —What gets duplicated?
• —Where does work wait?
• —Where are assumptions being made?
• —What happens when something falls outside the normal process?

The answers often reveal more than an organisation chart ever will.

Five questions to ask before deciding on a solution

Be particularly careful with recurring problems

When the same issue keeps appearing, organisations sometimes become accustomed to managing it. A spreadsheet is created. Someone adds a weekly check. Another approval is introduced. A person becomes responsible for chasing everyone.

Eventually the workaround becomes part of the operating model. The business has not solved the problem. It has simply become better at living with it.

Over time, these workarounds accumulate. They create additional administration, dependencies and complexity — often making the organisation slower while masking the original issue.

If we were designing this process today, would we deliberately design it this way? If the answer is no, it is probably worth understanding how you got there.

The right problem can be uncomfortable

There is another reason organisations sometimes solve the wrong problem. The real one can be harder to confront.

• —It is easier to buy a new system than admit responsibilities are unclear.
• —It is easier to run training than address inconsistent leadership.
• —It is easier to recruit another person than challenge unnecessary work.
• —It is easier to blame a process than question a commercial decision.
• —And it is easier to create another KPI than decide what genuinely matters.

Don't confuse root cause with one single cause

There is a temptation to believe that every problem has one hidden “root cause” waiting to be discovered. Businesses are rarely that tidy. Sometimes there is one clear cause. Often there is a combination.

An unclear process might be manageable with experienced people. New employees might manage perfectly well if the system guides them. A weak handover might cause few problems at low volume.

Then the business grows. Volume increases, experienced people become stretched, new employees join, informal communication stops working and several previously manageable weaknesses suddenly become visible at once.

The useful question isn't always “what is the one root cause?”. It may be: what combination of conditions is producing this outcome — and which change would make the biggest difference?

Question before you solve

Moving quickly matters in business. But speed is only valuable when it is taking you in the right direction. Sometimes an extra hour spent understanding a problem prevents weeks or months being spent implementing the wrong solution.

So when the next operational issue lands on the table, resist the urge to start with “what should we do?”. Start instead with:

• —What do we know?
• —What are we assuming?
• —Where did this really begin?
• —What would have to change for it not to happen again?
• —And, above all: are we solving the right problem?

Better outcomes often don't begin with a better answer. They begin with a better question.

Question. Solve. Deliver.

At OpsQ, this is more than a tagline.

• —Question — understand what is really happening and ask the questions that matter.
• —Solve — identify the right response rather than reaching for the most obvious one.
• —Deliver — turn the answer into practical change that works.

Everything starts with a question.