Target audience
Individuals and teams who are responsible for making sense of disparate and conflicting information, points of view, and uncertainty and come up with a reasonable approach in spite of all of this
Topics covered
- Managing problem-solving — the stages of discovery and critical success factors in each
- Problem types — why some problems are more important and painful than others
- Problem definition — if you can only do one thing right, it’s choosing the right problem
- Taking apart the problem into bite-sized pieces — never eat anything bigger than your head
- Making it MECE and coherent — applying useful mental models to navigate
- Planning and conducting rigorous analyses — focus, relevance, and proper design
- Distilling valid findings from a mess of facts — where the team comes together
- Synthesizing findings into something of value — better decisions, lower risk, a path forward
- Getting ready for 4S — ensuring that the insights are communicated effectively, i.e., for the desired impact.
Issues we cover include:
- What problems are, and what makes them difficult
- Defining a problem so it can be managed
- Issue trees and how they can be organized
- MECE and rigorous thinking
- Avoiding analysis paralysis, thinking about uncertainty and sufficiency, precision and accuracy
- Valid and invalid synthesis, living with discomfort
- Turning it all into recommendations