Problem-solving in Design

Once you’ve successfully diagnosed the problems standing in the way of your achieving your goals, you need to design paths for solving them. Designs need to be based on deep and accurate understandings (which is why diagnosis is so important); for me, it’s an almost visceral process of staring at problems and using the pain they cause me to stimulate my creative thinking. All of the details and plans must extend from a high-level visualization of what is required to solve the problem. Only when you have such a sketch can you begin to fill it in with specifics. Those specifics will be your tasks; write them down so you don’t forget them. While the best designs are drawn from a rich understanding of actual problems, when you’re just starting out on something, you often have to design based on anticipated problems as opposed to actual ones. That’s why having systematic ways of tracking issues (the Issue Log) and what people are like (the Dot Collector) is so useful: Instead of just relying on your best guesses of what might go wrong, you can look at data from prior “at bats” for yourself and others and come to the design process with understanding rather than having to start from scratch. The most talented designers I know are people who can visualize over time, running through different collections of people from the scale of small teams to entire organizations, accurately anticipating the kinds of results they’ll produce. They excel at design and systemization. Creativity is also important to this process, as is character, because the most important problems to design around are often the hardest, and you need to come up with original ways of addressing them and be willing to make hard choices (especially when it comes to people and who should do what). #principleoftheday

𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐬 𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫 – 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐔𝐬 ⇢ Cities are under repair. White-topping, metro work, new flyovers, endless roadblocks. ⇢ Companies are under repair. Restructuring, efficiency tools, leadership changes, endless meetings. ⇢ And somehow, life still feels stuck in traffic. Last week, in Mumbai, I ran a Design Thinking workshop. Students walked in expecting creativity lessons. They walked out questioning everything they thought they knew about problem-solving. Because three-fourths of the day was spent just defining the problem. ⇢ Ever walked on a footpath that disappears? ⇢ Ever stood at a train door, calculating survival if you fall? ⇢ Ever had a bus refuse to stop because it was “too crowded”? Everyone dreams of seamless transport. But in reality? Ten kilometers in ten minutes? More like ten kilometers in an hour. ⇢ The ideal world? We solve traffic with flying cars. ⇢ The wishful world? One app fixes everything. ⇢ The real world? A ten-year metro project causes more traffic than it solves. That’s when it hit them—this isn’t just about Mumbai. It’s about every broken system they’ll face in their careers. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬, 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 ⇢ Cities: We build flyovers, yet traffic shifts elsewhere. ⇢ Companies: More tools for efficiency, yet more time wasted on dashboards. ⇢ Leadership: Launch new projects, but never fix existing chaos. A student asked me, "Why do good ideas die so fast?" Because decisions are made without understanding real people. ⇢ What if policies were citizen-first, not contractor-first? ⇢ What if HR actually put humans first? ⇢ What if leadership solved problems instead of just making changes? The Moment That Changed Everything As we wrapped up, one student, frustrated yet energized, said: "𝐖𝐞 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬?" That Hit Hard! Because whether it's a city, a workplace, or a leadership decision—we don’t need more solutions. We need better-designed ones. And that’s when they realized: 𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘴. Students walked in expecting design lessons. They walked out seeing the world differently. And here’s the thing, students from past batches still call me with ideas they want to solve. That’s the impact of Design Thinking done right. A big shoutout to KIRAN Dalani and Shobha Venkatesh for trusting me for years. These conversations are the reason I keep coming back. Now, Over to You What’s a problem you’ve seen that’s always “under repair” but never really fixed? Drop your thoughts below. Let’s discuss. PGDPMEM #designthinking #leadership #humancentereddesign #fixtherightthings

When I first started in UX, I thought the faster I could jump into wireframes, the better. It looked like progress, my screen was full of boxes, buttons, and flows. But here’s the truth, I was often polishing solutions to the wrong problem. That meant rework, frustrated stakeholders, and a portfolio full of designs that didn’t actually solve the core issue. Now, before I even open a design tool, I stop and ask this one question. 👉 What problem am I actually solving? Here’s why it works: You avoid endless redesigns. No chasing fixes for symptoms instead of root causes. You focus on what matters. Every pixel has a purpose. Stakeholder buy-in is easier when everyone agrees on the problem, your solution makes sense. Here’s an example: Instead of saying: "We need a new checkout flow," I ask: Why isn’t the current checkout working? What data shows it’s a problem? What does success look like? Sometimes the “problem” isn’t the flow at all, maybe it’s surprise shipping fees. And that one insight can completely change your design direction. So if you only take one thing from this post, let it be this: Slow down long enough to understand the problem, and the right design will follow.

People Analytics + Org Design = Practical Problem-Solving It’s easy to get buried in dashboards. The real value lies in the connection between data and design. I use a simple flow: Data -> Diagnosis -> Design. Data: Analytics show labor costs up 12% year-over-year, while revenue grew only 6%. Diagnosis: Talent spend is rising without sufficient return; likely due to role duplication, unclear decision rights, or inefficient spans and layers. Design: Map roles to value, clarify accountabilities, and rebalance workloads. In one case, this avoided $ 500,000 in projected hiring costs and reduced duplication by 15%. Data: Workload stress up 25% but no increase in output per FTE. Diagnosis: The team isn’t under-skilled; they’re over-structured. Bottlenecks and handoffs are dragging them down. Design: Redesign workflows and redistribute responsibilities. Organizations have freed up 8 hours per person per week and boosted throughput 10% in a single quarter. Data tells you where the cracks are. Diagnosis helps you identify what’s causing the issue. OrgDesign is about fixing them before the system creaks.

Design is more than aesthetics—a lot more. It's a messy, holistic, human-centric process for solving problems. Before diving into “how” design will solve a problem, think about “why” you’re solving that problem in the first place. This insight is at the heart of effective design and will likely lead to a much more impactful outcome. Take Airbnb. They learned that to create a rental platform, what they needed to do was build trust between property owners and renters. To do that, they used design: high-quality photos of real spaces and people coupled with an intuitive interface conveyed trustworthiness. Their ads brilliantly showcase this, featuring authentic photos from Airbnb stays. To uncover the "Why," start with the "What": → What's the right opportunity to go after? → What's the right problem to solve?" → What should you be building? By starting with "Why" and "What," designers can craft solutions that truly resonate with user needs—solutions that go far beyond looking good but also genuinely address consequential problems and create meaningful value.

🧗♀️ 5 Key Lessons Designers Can Learn from Bouldering 🤸♂️ 1) Study the entire system first, not just individual elements 🔎 2) Approach problems from multiple vantage points 👓 3) Get out of linear thinking patterns to find creative pivots ⤴️ 4) Embrace an iterative process - don't get stuck in one approach 🔄 5) Build mental dexterity as a nimble problem-solver 🧠 As creative professionals, we spend countless hours hunched over screens, stuck in our linear thinking patterns as we wrestle with layout conundrums and stubborn design challenges. But you know what has been a surprising salve for me? Bouldering. At first glance, this climbing discipline seems to have little in common with the design world. But I've found the mental muscles it builds are incredibly applicable to solving thorny layout riddles. When you're bouldering, every "problem" is a new climbing route to navigate - a sequence of isometric movements that appear deceptively simple at first, until you try to integrate them into one fluid solution. Sounds a lot like piecing together the perfect responsive layout, doesn't it? You've got your content elements that need to dynamically flow together in a visually balanced way. It's an easy concept to grasp, but getting all the components to coherently interlock takes a different kind of spatial thinking. By focusing too linearly on each individual movement or element, we often hit creative roadblocks in both scenarios. But by taking a step back to envision the entire system as a whole, fresh solutions often reveal themselves. Bouldering trains you to study the entire problem first with a beginners' mindset, analyzing it from multiple angles to find that elegant path of least resistance. It's all about stepping out of your linear thinking patterns to experiment with novel combinations and creative pivots - an essential skill for any designer. And perhaps most importantly, bouldering reminds you that design (like climbing) is an inherently iterative process. There's wisdom in stepping back, shaking off the chalk, and trying a new approach when you've hit a mental wall. So while I may look a bit silly climbing up those colorful plastic rocks in my spare time, it's helped reframe how I approach layout work. Designing for dynamic digital environments requires us to be nimble problem-solvers and systems-thinkers - muscles I'm continually honing every time I hit the bouldering gym. What unexpectedly boosts your creative mindset? An obscure hobby or mental exercise that unlocks innovative solutions? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

The simplest way to design for a problem space you’re struggling to understand: 1) Take a high-altitude view of your space and determine the business rationale. In other words, identify what’s the value exchanged between parties. 2) Deeply identify the motivations and goals of the parties exchanging or transferring value. Why are they doing it? Who are they doing it for? Who benefits from this exchange? Who bears a cost in this exchange? 3) Identify the nature of the value itself. Why is it valuable? What is the lifecycle of the value? What’s the cost and level of effort to produce that value? 4) Identify what can be done to streamline the value exchange or reduce the cost/level of effort to produce the value. 5) Rinse and repeat at different altitudes or from different angles. 95% of the problems I have seen in my design career always reflect on the same need: Finding ways to facilitate the exchange or transfer of value between two or more parties (or systems), often acting on behalf of other parties. TL, DR: Understanding who the vendor and the customer of your problem are is usually all you need to design against the problem properly.

Most people only solve problems one way. But this book reveals four distinct approaches, and why they matter. Problem-solving isn’t one-size-fits-all. Fixing a broken machine isn’t the same as launching a new product. Here are the key takeaways from Four Types of Problems by Art Smalley 1️⃣ Fix Urgent Problems (Type 1) ++ React fast to stop immediate breakdowns. ++ Use 5 Whys to find the root cause. ++ Example: If a machine stops, ask "Why?" until you fix the real issue. 2️⃣ Close Performance Gaps (Type 2) ++ Compare results to standards and fix recurring issues. ++ Use PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) for continuous improvement. ++ Example: If defects keep appearing, PDCA helps fine-tune processes. 3️⃣ Plan for Growth (Type 3) ++ Set big goals and break them into clear steps. ++ Use Hoshin Kanri to align teams toward one vision. ++ Example: Expanding into a new market? A3 Reports help map the plan. 4️⃣ Invent New Solutions (Type 4) ++ Think outside the box for groundbreaking changes. ++ Use Design Thinking for user-focused ideas. ++ Example: Creating a revolutionary product? Design Thinking helps prototype fast. Why This Works: ✔ The right tool for each problem leads to better solutions. ✔ Balancing short-term fixes with long-term planning prevents setbacks. ✔ Teams that solve today’s issues and innovate for tomorrow always stay ahead. Like this? Share ♻️ to help your network and follow Sergio D’Amico for more insights on continuous improvement and organizational excellence. 📌 P.S. Most businesses focus only on Type 1 & 2. The real winners master all four types. Which problem type do you solve most? ⬇️

I used to jump straight to design solutions. Now I ask these 10 questions first. 1. What is the goal? 2. Who is the audience? 3. What does the game need? 4. What are the team's values? 5. Why would the player want this? 6. How should they feel if it works well? 7. How might it frustrate or confuse them? 8. How often will players actually engage with this? 9. What are three different tactics to resolve the problem? 10. Is there something else in-game that already solves these issues? 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 Early in my career, I'd get excited about a feature, build it, and only then realize it didn't serve the player or the game's goals. As a result we had months of wasted work on designs that confused players instead of delighting them. I learned that design should solve problems, not just add features. The best designers I've worked with all do this. They question ruthlessly before they build. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 Questions 1-4 align you with the project. Questions 5-8 keep you focused on the player. Questions 9-10 force you to find the simplest solution. Next time you're about to design a feature, pause. Run through these questions first. And you might just encounter ideas you have not thought about before. What is your process before starting to work on a design solution?

🚀 How Design Thinking Can Transform the Way You Get Things Done 🚀 We all face challenges—whether it’s managing time, improving productivity, or solving complex problems. What if there was a way to tackle these issues with more creativity, speed, and impact? Enter Design Thinking - a human-centered, iterative approach that flips traditional problem-solving on its head. Here’s how it can change the game in your personal and professional life: 1. Empathy First: Solve the Right Problem Instead of jumping to solutions, start by understanding the real need. Whether it’s streamlining your workflow or improving a relationship, asking “What’s the core issue?" leads to better outcomes. 2. Ideate Freely: No Bad Ideas Brainstorm multiple solutions before settling on one. This opens up creative possibilities you might have otherwise missed (e.g., new ways to structure your day or approach a project). 3. Prototype & Test: Fail Fast, Learn Faster Don’t overthink—take small, actionable steps. Test a new productivity hack for a week, adjust, and refine. Iteration beats perfection. 4. Bias Toward Action: Move Forward with Confidence Design Thinking encourages experimentation. Instead of waiting for the "perfect" plan, take smart risks and adapt as you go. 5. User-Centric Mindset: Collaborate for Better Results Apply this to teamwork by truly listening to colleagues, clients, or stakeholders. Solutions become more impactful when they’re built with—not just for—others. Why It Matters Design Thinking isn’t just for designers—it’s a superpower for problem-solving. By focusing on empathy, creativity, and agility, you can work smarter, move faster, and unlock better results in every part of your life. How have you used Design Thinking to improve your workflow? Let’s discuss in the comments! 👇 #DesignThinking #Productivity #Innovation #ProblemSolving #cmclegalstrategies