{"id":1438,"date":"2008-12-22T02:57:26","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T09:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/2008\/12\/22\/dont-think-of-a-pink-squirrel\/"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:33:07","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:33:07","slug":"dont-think-of-a-pink-squirrel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=1438","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Think of a Pink Squirrel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"164\" alt=\"xmasmartini.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/xmasmartini.jpg\" width=\"247\" align=\"left\" \/>Where I live in the Silicon Valley, on the west coast of Obama country, this time of year most people are busy celebrating one holiday or another.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a season I&#8217;ve come to call the &#8220;alcoholidays&#8221; for obvious reasons.\u00a0 So in order to stay off of the streets and have a credible excuse for not doing any Christmas shopping, I volunteered to blog this week.\u00a0 But it is the holidays, after all, so I&#8217;ll keep my blogs brief and festive.\u00a0 The theme I&#8217;ve chosen for the week is &#8220;Problem-solving&#8221;.\u00a0 OK, so far it&#8217;s not sounding all that festive, but I&#8217;ve got problems on the brain right now as a result of watching the news, a bad habit I picked up during the recent US presidential election.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s give it a whirl!<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>To start with, what are the various types of problems are out there reeking havoc on our projects, our planet, and our very lives?\u00a0 As I pondered this, I recalled that I&#8217;ve always loved the quote by Harry Lorayne, &#8220;A problem, precisely defined, is already partially solved.&#8221;\u00a0 But as I searched for a good problem definition taxonomy I had this awful realization &#8211; defining a problem is both an important ingredient and a huge potential pitfall in solving it.\u00a0 Be careful how you classify a problem!\u00a0 Most classifications I&#8217;ve come across assume causes and imply solutions.\u00a0 Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Technical Problems &#8211; Presumes technology is causing the problem, and can be relied upon to solve it.<\/li>\n<li>Communication Problems &#8211; Presumes communication, or lack of it, is both the cause and the cure.<\/li>\n<li>People Problems (My favorite!) &#8211; Presumes people are causing this problem, and tacitly suggests that someone (not you, of course!) is to blame.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Oh, woe is me!\u00a0 As soon as I label something a &#8220;people problem&#8221; my brain starts looking for ways to fix or change people, something I&#8217;ve found impossible to do predictably on anything short of a geological timescale.\u00a0 Like trying NOT to think of a pink squirrel, I can&#8217;t get my mind out of this rut, and the range of possible solutions is immediately and artificially narrowed.<\/p>\n<p>One thing I&#8217;ve learned over years of solving plenty of problems in project after project is that it&#8217;s important to separate the problem definition phase from the solution generation phase.\u00a0 If we&#8217;re going to generate an effective range of possible solutions it&#8217;s essential that we avoid categories that smoosh these two phases together.\u00a0 After rejecting a bunch of existing taxonomies as either incomplete, unhelpful, or just plain boring, I created my own.\u00a0 In order of easiest to hardest, here&#8217;s a list of the types of problems I&#8217;ll rant about in the blogs this week:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Expenses masquerading as problems.<\/li>\n<li>Tolerable problems.<\/li>\n<li>Self-induced problems.<\/li>\n<li>Manageable problems.<\/li>\n<li>Recurring problems.<\/li>\n<li>Intractable problems.<\/li>\n<li>Wicked problems.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Based on the newspaper I was reading on the flight home from Japan last week I estimate that there are over 17,572,486 different problems in the world.\u00a0 Some of them probably don&#8217;t fit into these categories, but I only have one week, so I&#8217;m going to limit myself to these 7 for the moment.\u00a0 Think of at least one problem that you&#8217;re facing in your project or in your life in each of these categories, then drop by the blog each day to mull it over while savoring a glass of eggnog.<\/p>\n<p>Keep those sleigh bells ring-jing-jingalinging!<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/svapm.org\/www.wiefling.com\">Kimberly Wiefling<\/a>, Author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/o\/ASIN\/1600050514\/\">Scrappy Project Management<\/a>, regularly one of the top 100 project management books in English in the USA, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.jp\/o\/ASIN\/1600050514\/\">Japan<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.de\/o\/ASIN\/1600050514\/\">Germany<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.fr\/o\/ASIN\/1600050514\/\">France<\/a>, sometimes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/o\/ASIN\/1600050514\/\">Canada<\/a>, but usually NOT in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/o\/ASIN\/1600050514\/\">UK<\/a>, for some reason.\u00a0 Help me solve this problem (except by dropping &#8220;scrappy&#8221; or using proper English) and I&#8217;ll send you a free book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Where I live in the Silicon Valley, on the west coast of Obama country, this time of year most people 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