Solving Problems and Making Decisions, 5th Edition

Session C

Finding a solution

1   Introduction

Very experienced people can often see a solution to a problem almost instantly; very inexperienced people also tend to go for ‘instant solutions’, though these often turn out to be the wrong ones. It is important to bear in mind that, until you are very experienced, it can pay to delay selecting a solution until you have thoroughly understood the problem.

In Session A we looked at the problem itself – what exactly is it? It is extremely easy to misunderstand problems, or to express them too vaguely, or to see them from only one point of view. We then went on to think about causes and considered some ...