Article: Hold off on proposing solutions

[Harleqin]

This is an interesting article: Hold off on proposing solutions.

This may be food for thought. I hope that it will be consumed as such and not just be used as another means to attack other people's positions while upholding one's own.

[Darrell]

an edict to ... "Do not propose solutions until the problem has been discussed as thoroughly as possible "

If you are the boss, you can get away with that. But it does not work with peers. I've been fighting pre-mature solution for years. There is just a lot of people who want to look clever by proposing the solution and the more they know about the actual problem then the more constraints there are on their cleverness.

When you cut off someone from voicing their ignorant solution before the problem has been discussed, you get labeled a bully who does not value your co-workers' opinions.

[Bill Spight]

an edict to ... "Do not propose solutions until the problem has been discussed as thoroughly as possible "

If you are the boss, you can get away with that. But it does not work with peers. I've been fighting pre-mature solution for years. There is just a lot of people who want to look clever by proposing the solution and the more they know about the actual problem then the more constraints there are on their cleverness.

When you cut off someone from voicing their ignorant solution before the problem has been discussed, you get labeled a bully who does not value your co-workers' opinions.

That's one reason I think that brainstorming can work well. Collecting a multiplicity of potential solutions is one way not to get bogged down with people defending a few preferred proposals. People do not feel cut off. Brainstorming also seems to have good social effects.

[CarlJung]

Interesting article. Thanks.

[Suji]

an edict to ... "Do not propose solutions until the problem has been discussed as thoroughly as possible "

If you are the boss, you can get away with that. But it does not work with peers. I've been fighting pre-mature solution for years. There is just a lot of people who want to look clever by proposing the solution and the more they know about the actual problem then the more constraints there are on their cleverness.

When you cut off someone from voicing their ignorant solution before the problem has been discussed, you get labeled a bully who does not value your co-workers' opinions.

I find the solutions I think up faster are usually the best solutions (for me, anyway), regardless of how much information I have about the problem. The problems that I have usually come when I over think the problem, which I have a tendency to do.

That's one reason I think that brainstorming can work well. Collecting a multiplicity of potential solutions is one way not to get bogged down with people defending a few preferred proposals. People do not feel cut off. Brainstorming also seems to have good social effects.

Agreed. Brainstorming usually has a synergy effect, too. Usually what happens is the group comes up with a better solution that what could have ever been thought of by a single person from the group.

[Bill Spight]

I actually try to consider all sides simultaneously and often end up in heated discussions with myself.

IMX, when you do that publicly, other people tend to get upset.

[Exologist]

I don't see how people wouldn't get attached to their own solutions even if they talked about the problem more in the first place.

[Harleqin]

I don't see how people wouldn't get attached to their own solutions even if they talked about the problem more in the first place.

They would. The trick is to delay that point to after as much fact-finding and reasoning as possible.

[Darrell]

In my experience, when two people disagree over the solution, they really disagree over the problem. My current method is to let everyone express their ignorant ideas. I feign interest then point out how solution A is better if X is the priority but solution B is better if Y is the priority so perhaps we should analyze the problem more to determine which factors are most important.

At the end when we have understood the problem and agreed on solution C, I like to point out that it was not one of the original ideas and how useful it was to analyze the problem. Yet, the cycle repeats the next time.

I now believe it is human nature to find problem solving fun and a chance to be clever. People like puzzles. Problem analysis is work. It is the difference between intuitively playing the key point in a life and death problem and exhaustively checking every point. To play the intuitive move and be right is to be brilliant.

[Suji]

In my experience, when two people disagree over the solution, they really disagree over the problem.

You actually may have a point there. I never considered this. However, I do believe that if you put 100 people in a room and give them a problem to solve, you are going to have, sometimes, multiple solutions that accomplish the same thing.

To play the intuitive move and be right is to be brilliant.

Agreed.