The Power of Problem-Solving: How to Define, Diagnose, and Sustain Solutions

Yesterday, I was with a friend and we went to the office and we were discussing about the skills we need as software engineers in today's day and age. I mean most of the things can be done through copilot or through chatgpt, then why do we need good quality software engineers? Why is the skill still in high demand? Then after giving this a long thought, we came to the conclusion that software engineering is required because it's engineering. Which in reality means to design and build. We still need people to design good software we still need people to understand the problem well, we still need great problem solvers, and sometimes problem solving is that one skill that many software developers don't have. They don't have the capacity to think clearly and properly on what it is that they are trying to solve. So today's topic is going to be on problem solving. 

Problem Solving: 

Problem solving is the act of defining the problem, diagnosing the problem’s root cause, identifying and implementing a solution, and sustaining results. This is a definition I found from a particular website called
Asq . Now that we are defining problem solving as defining the problem, diagnosing the problem's root cause, identifying and implementing a solution and then sustaining the results. From the smallest problem that we have to the largest problem, all of these problems are solved in this particular fashion. A problem can be defined as follows: 
A problem can be related to health and fitness: 

Problem : I'm trying but still am unable to gain weight and am not feeling healthy enough. 
Root cause: I skip meals at times either because of unavailability or because I'm lazy to cook, sometimes I'm lazy to even order. 
Possible Solution: Create a meal plan with different options for eating healthy food. Create a plan for shopping those items. Exercise at least 3 times a week and keep tracking your progress in a organised manner. 
Sustaining Results: Maintain this diet regularly and keep checking regularly with your routines and plans. If deviated, restart again and make sure you track your progress everyday. 


Sometimes problems are related to career as well: 

Problem : I feel stuck in my career and there's no room for growth. 
Root cause: Lack of new skills, unclear career goals or not taking initiative at work. 
Solution: Take courses to learn new skills, talk to your manager or mentor in 1:1, and set career goals for yourself. 
Sustaining the solution: 
Continuous Learning: Make personal development and career development a part of your routine. Make it a point to learn something new every quarter and then break it down into your daily habits. The knowledge can come from a part of a new book, a new video, or a new online course. It can be anything but make sure the knowledge is learned and applied well. 
Check-Ins: Revisit your career goals every six months and make sure that you are doing something challenging in what you are doing. 
Seek Feedback: Keep seeking feedback from your team, your peers, your supervisors or your friends as well on what you should do to improve your current career. 

Now, such types of problems can be any problem in your life. Either it's financial, career related, relationship related or even health and fitness related. We need to understand all the 4 steps of problem solving and apply that in our lives. I know me saying it is very easy, but you need to actively seek out a problem and do this exercise of writing the problem, the root cause, the solution and even sustaining the solution part. This way you will at least know what type of problem that you are trying to solve. This although is my way of solving the problem. People might have really complicated ways of solving problems, but this one is a very simple approach and it works well in my life. 

Problem Solving quotes: 



Although today I don't want to go too much into the why of problem solving. However, when we talk about problem solving, this is one of the finest quotes I know of: If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking g about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about the solutions. That's true, one truly needs to define the problem very well in order to find the solution. In fact a lot of people also say that defining the problem is half the solution. I'm sure this might be in terms of engineering and science fields but it's true in life as well. When you define the problem, you will find a way to solve the problem very much easily. 


Exercise: Take one problem in your life. Whatever area that is either career related, relationship related or something else and then go on and define the problem, the root causes, the possible solutions and then the sustained solution. This way you would be able to solve the problem most likely. Just try it and see if it works 


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