Olivier Sibony

Sell the Solution: Recommendation Report and Delivery

Walking the audience through PowerPoint slides is both the most frequent and the least efficient way to deliver recommendations. The challenge is to steer a productive conversation with problem owners in which visual aids do not become visual impediments. Telling relevant stories and using striking examples can help. Handing out a neat and concise recommendation report is mandatory. The report must start with an executive summary and follow the storyline. If it takes the form of a slide deck, it must feature only one message per page. You can present supporting evidence with charts that you must keep relevant and simple. The chapter discusses various types of charts and templates, as well as guidelines to check and improve your presentations.

The 4S Method in Action

This chapter applies the 4S method from end to end to a disguised, real-life case. It starts with a brief description of the Kangaroo Company and the issue at hand, which is basically to look into the attractiveness of “Kangaroo” (the leader in the men’s underwear market in “Syldavia”) as an acquisition target. It then discusses the problem statement and the problem-structuring effort. Finally, it presents a storyline and the first section of a slide deck that conveys the main conclusions and the final recommendation. The content draws from analyses that were actually conducted to look into the real situation. A facsimile of the first 12 pages of the report is appended.

Redefine the Problem: The Design Thinking Path

The design thinking path to problem solving is appropriate whenever the problem is human centered, complex, and too poorly understood to be defined using the analytical TOSCA approach. In design thinking, the problem owner you consider is the user of the solution you are trying to design. Typically, this is a product or service, but the design thinking path can be used to create a strategy, an organization, and so on. To state the problem, a designer will first empathize with users through observation, empathy and immersion, in order to gain insights into the problems they face and the way they experience them. It will then become possible to define the problem with a set of design imperatives and a how-might-we design goal.

Structure and Solve the Problem Using Design Thinking

The design thinking approach to the Structure stage in the 4S method is the Ideate phase. It entails generating a large and diverse set of concepts, using creativity techniques such as analogical thinking, brainwriting, morphological analysis, and SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to some other use, Eliminate, and Reverse) questions. Designers will then use a structured selection process to converge on a small number of concepts. In the Prototype and Test phases, these concepts are iteratively tested by developing tangible prototypes, exposing users to them, and learning from their feedback. Iterations in these phases result in a solution that meets the design goal: they are the design thinking approach to the Solve stage in the 4S method.

The 4S Method

The 4S method is an integrated, four-stage problem-solving approach that combines the tools of strategy consulting with insights from cognitive science and design thinking. The first S is to State the problem properly, identifying the core question at hand as well as its context, owner, and stakeholders. The second S is to Structure the problem, either around candidate solution(s) you will test or by splitting the core question into sub-issues that you will investigate systematically. Third, you will Solve the problem. Three distinct paths are possible through these stages: the analytical paths of hypothesis-driven and issue-driven problem solving, discussed in Chaps. 4, 5, 6 and 7, and the creative path of design thinking, covered in Chaps. 8 and 9. Finally, the fourth stage is to Sell your solution to the problem owner.

Solve the Problem: Eight Degrees of Analysis

Problem structuring results in a list of elementary issues to crack or elementary hypotheses to test. You will address them one by one through various types of analyses. Start with an analysis plan, in which you identify the analyses and sources you need to address each elementary item. You must give priority to the analyses that can radically change the overall solution. Contrary to popular belief, not all analyses are quantitative, or even entirely fact based: many require assumptions and judgments. When you perform analyses, beware the most common mistakes: (1) biased data selection; (2) assumptions that are unrealistic, inconsistent, untested, or—worst of all—unstated; (3) numerical errors; and (4) data interpretation errors, especially with correlations.

Conclusion: Becoming a Master Problem-Solver

Problem solving and solution selling are skills: they require practice to be learned. And since the tools covered in this book are not widely and systematically taught, you may not have had many opportunities to use them. But business life presents you with an endless supply of problems, which provide many learning opportunities. Seize them, starting with small problem-solving and solution-selling challenges, and be sure to leverage colleagues. The most impressive problem solvers and solution sellers are not necessarily smarter than you are: they have mastered the tools of their trade through relentless practice and continuous improvement.

The Most Important Skill You Never Learned

Non-routine business problems, such as a sudden drop in performance a few months after a change of CEO, are hard to frame and involve a fuzzy combination of factors. Nevertheless, the human brain works in such a way that “obvious” conclusions immediately come to mind: putting the blame on the new CEO and firing him! Therein lies the core challenge of problem solving—the tendency to jump to conclusions, instead of investigating various facets of the problem, searching for missing information, and developing creative insights. While expertise, intelligence, and technology can help, they are not enough for solving non-routine, complex business problems. What one really needs is a disciplined and generalizable problem-solving process and a set of tools for each stage of the process.

Structure the Problem: Pyramids and Trees

Most business people tend to have a hypothesis-driven approach to problem solving. When confronted with a problem, they naturally and almost immediately generate a candidate solution. In such circumstances, the problem-solving process essentially consists in trying to prove this solution right or wrong by confronting it with relevant evidence. The method is to build a hypothesis pyramid, in which you identify the set of conditions for the hypothesis to be true. While this approach can be extremely efficient, it might entail the “solution confirmation pitfall” discussed in Chap. 2. The alternative is to use an issue tree, in which you break the problem into issues and sub-issues that you can investigate one by one. Breakdowns of hypotheses and issues into their smaller components must be MECE (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive).

The Five Pitfalls of Problem Solving

In practice, intuitive problem solving can go badly wrong. This chapter discusses its five specific pitfalls, based on real-life cases. First, a flawed problem definition almost invariably leads to irrelevant solutions. Second, most problem solvers start with a hypothetical solution in mind, which they tend to confirm instead of systematically challenging it. Third, picking the wrong framework when analyzing facts and data can be extremely misleading. Fourth, framing the problem space too narrowly hinders creativity and precludes the discovery of innovative solutions. Fifth, the ability to convince decision-makers is a double-edged sword: overselling the wrong solution might be even more harmful than underselling the right one. The 4S method presented in Chap. 3 helps overcome these five pitfalls.