From the Sage MAS Team

[#1]

“If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse.”

- Henry Ford

 “The perception of a problem is always relative. Your headache feels terrific to the druggist.”

- Ramona E. F. Arnett

“The chief cause of problems is solutions.”

- Eric Sevareid

 “If I had an hour to save the world I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem
and one minute finding solutions.”

- Albert Einstein

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

- Various

What do all these quotations have in common? For me, they all point to the chronic difficulty we all tend to have in defining and communicating problems.

Why is it so difficult for most of us to define problems? As product managers, we are tasked with making sense of the constant stream of feedback we get from all directions and combining it with our research to deliver ever-increasing value in our products. As you can imagine, there is certainly no lack of input. Unfortunately, though, the common tendency is to suggest a solution (e.g. “please add a button”) before and often without communicating the reason why a solution is needed in the first place. Perhaps we all think it’s simply too obvious to explain why we need something, but that’s exactly the point; all too often it’s not obvious, particularly when the reader is missing context that the writer takes for granted.

What is the business problem we need to solve? This seems to be a simple enough question, but most users either don’t think in these terms at all or skip this step, perhaps unconsciously. Rather than leave real-world problems open to interpretation, who wouldn’t prefer new and improved features that actually hit the nail on the head, making work easier and more productive, to well-intentioned changes that may be helpful, but ultimately just miss the mark (“Missed it by that much!” - Maxwell Smart)?

I’d be interested in hearing thoughts on the subject and suggestions on how to encourage users to think more about the end result they are seeking rather than how this result should be achieved.

[#2]

This is a great concept! And could be applied to many problem solving situations...

In my experience I find users aren't looking at the big picture and that is normally the reason why they can't explain why they are asking for something, such as "please add a button". It comes back to having knowledge and asking questions. A lot of people (users/workers) aren't taught to question things... this leads to a "because that's the way we've always done it" attitude. More users should be involved in the setup of the software and should (in an ideal world) know what is going on behind the software. I'm thinking real hands on accounting with a hard copy general ledger and sub-ledgers. Not that I endorse that! Having accounting software has made my life much easier in a lot of ways. Unfortunately it also leads to laziness in that people that have only used accounting software may not know what the software is actually doing.  

Good Luck SHulme!