How to solve the right problem (not just the obvious one)
Use this approach to avoid false starts, wasted work, and surface-level fixes
👋 Hi! It’s Jennifer. Welcome to my fortnightly newsletter where I challenge conventional business wisdom to help you become a different kind of thinker, leader and operator.
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Read time: 7 min.
It’s easy to waste time solving the wrong problem, and not even know it.
Not because we’re careless, but because the real issue is often hidden beneath the surface.
Clear problem framing changes everything. It helps you avoid false starts, align your team faster, and land on better outcomes.
Leaders often value speed and like to skip straight to solutions. Speed is great, but only after you've done the thinking. Otherwise, you could end up sprinting in the wrong direction.
Let me give you an example.
A company asked me how to start using their database of 20,000 contacts.
At first glance, it sounded like an easy project. Just segment the list, check for permissions, and start sending emails.
As we started to dig deeper, we discovered that we didn't have confirmed email permissions. There was duplicate contact data everywhere. Subscription types were wrong or missing. Lifecycle stages and lead statuses didn't align.
The entire database was unusable without major cleanup.
This wasn’t a communication problem, like they initially thought. It was a systems, compliance, and process problem.
So instead of "How do we start using our list?", the better question became: "How do we fix the system that created this mess in the first place?"
Shallow thinking leads to shallow answers
I often hear execs say, “Let’s not overthink it. Go for the low-hanging fruit.”
I get the instinct. Everyone wants to move fast.
But when speed becomes the default, we train our teams to treat complex problems like simple ones.
In my experience, business problems are rarely surface-level. What you see, missed deadlines, churn, unhappy customers, are symptoms.
The real issues are usually buried deeper.
Why you need to frame the problem before you solve it
Our brains are wired to jump to solutions. It’s a survival instinct.
In business, though, that same reflex can backfire. If you don’t take time to understand the full picture, you’ll solve the wrong thing, and wonder why the results don’t stick.
I recently wrote about leaders racing to adopt AI without understanding their workflows, data quality, or customer impact. They automate tasks that seem simple, then end up damaging service, creating compliance risk, or breaking internal processes.
The problem isn’t AI.
It’s that no one paused to ask: What problem are we trying to solve, and is this the right way to solve it?
When you skip that step, your team can execute flawlessly……on the wrong plan.
And the same issues come back a few months later, just wearing a different mask.
A simple tool to sharpen your thinking
One of my go-to tools is a framework called SCQA:
Situation – Complication – Question – Answer
It was developed by Barbara Minto as part of her Pyramid Principle - a method for structured thinking and communication.
“The pyramid is a tool to help you find out what you think,” she says. “The great value of the technique is that it forces you to pull out of your head information that you weren’t aware was there, and then helps you to develop and shape it until the thinking is crystal clear.”
I’ve found that to be true. The process forces you to slow down, unpack your assumptions, and make your thinking sharper.
The SCQA model helps you think clearly by breaking a problem into four parts:
1/ Situation
Start with what’s true. The current state. This isn’t where you talk about problems - it’s the neutral facts everyone agrees on.
I usually use bullet sentences to describe it.
2/ Complication
Now add the tension. What’s changed? What’s not working anymore? This is the friction that makes the current situation unsustainable.
Be specific. Vague complications lead to vague questions.
3/ Question
This is your pivot point. What are you actually trying to figure out, based on the situation and complication?
A strong question points to root causes, not surface symptoms.
4/ Answer
Only now do you explore solutions. And usually, if you’ve done the setup well, the answer often becomes more strategic than the one you started with.
Let's walk through an example
Say your customer retention has dropped from 85% to 78% over six months. The first instinct might be, We need a better customer success strategy.
Without SCQA, the obvious solutions could be:
Hire more customer success managers (CSM)
Implement better onboarding
Create more check-in touchpoints
But when we apply SCQA, it looks like this:
Situation (state the facts)
Churn is rising in our top 10 accounts
Response times are increasing for all customers
Complication (what’s the challenge to the above?)
Our high-revenue accounts are complaining about service levels
Most CSM time goes to low-revenue customers with lots of support needs
Our CSM team size hasn’t changed in a year
Question:
How can we increase service for high-revenue accounts while reducing time spent on low-revenue ones?
Answer:
Implement a tiered customer success model and automate onboarding for smaller accounts.
See the difference?
Same visible problem (declining retention), completely different solution because we asked a different question.
And we asked a different question because we framed the situation and complication properly.
What to watch for when applying SCQA
Once you’ve learned the SCQA structure, using it well is about discipline. Here are a few things I pay attention to every time:
Don’t rush the Situation.
Get agreement on what’s true right now before anything else. No moving forward until people nod their heads.Be precise in the Complication.
Vague tensions lead to vague questions. Get clear on what’s not working and why it matters.Pressure-test the Question.
Does it point to the root cause or just describe a symptom? A strong question is your pivot point.Hold the Answer until the setup is solid.
It’s much easier to develop better solutions once the groundwork is right. But skip the setup, and even the best idea can fall flat.
Here's what I've learned using the framework: You can go through the motions of writing a Situation, naming a Complication, and still end up solving the wrong problem.
The key isn’t just doing the steps.
It’s making sure the Situation and Complication are framed clearly enough to lead to the right question.
If those two are off, everything that follows will be too.
Get the setup right and the rest follows
Most strategic mistakes don’t happen in execution. They happen in the setup.
When projects (and/ or teams) fail, it’s rarely because they did the work badly. It’s because they did the wrong work really well.
SCQA protects against that. It forces you to get clear on the goal before you start running.
It’s second nature for me now.
Whenever someone comes to me with a complex problem, I instinctively ask:
What’s the situation?
What’s the real complication?
Are we solving the right thing?
Most of the time, we’re not.
And once you start seeing it, you can’t unsee it.
You’ll hear teams debating solutions without agreeing on the problem. You’ll catch yourself jumping to fix something before you understand why it’s broken.
So the next time you’re tempted to act fast, pause and ask: What are we really trying to fix?
That’s where the good work begins.
