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First Principles

Cause And Effect

Decision Making

26 Approaches to Problem Solving

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Problem solving approaches are ways of clearing issues, recovering from failure, treating risk and taking steps towards goals. Problem solving is a well understood domain with loads of approaches that have been established by people who have solved many a problem. These include methods of understanding the problem itself and developing and comparing solutions. The following are common problem solving approaches.
First Principles
Working from what you know or hold to be true.
Keep it Simple
Avoiding overthinking to choose a reasonable option quickly.
Design Thinking
Designing problems out.
Jugaad
A practical fix that’s temporary and cheap.
Working Backwards
Starting with goals and determining how to achieve them.
Pareto Analysis
Finding the 20% of things that will solve 80% of your problem.
Corrective Action
Fixing what’s broken.
Good Failure
Looking for value in failure.
Workaround
Quickly addressing symptoms of a problem with a temporary process.
Root Cause Analysis
Determining the root cause of a problem to permanently fix it.
Data Analysis
Jumping into the data to find explanations and ways out of a problem.
Trial and Error
Trying things to see if they work.
Fail Well
Designing tests to fail quickly, cheaply and safely.
SWOT Analysis
Listing out your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Troubleshooting
Taking steps to determine the cause of a problem.
Problem Statement
Clearly defining the problem and redefining the problem as required.
5 Whys
Asking why five times in succession to dig deeper into a problem.
Working Hypothesis
Developing possible explanations and testing them out.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming possible solutions without validation.
Reverse Brainstorming
Listing what could go wrong with potential solutions.
Tradeoffs
Listing pros and cons of different solutions.
Challenging Assumptions
Challenging what people, including yourself, assume to be true.
Preserving Ambiguity
Not assuming things too early in the problem solving process or jumping to the first solution that presents itself.
No Nothing Strategy
The possibility that doing nothing is your best option.
Pragmatism
Dealing with the world as it really exists to accept imperfect solutions that are achievable.
Sanity Check
Asking yourself – does this actually make any sense whatsoever?

Problem Solving

This is the complete list of articles we have written about problem solving.
A/B Testing
Abductive Reasoning
Abstraction
Abstraction
Analysis Paralysis
Accidental Complexity
Big Picture
Cause And Effect
Backward Induction
Critical Thinking
Design Thinking
Brainstorming
First Principles
Five Whys
Challenging Assumptions
Formal Logic
Collective Intelligence
Four Causes
Common Sense
Game Theory
Conceptual Framework
Ideation
Counterfactual Thinking
Inference
Intuition
Deductive Reasoning
Jugaad
KISS
Essential Complexity
Known Unknowns
Excluded Middle
Logic
Failure Of Imagination
Magical Thinking
Overthinking
Feedback Loop
Paradigm
Pareto Analysis
Pattern
Flow
Peer Review
Problem Statements
Qualitative Analysis
Fuzzy Logic
Real Problems
Root Cause
Inductive Reasoning
Sanity Check
Synthesis
Informal Logic
Systems Thinking
Thought Experiment
Workaround
Working Backwards
Working Hypothesis
Path Of Least Resistance
Preserving Ambiguity
Problem Statement
Propositional Logic
Research
Reverse Brainstorming
Root Cause Analysis
Serendipity
Test And Learn
More Than One Way
Tradeoffs
Troubleshooting
Tweaking
Unintended Consequences
More ...
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Problem Solving

An overview of problem solving with examples.

Ideation

The definition of ideation with examples.

Decision Examples

Examples of decisions made with different decision making approaches.

Collaboration Examples

Concrete examples of collaboration.

Problem Statements

An overview of problem statements with examples.

Examples of Problems

An overview of common types of problems.

Real World Problems

An overview of real world problems with examples.

Effective Decision Making

An overview of effective decision making with examples.

Working Backwards

Full examples of working backwards.

Principles Of Pragmatism

A few principles of pragmatism.

Qualitative Analysis

An overview of qualitative analysis with examples.

Business Situations

A list of common business situations.

Real World

An overview of the real world with examples.

Reliability Engineering

A list of reliability engineering techniques.

Self-Healing

The definition of self-healing technology with examples.

Composite Material

Common examples of composite materials.

Material Strength

The definition of material strength with examples.

Errors

The common types of error with examples.

Reliability Quality

An overview of reliability as it pertains to quality with examples.
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