What's the problem?

Just at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and it inspired me to write about one of the critical elements of creative problem solving - making sure that you dig deep to find the real problem you need to solve, not the perceived problem.

Several years ago, NASA astronauts were struggling to make notes about he mission and their experiments because their pens did not work in zero gravity. Back on Earth, a team of NASA researchers set out to solve the problem of the pens not working in zero gravity. They spent millions of dollars on the task and tried many different solutions. Meanwhile, the Russian space programme embarked on the same problem solving task.

However, unlike NASA who were focusing on how to make pens work in zero gravity, the Russians defined the problem as how to write in space. Their solution...they gave their astronauts pencils!! Although space pens do now exist as a commercial product, NASA wasted time and money on trying to solve the perceived problem, not the real problem.

If you are trying to solve a problem, ask yourself if it's the real problem you have identified. If not, keep asking yourself questions about the problem until you find the real problem....then you can solve it.