Narrowing the Problem Down to Solve It

In business there are always more problems than you can solve. The real challenge is deciding which deserve your time, energy, and attention — and then working on them in a way that actually gets to the root rather than the surface.

Solving the wrong problems wastes energy. Solving symptoms creates busywork. Solving the right problems — the systemic ones, the ones that have been accumulating friction for months or years — creates genuine momentum.

Three rules before you start

Before narrowing any problem, three rules of thumb are worth applying.

Only solve problems on the path to your goals. If your direction is unclear, every problem feels urgent and you can burn significant energy in the wrong places. When your painted picture is clear, priorities sharpen immediately. Align problems to outcomes. Everything else is noise — or someone else's responsibility.

If a problem keeps returning, you have not solved it. Recurring issues are usually symptoms of something deeper: weak delegation, broken processes, structural constraints, or cultural habits that the organisation has not yet changed. Solving the surface problem feels productive. Getting to the root is where real agility comes from.

If a problem is easy to solve, it is probably not the real problem. The systemic problems — the ones that cross functional boundaries, affect everyone, and have been hanging around for years — are hard to solve precisely because they are systemic. Easy wins are usually symptomatic. The real work requires more study.

Study the problem before trying to solve it

Systemic problems deserve study before action. Staple yourself to the problem — observe it in operation, collect data about where and when and how it shows up, listen to the people who are living with it every day. They usually understand the shape of the problem better than leadership does, even if they cannot always see the whole system.

Strong opinions without data create confident mistakes. Gather evidence. Question assumptions. Resist the urge to act before learning.

When you have gathered enough — not all, because you will never have all — the next step is to name it.

Name it, make it visible, make it discussable

Ambiguous problems stay unsolved. Named problems become workable. The act of naming a problem — giving it a specific, honest description — is one of the most underrated moves in organisational improvement. It removes the vagueness that allows problems to persist.

In workshops I often take this further, turning problems into physical artefacts.

The method I use is the Vending Machine: each problem is designed as a product with a name, a description, a visual representation, and a slot in the machine alongside all the other problem products. Teams can physically extract it, hold it, point at it, and discuss it. When you can touch the problem, it becomes both discussable and tractable.

The specific medium matters less than the principle. Posters, diagrams, named cards, simple documents — any form that makes the problem visible to a group will do. The goal is to get the problem out of people's heads and into a shared space where it can be examined honestly.

Break it into strands

Large systemic problems feel immovable because they are amorphous. The solution is to break them into strands and solve one at a time.

Low engagement is never one problem. It is usually management clarity, team objective-setting, feedback loops, or some combination. Delivery delays are rarely the whole delivery system — they are one bottleneck in a chain. Customer churn is usually onboarding, or service quality, or misaligned expectations, or something upstream in the sales process. Each of these is a strand.

Solving one strand builds confidence and momentum. Solving the next strand builds more. Over time, the whole problem shifts — not because you attacked it all at once, but because you worked through it in sequence.

This is what business agility actually looks like. Not reacting faster. Choosing better problems and working on them more honestly.