work backwards problem solving strategy

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Math Strategies: Problem Solving by Working Backwards

As I’ve shared before, there are many different ways to go about solving a math problem, and equipping kids to be successful problem solvers is just as important as teaching computation and algorithms . In my experience, students’ frustration often comes from not knowing where to start. Providing them with strategies enables them to at least get the ideas flowing and hopefully get some things down on paper. As in all areas of life, the hardest part is getting started! Today I want to explain how to teach  problem solving by working backwards .

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–>Pssst! Do your kids need help making sense of and solving word problems? You might like this set of editable word problem solving templates ! Use these with any grade level, for any type of word problem :

Solve a Math Problem by Working Backwards: 

Before students can learn to recognize when this is a helpful strategy, they must understand what it means. Working backwards is to start with the final solution and work back one step at a time to get to the beginning.

It may also be helpful for students to understand that this is useful in many aspects of life, not just solving math problems.

To help show your students what this looks like, you might start by thinking about directions. Write out some basic directions from home to school:

• Start: Home
• Turn right on Gray St.
• Turn left on Sycamore Ln.
• Turn left on Rose Dr.
• Turn right on Schoolhouse Rd.
• End: School

Ask students to then use this information to give directions from the school back home . Depending on the age of your students, you may even want to draw a map so they can see clearly that they have to do the opposite as they make their way back home from school. In other words, they need to “undo” each turn to get back, i.e. turn left on Schoolhouse Rd. and then right on Rose Dr. etc.

In math, these are called inverse operations . When using the “work backwards” strategy, each operation must be reversed to get back to the beginning. So if working forwards requires addition, when students work backwards they will need to subtract. And if they multiply working forwards, they must divide when working backwards.

Once students understand inverse operations , and know that they must start with the solution and work back to the beginning, they will need to learn to recognize the types of problems that require working backwards.

In general, problems that list a series of events or a sequence of steps can be solved by working backwards.

Here’s an example:

Sam’s mom left a plate of cookies on the counter. Sam ate 2 of them, his dad ate 3 of them and they gave 12 to the neighbor. At the end of the day, only 4 cookies were left on the plate. How many cookies did she make altogether?

In this case, we know that the final cookie amount is 4. So if we work backwards to “put back” all the cookies that were taken or eaten, we can figure out what number they started with.

Because cookies are being taken away, that denotes subtraction. Thus, to get back to the original number we have to do the opposite: add . If you take the 4 that are left and add the 12 given to the neighbors, and add the 3 that Dad ate, and then add the 2 that Sam ate, we find that Sam’s mom made 21 cookies .

You may want to give students a few similar problems to let them see when working backwards is useful, and what problems look like that require working backwards to solve.

Have you taught or discussed problem solving by working backwards  with your students? What are some other examples of when this might be useful or necessary?

Don’t miss the other useful articles in this Problem Solving Series:

• Problem Solve by Drawing a Picture
• Problem Solve by Solving an Easier Problem
• Problem Solve with Guess & Check
• Problem Solve by Finding a Pattern
• Problem Solve by Making a List

So glad to have come across this post! Today, word problems were the cause of a homework meltdown. At least tomorrow I’ll have a different strategy to try! #ThoughtfulSpot

I’m so glad to hear that! I hope you found some useful ideas!! Homework meltdowns are never fun!! Best of luck!

This is really a great help! We have just started using this method for some of my sons math problems and it helps loads. Thanks so much for sharing on the Let Kids Be Kids Linkup!

That’s great Erin! I hope this is a helpful method and makes things easier for your son! 🙂

I’ve not used this method before but sounds like a good resource to teach. Thanks for linking #LetKidsBeKids

I hope this proves to be helpful for you!

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2.5.3: Guess and Check, Work Backward

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Guess and Check, Work Backward

Suppose that you and your brother both play baseball. Last season, you had 12 more hits than 3 times the number of hits that your brother had. If you had 159 hits, could you figure out how many hits your brother had?

More Problem Solving Strategies

This lesson will expand your toolbox of problem-solving strategies to include guess and check and working backward . Let’s begin by reviewing the four-step problem-solving plan:

Step 1: Understand the problem.

Step 2: Devise a plan – Translate.

Step 3: Carry out the plan – Solve.

Step 4: Look – Check and Interpret.

Develop and Use the Strategy: Guess and Check

The strategy for the “guess and check” method is to guess a solution and use that guess in the problem to see if you get the correct answer. If the answer is too big or too small, then make another guess that will get you closer to the goal. You continue guessing until you arrive at the correct solution. The process might sound like a long one; however, the guessing process will often lead you to patterns that you can use to make better guesses along the way.

Let's use the guess and check method to solve the following problem:

Nadia takes a ribbon that is 48 inches long and cuts it in two pieces. One piece is three times as long as the other. How long is each piece?

We need to find two numbers that add to 48. One number is three times the other number.

Guess 5 and 15. The sum is 5+15=20, which is too small.

Guess bigger numbers 6 and 18. The sum is 6+18=24, which is too small.

However, you can see that the previous answer is exactly half of 48.

Multiply 6 and 18 by two.

Our next guess is 12 and 36. The sum is 12+36=48. This is correct.

Develop and Use the Strategy: Work Backward

The “work backward” method works well for problems in which a series of operations is applied to an unknown quantity and you are given the resulting value. The strategy in these problems is to start with the result and apply the operations in reverse order until you find the unknown. Let’s see how this method works by solving the following problem.

Let's solve the following problem by working backwards :

Anne has a certain amount of money in her bank account on Friday morning. During the day she writes a check for $24.50, makes an ATM withdrawal of $80, and deposits a check for $235. At the end of the day, she sees that her balance is $451.25. How much money did she have in the bank at the beginning of the day?

We need to find the money in Anne’s bank account at the beginning of the day on Friday. From the unknown amount, we subtract $24.50 and $80 and we add $235. We end up with $451.25. We need to start with the result and apply the operations in reverse.

Start with $451.25. Subtract $235, add $80, and then add $24.50.

451.25−235+80+24.50=320.75

Anne had $320.75 in her account at the beginning of the day on Friday.

Plan and Compare Alternative Approaches to Solving Problems

Most word problems can be solved in more than one way. Often one method is more straightforward than others. In this section, you will see how different problem-solving approaches compare when solving different kinds of problems.

Now, let's solve the following problem by using the both the guess and check method and the working backward method:

Nadia’s father is 36. He is 16 years older than four times Nadia’s age. How old is Nadia?

This problem can be solved with either of the strategies you learned in this section. Let’s solve the problem using both strategies.

Guess and Check Method:

We need to find Nadia’s age.

We know that her father is 16 years older than four times her age, or 4× (Nadia’s age) + 16.

We know her father is 36 years old.

Work Backward Method:

Nadia’s father is 36 years old.

To get from Nadia’s age to her father’s age, we multiply Nadia’s age by four and add 16.

Working backward means we start with the father’s age, subtract 16, and divide by 4.

Example 2.5.3.1

Earlier, you were told that you had 12 more hits than 3 times the number of hits that your brother had. If you had 159 hits, how many hits did your brother have?

Since we know how many hits you had, we can work backward to determine the number of hits that your brother had.

Because you had 12 more hits than 3 times the number of hits that your brother had, we do the opposite: subtract 12 and divide by 3.

159−12=147

147÷3=49

Your brother had 49 hits.

Example 2.5.3.2

Hana rents a car for a day. Her car rental company charges $50 per day and $0.40 per mile. Peter rents a car from a different company that charges $70 per day and $0.30 per mile. How many miles do they have to drive before Hana and Peter pay the same price for the rental for the same number of miles?

Hana’s total cost is $50 plus $0.40 times the number of miles.

Peter’s total cost is $70 plus $0.30 times the number of miles.

Guess the number of miles and use this guess to calculate Hana’s and Peter’s total cost.

Keep guessing until their total cost is the same.

Guess 50 miles.

Check $50+$0.40(50)=$70 $70+$0.30(50)=$85

Guess 60 miles.

Check $50+$0.40(60)=$74 $70+$0.30(60)=$88

Notice that for an increase of 10 miles, the difference between total costs fell from $15 to $14. To get the difference to zero, we should try increasing the mileage by 140 miles.

Guess 200 miles

Check $50+$0.40(200)=$130 $70+$0.30(200)=$130correct

• Nadia is at home and Peter is at school, which is 6 miles away from home. They start traveling toward each other at the same time. Nadia is walking at 3.5 miles per hour and Peter is skateboarding at 6 miles per hour. When will they meet and how far from home is their meeting place?
• Peter bought several notebooks at Staples for $2.25 each and he bought a few more notebooks at Rite-Aid for $2 each. He spent the same amount of money in both places and he bought 17 notebooks in total. How many notebooks did Peter buy in each store?
• Andrew took a handful of change out of his pocket and noticed that he was holding only dimes and quarters in his hand. He counted that he had 22 coins that amounted to $4. How many quarters and how many dimes does Andrew have?
• Anne wants to put a fence around her rose bed that is one-and-a-half times as long as it is wide. She uses 50 feet of fencing. What are the dimensions of the garden?
• Peter is outside looking at the pigs and chickens in the yard. Nadia is indoors and cannot see the animals. Peter gives her a puzzle. He tells her that he counts 13 heads and 36 feet and asks her how many pigs and how many chickens are in the yard. Help Nadia find the answer.
• Andrew invests $8000 in two types of accounts: a savings account that pays 5.25% interest per year and a more risky account that pays 9% interest per year. At the end of the year, he has $450 in interest from the two accounts. Find the amount of money invested in each account.
• There is a bowl of candy sitting on our kitchen table. This morning Nadia takes one-sixth of the candy. Later that morning Peter takes one-fourth of the candy that’s left. This afternoon, Andrew takes one-fifth of what’s left in the bowl and finally Anne takes one-third of what is left in the bowl. If there are 16 candies left in the bowl at the end of the day, how much candy was there at the beginning of the day?
• Nadia can completely mow the lawn by herself in 30 minutes. Peter can completely mow the lawn by himself in 45 minutes. How long does it take both of them to mow the lawn together?

Mixed Review

• Rewrite √500 as a simplified square root.
• To which number categories does −2/13 belong?
• Simplify 1/2|19−65|−14.
• Which property is being applied? 16+4c+11=(16+11)+4c
• Is {(4,2),(4,−2),(9,3),(9,−3)} a function?
• Write using function notation: y=(1/12)x−5.
• Jordyn spent $36 on four cases of soda. How much was each case?

Review (Answers)

To see the Review answers, open this PDF file and look for section 2.14.

Additional Resources

Activity: Guess and Check, Work Backward Discussion Questions

Practice: Guess and Check, Work Backward

Real World Application: Car Loan

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Working backward to solve problems - maurice ashley.

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Let’s Begin…

Imagine where you want to be someday. Now, how did you get there? Retrograde analysis is a style of problem solving where you work backwards from the endgame you want. It can help you win at chess -- or solve a problem in real life. At TEDYouth 2012, chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley delves into his favorite strategy.

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Module 1: Problem Solving Strategies

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Unlike exercises, there is never a simple recipe for solving a problem. You can get better and better at solving problems, both by building up your background knowledge and by simply practicing. As you solve more problems (and learn how other people solved them), you learn strategies and techniques that can be useful. But no single strategy works every time.

Pólya’s How to Solve It

George Pólya was a great champion in the field of teaching effective problem solving skills. He was born in Hungary in 1887, received his Ph.D. at the University of Budapest, and was a professor at Stanford University (among other universities). He wrote many mathematical papers along with three books, most famously, “How to Solve it.” Pólya died at the age 98 in 1985.1

1. Image of Pólya by Thane Plambeck from Palo Alto, California (Flickr) [CC BY

In 1945, Pólya published the short book How to Solve It , which gave a four-step method for solving mathematical problems:

First, you have to understand the problem.

After understanding, then make a plan.

Carry out the plan.

Look back on your work. How could it be better?

This is all well and good, but how do you actually do these steps?!?! Steps 1. and 2. are particularly mysterious! How do you “make a plan?” That is where you need some tools in your toolbox, and some experience to draw upon.

Much has been written since 1945 to explain these steps in more detail, but the truth is that they are more art than science. This is where math becomes a creative endeavor (and where it becomes so much fun). We will articulate some useful problem solving strategies, but no such list will ever be complete. This is really just a start to help you on your way. The best way to become a skilled problem solver is to learn the background material well, and then to solve a lot of problems!

Problem Solving Strategy 1 (Guess and Test)

Make a guess and test to see if it satisfies the demands of the problem. If it doesn't, alter the guess appropriately and check again. Keep doing this until you find a solution.

Mr. Jones has a total of 25 chickens and cows on his farm. How many of each does he have if all together there are 76 feet?

Step 1: Understanding the problem

We are given in the problem that there are 25 chickens and cows.

All together there are 76 feet.

Chickens have 2 feet and cows have 4 feet.

We are trying to determine how many cows and how many chickens Mr. Jones has on his farm.

Step 2: Devise a plan

Going to use Guess and test along with making a tab

Many times the strategy below is used with guess and test.

Make a table and look for a pattern:

Procedure: Make a table reflecting the data in the problem. If done in an orderly way, such a table will often reveal patterns and relationships that suggest how the problem can be solved.

Step 3: Carry out the plan:

Notice we are going in the wrong direction! The total number of feet is decreasing!

Better! The total number of feet are increasing!

Step 4: Looking back:

Check: 12 + 13 = 25 heads

24 + 52 = 76 feet.

We have found the solution to this problem. I could use this strategy when there are a limited number of possible answers and when two items are the same but they have one characteristic that is different.

Videos to watch:

1. Click on this link to see an example of “Guess and Test”

http://www.mathstories.com/strategies.htm

2. Click on this link to see another example of Guess and Test.

http://www.mathinaction.org/problem-solving-strategies.html

Check in question 1:

Place the digits 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13 in the circles to make the sums across and vertically equal 31. (5 points)

Check in question 2:

Old McDonald has 250 chickens and goats in the barnyard. Altogether there are 760 feet . How many of each animal does he have? Make sure you use Polya’s 4 problem solving steps. (12 points)

Problem Solving Strategy 2 (Draw a Picture). Some problems are obviously about a geometric situation, and it is clear you want to draw a picture and mark down all of the given information before you try to solve it. But even for a problem that is not geometric thinking visually can help!

Videos to watch demonstrating how to use "Draw a Picture".

1. Click on this link to see an example of “Draw a Picture”

2. Click on this link to see another example of Draw a Picture.

Problem Solving Strategy 3 ( Using a variable to find the sum of a sequence.)

Gauss's strategy for sequences.

last term = fixed number ( n -1) + first term

The fix number is the the amount each term is increasing or decreasing by. "n" is the number of terms you have. You can use this formula to find the last term in the sequence or the number of terms you have in a sequence.

Ex: 2, 5, 8, ... Find the 200th term.

Last term = 3(200-1) +2

Last term is 599.

To find the sum of a sequence: sum = [(first term + last term) (number of terms)]/ 2

Sum = (2 + 599) (200) then divide by 2

Sum = 60,100

Check in question 3: (10 points)

Find the 320 th term of 7, 10, 13, 16 …

Then find the sum of the first 320 terms.

Problem Solving Strategy 4 (Working Backwards)

This is considered a strategy in many schools. If you are given an answer, and the steps that were taken to arrive at that answer, you should be able to determine the starting point.

Videos to watch demonstrating of “Working Backwards”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFWTsMEeJw

Karen is thinking of a number. If you double it, and subtract 7, you obtain 11. What is Karen’s number?

1. We start with 11 and work backwards.

2. The opposite of subtraction is addition. We will add 7 to 11. We are now at 18.

3. The opposite of doubling something is dividing by 2. 18/2 = 9

4. This should be our answer. Looking back:

9 x 2 = 18 -7 = 11

5. We have the right answer.

Check in question 4:

Christina is thinking of a number.

If you multiply her number by 93, add 6, and divide by 3, you obtain 436. What is her number? Solve this problem by working backwards. (5 points)

Problem Solving Strategy 5 (Looking for a Pattern)

Definition: A sequence is a pattern involving an ordered arrangement of numbers.

We first need to find a pattern.

Ask yourself as you search for a pattern – are the numbers growing steadily larger? Steadily smaller? How is each number related?

Example 1: 1, 4, 7, 10, 13…

Find the next 2 numbers. The pattern is each number is increasing by 3. The next two numbers would be 16 and 19.

Example 2: 1, 4, 9, 16 … find the next 2 numbers. It looks like each successive number is increase by the next odd number. 1 + 3 = 4.

So the next number would be

25 + 11 = 36

Example 3: 10, 7, 4, 1, -2… find the next 2 numbers.

In this sequence, the numbers are decreasing by 3. So the next 2 numbers would be -2 -3 = -5

-5 – 3 = -8

Example 4: 1, 2, 4, 8 … find the next two numbers.

This example is a little bit harder. The numbers are increasing but not by a constant. Maybe a factor?

So each number is being multiplied by 2.

16 x 2 = 32

1. Click on this link to see an example of “Looking for a Pattern”

2. Click on this link to see another example of Looking for a Pattern.

Problem Solving Strategy 6 (Make a List)

Example 1 : Can perfect squares end in a 2 or a 3?

List all the squares of the numbers 1 to 20.

1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81 100 121 144 169 196 225 256 289 324 361 400.

Now look at the number in the ones digits. Notice they are 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, or 9. Notice none of the perfect squares end in 2, 3, 7, or 8. This list suggests that perfect squares cannot end in a 2, 3, 7 or 8.

How many different amounts of money can you have in your pocket if you have only three coins including only dimes and quarters?

Quarter’s dimes

0 3 30 cents

1 2 45 cents

2 1 60 cents

3 0 75 cents

Videos demonstrating "Make a List"

Check in question 5:

How many ways can you make change for 23 cents using only pennies, nickels, and dimes? (10 points)

Problem Solving Strategy 7 (Solve a Simpler Problem)

Geometric Sequences:

How would we find the nth term?

Solve a simpler problem:

1, 3, 9, 27.

1. To get from 1 to 3 what did we do?

2. To get from 3 to 9 what did we do?

Let’s set up a table:

Term Number what did we do

Looking back: How would you find the nth term?

Find the 10 th term of the above sequence.

Let L = the tenth term

Problem Solving Strategy 8 (Process of Elimination)

This strategy can be used when there is only one possible solution.

I’m thinking of a number.

The number is odd.

It is more than 1 but less than 100.

It is greater than 20.

It is less than 5 times 7.

The sum of the digits is 7.

It is evenly divisible by 5.

a. We know it is an odd number between 1 and 100.

b. It is greater than 20 but less than 35

21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35. These are the possibilities.

c. The sum of the digits is 7

21 (2+1=3) No 23 (2+3 = 5) No 25 (2 + 5= 7) Yes Using the same process we see there are no other numbers that meet this criteria. Also we notice 25 is divisible by 5. By using the strategy elimination, we have found our answer.

Check in question 6: (8 points)

Jose is thinking of a number.

The number is not odd.

The sum of the digits is divisible by 2.

The number is a multiple of 11.

It is greater than 5 times 4.

It is a multiple of 6

It is less than 7 times 8 +23

What is the number?

Click on this link for a quick review of the problem solving strategies.

https://garyhall.org.uk/maths-problem-solving-strategies.html

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Primary 3 Working Backwards & Its Method

Math heuristics for problem solving, primary 3 working backwards & its method, what is working backwards in math.

The scenario occurs when the quantity data is insufficient to work from the beginning . Working Backwards is a problem-solving strategy in which you start with the end goal and work backward to figure out the steps needed to get there. In other words, instead of starting from the beginning and moving forward, you start from the end and move backward. This strategy is commonly used in math problems that ask you to find a starting value or figure out what happened before a given situation.

How to Solve Math Questions with Working Backwords Method?

Let's take a look at this primary 3 word problem example:.

Sarah had some pens. She bought 34 pens. She then threw away 29 pens as they were spoilt. In the end, she had 64 pens. How many pens did Sarah have at first?

Identify the Concept

We know this is a Working Backwards question as…

Workings Explained

Always remember when we work backwards, everything will be reversed. Example the 2nd sentence – “She bought 34 pens”. We know when we buy things, we will have more. We need to add. However, when we work backwards, instead of adding, we need to subtract.

• We will start drawing the model from the end by drawing a box and label it “End”. Put the end amount “64” in the box.
• Draw arrow to point to the left, draw another box. On top of the arrow write “+29” as “Sarah threw away 29 pens”. Instead of subtract, we need to add. In the box, write “93” (64+29=93).
• Draw another arrow to point to the left, draw another box. On top of the arrow, write “-34” as Sarah bought 34 pens. Instead of adding, we need to subtract. In the box, write “59” (93-34=59). Label the box “At First” or “Before”.

Sarah had 59 pens at first.

We know this is a Working Backwards question as we were not told the number of pens Sarah had but were asked for the number of pens she had at first.

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How to work by working backwards (the Amazon method)

One of the most successful product organizations over the past 20 years is Amazon. As of 2022, the US census shows there are 131.2 million households in the US, and Amazon is estimated to have north of 150 million US-based members in its “Amazon Prime” membership program.

So how did they do it?

In this article, we’ll break down what working backwards, aka the Amazon method, is and how it became so successful. We’ll talk about how it works, how Amazon applies working backwards throughout their organization, and its benefits.

Background information

Working backwards is known interchangeably as the Amazon method. But their idea to work backwards had to start somewhere, right?

Amazon started this by turning to the advice of one of the best-selling nonfiction books of all time: Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People . In particular, Amazon’s product organization leans hard on “Habit #2: Begin with the End in Mind.”

Beginning with the end in mind is designed to train individuals to “create” things twice: once in their imagination and then once in real life. It results in several benefits:

• A clearer vision
• An orientation set on a goal (vs. a solution or activity)
• Early thoughts on if the goal is achievable and how

“People are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they aren’t getting very far. They, in essence, are pushing a rope with all of their might” — Stephen Covey

How working backwards works

So how does one work backwards and begin with the end in mind? Stephen Covey presents a few ideas:

Define the end result

The delta between being a product manager and a product leader is this orientation. Product managers focus on efficiency. Product leaders focus on setting a strategic vision. Try asking yourself:

• What are we trying to accomplish?
• What do I hope we become?
• What business do I want to be in tomorrow? Five years from now, what do I hope they say about my product?

Then craft a mission statement

A well-written mission statement gives everyone the framework and the ability to autonomously make decisions aimed in the same direction. It should lay out why your product exists and what makes it different. Consider four elements:

• Value — what problem are you solving, and for whom?
• Purpose — what greater good will your product provide; what’s the meaning behind your work?
• Attainability — while the mission statement should be challenging, it must be perceived to be plausible
• Specificity — be equal parts broad and narrow; do not seek to be all things to all people, but leave it relatively open for pivots as you learn

Ensure that this is short, puts goals into focus, and charts a path to move the vision into reality.

How the Amazon method applies this guidance

Some companies practice product development by beginning with a solution, engineering it, then asking their marketing team to find customers for it. Amazon does the opposite.

They invest heavily in the upfront process of discovery , ensuring that the customer problem is intricately known and detailed — including the context around when the problem occurs and the benefit of solving it.

This results in the product manager writing a draft press release announcing the product they are pitching to create. Ian McCallister, the former director of Amazon Smile, shared some of the document’s requirements in a Quora post that’s since been taken down:

• Heading: name the product in a way the reader will understand
• Subheading: describe who the market for the product is and what benefit they get. Limit it to one sentence
• Problem: describe the problem your product solves
• Solution: describe how your product elegantly solves the problem
• Quote from you: a quote from a spokesperson in the company
• How to get started: describe how easy it is to get started
• Customer quote: provide a quote from a hypothetical customer that describes how they experienced the benefit
• Closing and call to action: wrap it up and give pointers on where the reader should go next

Typically, these documents are limited to one to one-and-a-half pages and are silently read at the beginning of meetings. The merits are debated, feedback is given, and product managers end up making multiple revisions to the press release. This saves Amazon time and money, as changing a Google Doc is a lot less expensive than changing code.

Amazon Kindle started as a press release, as did Amazon Prime and AWS.

The main benefit of working backwards

There’s one key benefit to this method, and it’s how it forces design thinking .

There’s an oft-shared quote in the startup world that has been attributed to way too many people to list: “Fall in love with the problem… not the solution.”

Most products fail because they begin with a solution and jump immediately to how to bring it to life and when.

The best products in the world are created when people start with a problem (the “why”) and end with the what, how, and when.

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Whichever orientation (solution versus problem) the team begins with is likely the one they’ll fall in love with. They’re likely to become attached to it and fail to refine details against it.

• If a team becomes attached to a customer problem, they’ll burn cycles trying to come up with a solution tied to it
• If a team becomes attached to a solution, they’ll burn cycles trying to come up with a customer problem tied to it

Potential troubles with working backwards

The benefit of working backwards — that it creates a destination — is also its Achilles’ heel. If the uncertainty is still high, it can cause premature convergence on a specific idea without enough time given to weigh alternatives. Be careful in employing this approach if either of these two factors are at play:

• Significant time pressure — speed can cause biases and premature convergence to enter your solution
• High degrees of uncertainty — specifying a set environment that is only moderately likely to happen can force rigidity that will cause your team to fail later

Working backwards, aka the Amazon method, changed the way product organizations run. By considering and implementing this method, you can be one of these best products by beginning with the end in mind — aka defining the problem to solve, the “why” — and following that with a well-crafted vision (aka press release) that inspires and guides a group of like-minded people to deliver that outcome to the world.

Working backwards ensures that you and your team have a clear alignment between intentions and a meaningful problem to solve.

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Working Backwards: Strategic Approach to Challenges

In the fast-paced and ever-evolving world we inhabit, challenges are as constant as the ticking of a clock. The Working Backwards Strategy is a beacon of hope amidst the formidable waves of complexity that confront individuals and organizations alike. In essence, this strategic approach is a clarion call to begin where most end – the desired outcome. By flipping conventional problem-solving on its head, this strategy empowers us to navigate through the murky waters of uncertainty and forge a clear path towards our goals.

The relevance of the Working Backwards Strategy can hardly be overstated - it imparts a robust framework to individuals and enterprises for overcoming challenges that may at first appear insurmountable. This article illuminates the intricate cogs and wheels that constitute the strategic approach to problem-solving, thereby equipping readers with an arsenal of tactics to conquer the obstacles that beset their paths.

As we embark on this enlightening journey through the annals of the Working Backwards Strategy , we will dissect its historical underpinnings, explore its mechanics, and glean insight from real-world applications. This expedition promises not just theoretical knowledge but also practical wisdom, aiding our understanding of how this approach dovetails seamlessly with innovative thinking to produce remarkable results.

The Genesis of Working Backwards Strategy

The Working Backwards Strategy is more than a mere tactic; it is a paradigm shift that has its roots firmly planted in a historical context. Its origin can be traced back to the stoic philosophers, who often emphasized the significance of visualizing the end to make sense of the present. Fast forward to the modern era, and we observe that this strategy has been honed and tailored to address the complexities of contemporary problems, particularly in business and technology.

Innovation has become the lifeblood of today's corporate giants and disruptive startups. The Working Backwards Strategy is paramount in this arena as it encourages an outcome-oriented outlook. When the endpoint is clear and immovable, the path to reach it can be crafted with precision and agility, aligning perfectly with the demands for creative and divergent thinking.

Not only does the strategy align with the forces of change propelling today's markets, but it also synergizes with the kind of innovative thinking that paves the way for groundbreaking advances. Even in a world that venerates forward-thinking, looking backwards from the future to the present offers the clarity needed to cut through the noise and home in on what truly matters.

Understanding the Mechanics of Working Backwards

Central to the Working Backwards Strategy are several core principles that guide its disciplined application. This strategy necessitates a departure from linear planning and proffers a more cyclic and iterative model of strategy development. It asks us to start with the customer experience and work our way to the minimum set of creative solutions needed to meet that experience.

Step 1: Identifying the ideal end-state

The inception of this journey demands a clear definition of the ultimate goal. This vision serves as a lighthouse, guiding all subsequent decisions and strategies. By envisioning the ideal end-state, one can crystallize their objectives and garner insight into the expectations that need fulfillment. Understanding the final destination is crucial as it underpins the entire process that follows.

Step 2: Establishing key milestones

Once a clear endpoint is discerned, the next phase involves charting out significant milestones. These act as checkpoints that help track progress and ensure that all efforts are congruent with the ultimate goal. Milestones define the critical junctures in the journey to success and lay out the high-level strategy that must be followed.

Step 3: Creating a reverse action plan

The creation of a reverse action plan is where the strategy takes tangible form. This plan draws directly from the identified milestones and sketches a backward path to the present. Each step is scrutinized through the lens of necessity and efficaciousness, with the primary criterion being its contribution to reaching the end goal.

This tactical phase is also where innovative thinking comes into full play. Understanding that the desired future state might require unprecedented solutions, practitioners of this strategy are encouraged to adopt an explorative mindset, entertain unconventional ideas, and remain adaptable in their approach.

Application in Various Contexts

Overcoming challenges in business development.

Example: Product development in tech companies

In the realm of technology, the strategy has proven instrumental in navigating the turbulent waters of product development. Take, for instance, the creation of a new software platform. Working Backwards entails envisioning the complete, seamless user experience before writing a single line of code. By focusing on the desired utility and ease of use, tech companies can reverse engineer the process to ensure each development phase contributes directly to the end user's needs.

Example: Marketing strategies in startups

For startups, crafting a marketing strategy can be a daunting task with resource limitations. Working Backwards from the client acquisition targets can help startups prioritize high-impact marketing efforts and optimize the allocation of their limited resources. This approach allows them to carve a niche in the market while ensuring sustainability and growth.

Problem-Solving Techniques in Personal Goals

Example: Career advancement planning

Working Backwards is not confined to the corporate and technological spheres - it's equally applicable to personal development areas such as career planning. By starting with the end goal of a desired job position, one can delineate the certifications, skills, and experiences required to achieve it. Opting for a problem solving course or an online mba course might emerge as pivotal steps in this tailored plan.

Example: Educational achievements

Students aiming for high academic achievement can also benefit from this strategy. By picturing their names on the dean's list, they can craft a detailed study schedule that revolves around this goal, carefully selecting the courses and extracurricular activities that align with their academic aspirations.

The Working Backwards Strategy has cemented itself as an essential component of the problem-solver's toolkit, offering a robust and strategic scaffold for surmounting challenges across a spectrum of domains. In reflecting on its utility, the strategy's penchant for fostering innovative thinking and meticulous goal orientation stands out as particularly compelling.

As we draw this exploration to a close, it becomes evident that the Working Backwards Strategy beckons individuals and organizations to re-evaluate traditional paradigms in favor of a more outcome-centric and proactive approach to problem-solving. It is a call to action, urging us to adopt this strategy with a view toward fostering innovation and strategic growth in our respective endeavors.

Now is the moment to harness the transformative power of the Working Backwards Strategy . Embrace this strategic approach in your professional pursuits, educational goals, or personal development plans. Tackle your current challenges with an innovative lens and backward vision. For those seeking to delve deeper into the intricacies of strategic problem-solving, resources abound; extending from literature to problem solving courses and online MBA courses designed to inculcate the principles of this efficacious strategy.

Equip yourself with the knowledge and tools necessary to convert your aspirations into achievements. Remember, the journey to success is often charted by looking to the end and crafting your pathway backward.

What is the conceptual framework of the working backwards approach to problem-solving?

The working backwards approach: a conceptual framework.

The working backwards approach stands as a revered method in problem-solving. It starts with the desired outcome. This involves envisioning the ideal solution or end-point before anything else. After defining the end goal, one must then deconstruct it, breaking down the steps that lead to this outcome, in reverse. This retrospective path mapping distinguishes the working backwards strategy from other techniques.

Core Principles of Working Backwards

Identify the end goal first . Clarity of the objective remains paramount. Without a clear target, the process loses direction.

Deconstruct the problem . Break it down into smaller, manageable segments. Each segment acts as a milestone. Experts agree on the efficacy of this subdivision.

Reverse engineer the process . Working from the end backwards, the solver identifies the prerequisites for each milestone. This allows for a clear roadmap of actions.

Avoid assumptions . Each step must rest on solid, verifiable facts. False assumptions can derail the entire process.

Iterative refinement . Solutions often require tweaking. With each iteration, the solution becomes more precise.

Advantages of Working Backwards

- Enhanced clarity . Visualizing the end state brings focus.

- Reduction of complexity . Breaking down the problem simplifies it.

- Strategic insight . Recognizing dependencies becomes straightforward.

- Encourages creativity . Solutions may emerge in counter-intuitive ways.

Implementation in Different Fields

In software development, Amazon pioneered this approach. They write the press release before product development. Educators also apply this approach. They define learning outcomes before creating teaching plans. In research, scientists determine the desired discovery, then design experiments accordingly.

Challenges and Considerations

Resource constraints may limit the applicability. Adjusting the goal can sometimes be necessary. Solvers must remain cognizant of potential roadblocks . They might encounter stages where progression is not evident in reverse.

Theoretical Underpinnings

Cognitive science supports the working backwards method. It aligns with how the human brain problem-solves. The temporal structure of human cognition suggests a natural affinity for retrospective organization. Thus, working backwards proves not just effective, but intuitive.

The working backwards strategy offers a structured path to problem-solving. Begin with the end. Deconstruct to comprehend. Engage with facts. Refine rigorously. Recognize its potential across disciplines but remain aware of challenges. Anchored in cognitive theory, it mirrors our inherent reasoning processes. In sum, it presents a robust framework for tackling complex problems.

How can the concept of working backwards enhance strategic decision-making in challenging situations?

Working backwards to enhance decision-making.

Strategic decision-making often involves complex problems. These problems can overwhelm decision-makers. When faced with such challenges, working backwards can clarify objectives and illuminate the path to achieving them.

Begin with the End in Mind

The mantra "begin with the end in mind" is central here. It compels leaders to envision the desired outcome first. This future state acts as a North Star, guiding all subsequent decisions and actions.

Set Clear Objectives

It is crucial to set clear, measurable objectives. These targets help assess decisions. They act as benchmarks throughout the process. Decision-makers can ensure alignment with the final goal by continually referencing these objectives.

Map the Steps Reversely

Mapping steps from the end goal to the present is a reverse chronology. This action breaks down the path to success into manageable sections. Each step becomes smaller, more tangible. It simplifies the process of identifying what actions to take and when.

Identify Key Milestones

Key milestones mark progress. They provide structure to the journey. Recognizing these milestones allows teams to celebrate small wins. This boosts morale and keeps focus sharp.

Anticipate Potential Obstacles

Working backwards forces foresight of obstacles. Anticipated issues can be tackled proactively. Solutions become embedded in the plan from the start.

Allocate Resources Wisely

Knowing the end goal helps allocate resources wisely. It becomes clear where to invest time, money, and effort. Scarce resources are conserved for critical paths.

Adjust with Flexibility

Even the best plans need adjustments. With a clear end goal, decision-makers can pivot with confidence. They remain flexible without losing sight of the objective.

Foster a Strategic Mindset

The backward approach fosters a strategic mindset. This thought process values proactive planning. It involves considering long-term impact over short-term gains.

Enhance Team Communication

Clear benchmarks improve team communication. Everyone understands the direction and their role in it. This alignment reduces misunderstandings and enhances collective performance.

Encourage Analytical Thinking

Working backwards encourages analytical thinking. Decision-makers must dissect the goal into its parts. They learn to understand the mechanisms that drive success.

Working backwards is not just a tactic. It is a strategic philosophy. It simplifies complex decision-making. Clarity, foresight, and structured planning are its byproducts. In challenging situations, this method can be a game-changer. Strategic leadership demands such innovative approaches. It stands as a testament to the virtue of thoughtful, reverse-engineered problem-solving.

Can you provide an example of how employing a "working backwards" strategy has been successful in a real life complex challenge?

The virtue of working backwards.

Success often stems from innovative strategy. Employing 'working backwards' illustrates this point. This approach demands starting from the end goal. One then maps out the path to that goal. This ensures efficiency and focus.

Consider Amazon's approach to product development. They start with customer needs. They create the press release first. This defines the desired outcome. They write about the product's release. This draft press release centers on the customer experience. It covers benefits and customer challenges. Amazon then engineers the product backwards. They develop features to fulfill the press release claims. This ensures the final product delights customers.

Real-Life Success Stories

This strategy thrives across various industries. Look at software development, for instance. Successful teams don't start coding immediately. They first define the user's end experience. Features then get planned. Every feature must serve the user's needs. Only after meticulous planning does coding begin.

Apple also embraces this mindset. They begin with the user experience. Product design comes next. Engineering follows to meet these specifications.

The 'Working Backwards' Framework

This strategy can be broken down into steps:

- Identify the ultimate goal.

- Craft the final outcome's narrative.

- Pinpoint essential success metrics.

- Develop milestones working backwards from the goal.

- Execute the plan, ensuring alignment at each step.

Critical Evaluation

While powerful, 'working backwards' is not infallible. It requires deep customer understanding. It demands that the end goal remains clear. Teams must adopt a customer-centric vision. Assumptions need constant testing. The strategy thrives on flexibility.

In summary, 'working backwards' breeds innovation. It demands a customer-first approach. It enforces clarity and focus throughout a project. Both Amazon and Apple showcase its success. Adopting this tactic means aligning with customer value. It ultimately leads to products that resonate in the market.

He is a content producer who specializes in blog content. He has a master's degree in business administration and he lives in the Netherlands.

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Why the Most Forward-Thinking Product Teams Work Backwards

You’ve probably heard the old adage “success is not a destination, but a journey.” Clearly its authors were not product managers. Product teams aren’t measured on the winding road and applauded for the many steps taken—it’s all about results. Yet, we’re often so consumed with the process, routine, and endless cycle of building that we can forget none of that matters if the end result doesn’t meet our goals.

That’s why the best plans start with the final outcome. Productivity gurus FranklinCovey even trademarked this as one of their seven habits: Begin with the end in mind.

Many innovative companies have adopted this working backwards mindset to keep people from being distracted during the development process and maintain a singular focus on the ultimate goal.

For example, Amazon starts every project with the product manager authoring a press release articulating the current problem. They explore why other solutions aren’t cutting it, and how they’re solving things for the customer with their not-yet-built product. Throughout the entire product development process, anyone can refer back to that document as a guidepost, ensuring everything they do is making that press release a reality.

What is working backwards?

Working backwards is all about starting with the desired end result in mind and then figuring out how to get there. Although everyone should already do this, there are plenty of times when this isn’t the case.

The key to working backwards is crystalizing where you want to end up. This means diving into the details of what the desired end result should be (more sales, happier customers, easier workflows, etc.), what the product must be capable of to achieve those goals, and what success would look like.

Looking at Apple’s slick and popular product line, it’s obvious they were listening when Steve Jobs said “you have to start with the customer experience and work backwards towards the technology.”

With an agreed upon vision, the product team can then break down all of the required steps to reach that final destination. This differs from taking a more exploratory, iterative, “let’s see where this takes us” approach, or simply building stuff for the sake of building it.

Why the best product teams work backwards

Working backwards creates a more efficient and focused product development process. With a clearly articulated endpoint in mind, teams don’t get distracted or build the wrong things as they fumble forward. Instead, they know exactly what the finished product must be capable of, so they’re far more likely to get it right the first time.

This approach also prevents the team from getting lost in the weeds and worrying about implementation instead of results. As we’ve heard many times from our engineering counterparts: “Don’t tell me HOW to build it, just tell me WHAT to build.”

When you’re working backwards, the WHAT has already been very well-defined and no one will have any questions about whether the final product meets expectations. This not only gives clear guidelines to product development; it also provides QA with precise things to look for during their testing and gives a head start for sales and marketing since they know what they’re getting.

Prioritization also benefits from this approach; if a particular item doesn’t move the product closer to the desired finish line, then it takes a backseat to the items that do. It hones everyone in on satisfying customers and delivering value accordingly.

How to get your team to work backwards

Working backwards may be a state of mind, but getting the rest of the team on board might require something a little more tangible to wrap their heads around. Here are three methods for hitting “rewind” instead of “fast forward.”

Starting with a press release

Made famous by Amazon, the working backwards strategy is a favorite among many product teams and thought leaders. A press release is usually the very last step in the product development and launch process. It tells the world: “Here I am, this is what I can do, and this is why you should care.”

To be effective, the author must step back from the technobabble trap and communicate in terms that resonate with the target customer.

“One important element of the press release is that it is written in so-called ‘Oprah-speak’. Or in other words, a way that is easy to understand,” says Nikki Gilliard of Econsultancy. “This essentially allows Amazon to cut through tech-jargon and any descriptions that would only confuse the customer, in order to deliver a mainstream product.”

The starting point for the product definition is a customer-centric document, unconcerned with implementation details, technology or user interface design. Then, the focus shifts to what encompasses a truly great solution for the customer. If the press release is compelling, then you’re onto something.

“Iterating on a press release is a lot quicker and less expensive than iterating on the product itself,” says Amazon’s Ian McAllister . “If the press release is hard to write, then the product is probably going to suck. Keep working at it until the outline for each paragraph flows.”

But struggling to get the press release right is part of the process—if you could bang it out in an afternoon then you haven’t done the homework and made it bulletproof enough to drive an entire product development cycle.

“I created a couple of them in the past and it took me a lot of time; several weeks or even months actually, as the amount of time you need to dedicate on research is high, and trying to explain your idea like you would to real customers requires a lot of effort and dedication,” says Andrea Marchiotto of Unilever.

And because the press release is intended to declare the company’s success with the product—not just its availability—there must be a significant business case for it as well, which matches Amazon’s approach to selecting new features. For example, 90% of Amazon Web Services roadmap is driven by broad customer requests , indicating advance knowledge of a clear demand.

Conducting a pre-mortem

A post-mortem (or after-the-fact review of everything that went right or wrong during a project) is a common method for organizations to learn from previous mistakes and successes to perform even better the next time around. It’s a group affair where representatives from the entire organization chime in on what worked well and what went astray.

A pre-mortem essentially places that same group of stakeholders in a time machine and asks them to imagine everything that could happen before a single line of code is written or design is mocked up. The goal is anticipating and wargaming the situation, spotting all possible scenarios so the team has already anticipated potential stumbling blocks and land mines.

These sessions begin by brainstorming every possible calamity that could befall your product, from total market rejection to compromising user data to sluggish performance and inability to scale. It’s a chance to surface every fear and doubt lurking in people’s minds and determining which are more likely to actually occur.

“Once you’ve collectively established your highest risks, you can start thinking about ways to mitigate these risks. Realistically, you might not be able to stop all risks from happening,” says Marc Abraham of Settled. “In these scenarios, you can still figure out how to best reduce the impact of a risk happening and come up with a ‘plan B’.”

If the mitigation strategy isn’t obvious, a sub-team can be assigned to each outstanding item. Then, the team can work out how to deal with it if it arises (or fully preventing it from occurring at all). And with all potential horror show endings in view, the product team can work backwards minimizing or avoiding as much as possible.

Believe it or not, this might even serve as a bonding exercise for the team, forced to identify and grapple with possible unpleasantness and tap their problem-solving skills.

Begin with your Product Hunt page

Similar to the press release tactic, this method also requires the product team to identify its ideal output and work backwards from there.

Product Hunt is one of the leading showcases for new products and a semi-meritorious platform for building buzz and traffic from early adopters. A Product Hunt page includes a 60-character-max tagline, a thumbnail image, a gallery, a two-sentence description, three or four topics that your product fits into and then finally a “maker comment,” which according to the Product Hunt blog should:

“Briefly introduce yourself, the team, and the problem that you’re solving. In a total of 3–4 sentences explain what the value prop is, what’s the use case, who its for, and why you are building it. If this is the second time you’re launching on PH (i.e. a big product update or huge feature announcement), explain what’s changed. Tip: Make it as easy as possible for people to care.”

In total, you’ve got about seven or eight sentences and a few visuals to communicate what your product does, who would want to use it, why they should use it and what makes your product and team so special. Distilling your grand product vision down to this tiny bit of text is not only a great exercise in editing and brevity, but it also forces the team to really lock in on what’s most important.

With your faux Product Hunt page already authored, this artifact can be used to gain consensus in the organization and serve as ongoing inspiration during the product development. It’s conciseness and focus on the customer experience and value proposition is a great point to work backwards from.

Regardless of how you bring a working backwards mentality to your product team, the ingredient pulling everything together is truly understanding what customers need before you begin working on everything. If you haven’t done your homework in that department then your perfect final product may miss the mark, leading to a post-mortem that doesn’t do the product team any favors.

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Do You Understand the Problem You’re Trying to Solve?

To solve tough problems at work, first ask these questions.

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Problem solving skills are invaluable in any job. But all too often, we jump to find solutions to a problem without taking time to really understand the dilemma we face, according to Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg , an expert in innovation and the author of the book, What’s Your Problem?: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve .

In this episode, you’ll learn how to reframe tough problems by asking questions that reveal all the factors and assumptions that contribute to the situation. You’ll also learn why searching for just one root cause can be misleading.

Key episode topics include: leadership, decision making and problem solving, power and influence, business management.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: The Secret to Better Problem Solving (2016)
• Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org .

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR on Leadership , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you.

Problem solving skills are invaluable in any job. But even the most experienced among us can fall into the trap of solving the wrong problem.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg says that all too often, we jump to find solutions to a problem – without taking time to really understand what we’re facing.

He’s an expert in innovation, and he’s the author of the book, What’s Your Problem?: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve .

  In this episode, you’ll learn how to reframe tough problems, by asking questions that reveal all the factors and assumptions that contribute to the situation. You’ll also learn why searching for one root cause can be misleading. And you’ll learn how to use experimentation and rapid prototyping as problem-solving tools.

This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in December 2016. Here it is.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green Carmichael.

Problem solving is popular. People put it on their resumes. Managers believe they excel at it. Companies count it as a key proficiency. We solve customers’ problems.

The problem is we often solve the wrong problems. Albert Einstein and Peter Drucker alike have discussed the difficulty of effective diagnosis. There are great frameworks for getting teams to attack true problems, but they’re often hard to do daily and on the fly. That’s where our guest comes in.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg is a consultant who helps companies and managers reframe their problems so they can come up with an effective solution faster. He asks the question “Are You Solving The Right Problems?” in the January-February 2017 issue of Harvard Business Review. Thomas, thank you so much for coming on the HBR IdeaCast .

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Thanks for inviting me.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, I thought maybe we could start by talking about the problem of talking about problem reframing. What is that exactly?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Basically, when people face a problem, they tend to jump into solution mode to rapidly, and very often that means that they don’t really understand, necessarily, the problem they’re trying to solve. And so, reframing is really a– at heart, it’s a method that helps you avoid that by taking a second to go in and ask two questions, basically saying, first of all, wait. What is the problem we’re trying to solve? And then crucially asking, is there a different way to think about what the problem actually is?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, I feel like so often when this comes up in meetings, you know, someone says that, and maybe they throw out the Einstein quote about you spend an hour of problem solving, you spend 55 minutes to find the problem. And then everyone else in the room kind of gets irritated. So, maybe just give us an example of maybe how this would work in practice in a way that would not, sort of, set people’s teeth on edge, like oh, here Sarah goes again, reframing the whole problem instead of just solving it.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: I mean, you’re bringing up something that’s, I think is crucial, which is to create legitimacy for the method. So, one of the reasons why I put out the article is to give people a tool to say actually, this thing is still important, and we need to do it. But I think the really critical thing in order to make this work in a meeting is actually to learn how to do it fast, because if you have the idea that you need to spend 30 minutes in a meeting delving deeply into the problem, I mean, that’s going to be uphill for most problems. So, the critical thing here is really to try to make it a practice you can implement very, very rapidly.

There’s an example that I would suggest memorizing. This is the example that I use to explain very rapidly what it is. And it’s basically, I call it the slow elevator problem. You imagine that you are the owner of an office building, and that your tenants are complaining that the elevator’s slow.

Now, if you take that problem framing for granted, you’re going to start thinking creatively around how do we make the elevator faster. Do we install a new motor? Do we have to buy a new lift somewhere?

The thing is, though, if you ask people who actually work with facilities management, well, they’re going to have a different solution for you, which is put up a mirror next to the elevator. That’s what happens is, of course, that people go oh, I’m busy. I’m busy. I’m– oh, a mirror. Oh, that’s beautiful.

And then they forget time. What’s interesting about that example is that the idea with a mirror is actually a solution to a different problem than the one you first proposed. And so, the whole idea here is once you get good at using reframing, you can quickly identify other aspects of the problem that might be much better to try to solve than the original one you found. It’s not necessarily that the first one is wrong. It’s just that there might be better problems out there to attack that we can, means we can do things much faster, cheaper, or better.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, in that example, I can understand how A, it’s probably expensive to make the elevator faster, so it’s much cheaper just to put up a mirror. And B, maybe the real problem people are actually feeling, even though they’re not articulating it right, is like, I hate waiting for the elevator. But if you let them sort of fix their hair or check their teeth, they’re suddenly distracted and don’t notice.

But if you have, this is sort of a pedestrian example, but say you have a roommate or a spouse who doesn’t clean up the kitchen. Facing that problem and not having your elegant solution already there to highlight the contrast between the perceived problem and the real problem, how would you take a problem like that and attack it using this method so that you can see what some of the other options might be?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Right. So, I mean, let’s say it’s you who have that problem. I would go in and say, first of all, what would you say the problem is? Like, if you were to describe your view of the problem, what would that be?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I hate cleaning the kitchen, and I want someone else to clean it up.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: OK. So, my first observation, you know, that somebody else might not necessarily be your spouse. So, already there, there’s an inbuilt assumption in your question around oh, it has to be my husband who does the cleaning. So, it might actually be worth, already there to say, is that really the only problem you have? That you hate cleaning the kitchen, and you want to avoid it? Or might there be something around, as well, getting a better relationship in terms of how you solve problems in general or establishing a better way to handle small problems when dealing with your spouse?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Or maybe, now that I’m thinking that, maybe the problem is that you just can’t find the stuff in the kitchen when you need to find it.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Right, and so that’s an example of a reframing, that actually why is it a problem that the kitchen is not clean? Is it only because you hate the act of cleaning, or does it actually mean that it just takes you a lot longer and gets a lot messier to actually use the kitchen, which is a different problem. The way you describe this problem now, is there anything that’s missing from that description?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That is a really good question.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Other, basically asking other factors that we are not talking about right now, and I say those because people tend to, when given a problem, they tend to delve deeper into the detail. What often is missing is actually an element outside of the initial description of the problem that might be really relevant to what’s going on. Like, why does the kitchen get messy in the first place? Is it something about the way you use it or your cooking habits? Is it because the neighbor’s kids, kind of, use it all the time?

There might, very often, there might be issues that you’re not really thinking about when you first describe the problem that actually has a big effect on it.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I think at this point it would be helpful to maybe get another business example, and I’m wondering if you could tell us the story of the dog adoption problem.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Yeah. This is a big problem in the US. If you work in the shelter industry, basically because dogs are so popular, more than 3 million dogs every year enter a shelter, and currently only about half of those actually find a new home and get adopted. And so, this is a problem that has persisted. It’s been, like, a structural problem for decades in this space. In the last three years, where people found new ways to address it.

So a woman called Lori Weise who runs a rescue organization in South LA, and she actually went in and challenged the very idea of what we were trying to do. She said, no, no. The problem we’re trying to solve is not about how to get more people to adopt dogs. It is about keeping the dogs with their first family so they never enter the shelter system in the first place.

In 2013, she started what’s called a Shelter Intervention Program that basically works like this. If a family comes and wants to hand over their dog, these are called owner surrenders. It’s about 30% of all dogs that come into a shelter. All they would do is go up and ask, if you could, would you like to keep your animal? And if they said yes, they would try to fix whatever helped them fix the problem, but that made them turn over this.

And sometimes that might be that they moved into a new building. The landlord required a deposit, and they simply didn’t have the money to put down a deposit. Or the dog might need a $10 rabies shot, but they didn’t know how to get access to a vet.

And so, by instigating that program, just in the first year, she took her, basically the amount of dollars they spent per animal they helped went from something like $85 down to around $60. Just an immediate impact, and her program now is being rolled out, is being supported by the ASPCA, which is one of the big animal welfare stations, and it’s being rolled out to various other places.

And I think what really struck me with that example was this was not dependent on having the internet. This was not, oh, we needed to have everybody mobile before we could come up with this. This, conceivably, we could have done 20 years ago. Only, it only happened when somebody, like in this case Lori, went in and actually rethought what the problem they were trying to solve was in the first place.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, what I also think is so interesting about that example is that when you talk about it, it doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that would have been thought of through other kinds of problem solving methods. There wasn’t necessarily an After Action Review or a 5 Whys exercise or a Six Sigma type intervention. I don’t want to throw those other methods under the bus, but how can you get such powerful results with such a very simple way of thinking about something?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: That was something that struck me as well. This, in a way, reframing and the idea of the problem diagnosis is important is something we’ve known for a long, long time. And we’ve actually have built some tools to help out. If you worked with us professionally, you are familiar with, like, Six Sigma, TRIZ, and so on. You mentioned 5 Whys. A root cause analysis is another one that a lot of people are familiar with.

Those are our good tools, and they’re definitely better than nothing. But what I notice when I work with the companies applying those was those tools tend to make you dig deeper into the first understanding of the problem we have. If it’s the elevator example, people start asking, well, is that the cable strength, or is the capacity of the elevator? That they kind of get caught by the details.

That, in a way, is a bad way to work on problems because it really assumes that there’s like a, you can almost hear it, a root cause. That you have to dig down and find the one true problem, and everything else was just symptoms. That’s a bad way to think about problems because problems tend to be multicausal.

There tend to be lots of causes or levers you can potentially press to address a problem. And if you think there’s only one, if that’s the right problem, that’s actually a dangerous way. And so I think that’s why, that this is a method I’ve worked with over the last five years, trying to basically refine how to make people better at this, and the key tends to be this thing about shifting out and saying, is there a totally different way of thinking about the problem versus getting too caught up in the mechanistic details of what happens.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: What about experimentation? Because that’s another method that’s become really popular with the rise of Lean Startup and lots of other innovation methodologies. Why wouldn’t it have worked to, say, experiment with many different types of fixing the dog adoption problem, and then just pick the one that works the best?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: You could say in the dog space, that’s what’s been going on. I mean, there is, in this industry and a lot of, it’s largely volunteer driven. People have experimented, and they found different ways of trying to cope. And that has definitely made the problem better. So, I wouldn’t say that experimentation is bad, quite the contrary. Rapid prototyping, quickly putting something out into the world and learning from it, that’s a fantastic way to learn more and to move forward.

My point is, though, that I feel we’ve come to rely too much on that. There’s like, if you look at the start up space, the wisdom is now just to put something quickly into the market, and then if it doesn’t work, pivot and just do more stuff. What reframing really is, I think of it as the cognitive counterpoint to prototyping. So, this is really a way of seeing very quickly, like not just working on the solution, but also working on our understanding of the problem and trying to see is there a different way to think about that.

If you only stick with experimentation, again, you tend to sometimes stay too much in the same space trying minute variations of something instead of taking a step back and saying, wait a minute. What is this telling us about what the real issue is?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, to go back to something that we touched on earlier, when we were talking about the completely hypothetical example of a spouse who does not clean the kitchen–

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Completely, completely hypothetical.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yes. For the record, my husband is a great kitchen cleaner.

You started asking me some questions that I could see immediately were helping me rethink that problem. Is that kind of the key, just having a checklist of questions to ask yourself? How do you really start to put this into practice?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: I think there are two steps in that. The first one is just to make yourself better at the method. Yes, you should kind of work with a checklist. In the article, I kind of outlined seven practices that you can use to do this.

But importantly, I would say you have to consider that as, basically, a set of training wheels. I think there’s a big, big danger in getting caught in a checklist. This is something I work with.

My co-author Paddy Miller, it’s one of his insights. That if you start giving people a checklist for things like this, they start following it. And that’s actually a problem, because what you really want them to do is start challenging their thinking.

So the way to handle this is to get some practice using it. Do use the checklist initially, but then try to step away from it and try to see if you can organically make– it’s almost a habit of mind. When you run into a colleague in the hallway and she has a problem and you have five minutes, like, delving in and just starting asking some of those questions and using your intuition to say, wait, how is she talking about this problem? And is there a question or two I can ask her about the problem that can help her rethink it?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, that is also just a very different approach, because I think in that situation, most of us can’t go 30 seconds without jumping in and offering solutions.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Very true. The drive toward solutions is very strong. And to be clear, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that if the solutions work. So, many problems are just solved by oh, you know, oh, here’s the way to do that. Great.

But this is really a powerful method for those problems where either it’s something we’ve been banging our heads against tons of times without making progress, or when you need to come up with a really creative solution. When you’re facing a competitor with a much bigger budget, and you know, if you solve the same problem later, you’re not going to win. So, that basic idea of taking that approach to problems can often help you move forward in a different way than just like, oh, I have a solution.

I would say there’s also, there’s some interesting psychological stuff going on, right? Where you may have tried this, but if somebody tries to serve up a solution to a problem I have, I’m often resistant towards them. Kind if like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That solution is not going to work in my world. Whereas if you get them to discuss and analyze what the problem really is, you might actually dig something up.

Let’s go back to the kitchen example. One powerful question is just to say, what’s your own part in creating this problem? It’s very often, like, people, they describe problems as if it’s something that’s inflicted upon them from the external world, and they are innocent bystanders in that.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Right, or crazy customers with unreasonable demands.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Exactly, right. I don’t think I’ve ever met an agency or consultancy that didn’t, like, gossip about their customers. Oh, my god, they’re horrible. That, you know, classic thing, why don’t they want to take more risk? Well, risk is bad.

It’s their business that’s on the line, not the consultancy’s, right? So, absolutely, that’s one of the things when you step into a different mindset and kind of, wait. Oh yeah, maybe I actually am part of creating this problem in a sense, as well. That tends to open some new doors for you to move forward, in a way, with stuff that you may have been struggling with for years.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, we’ve surfaced a couple of questions that are useful. I’m curious to know, what are some of the other questions that you find yourself asking in these situations, given that you have made this sort of mental habit that you do? What are the questions that people seem to find really useful?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: One easy one is just to ask if there are any positive exceptions to the problem. So, was there day where your kitchen was actually spotlessly clean? And then asking, what was different about that day? Like, what happened there that didn’t happen the other days? That can very often point people towards a factor that they hadn’t considered previously.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: We got take-out.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: S,o that is your solution. Take-out from [INAUDIBLE]. That might have other problems.

Another good question, and this is a little bit more high level. It’s actually more making an observation about labeling how that person thinks about the problem. And what I mean with that is, we have problem categories in our head. So, if I say, let’s say that you describe a problem to me and say, well, we have a really great product and are, it’s much better than our previous product, but people aren’t buying it. I think we need to put more marketing dollars into this.

Now you can go in and say, that’s interesting. This sounds like you’re thinking of this as a communications problem. Is there a different way of thinking about that? Because you can almost tell how, when the second you say communications, there are some ideas about how do you solve a communications problem. Typically with more communication.

And what you might do is go in and suggest, well, have you considered that it might be, say, an incentive problem? Are there incentives on behalf of the purchasing manager at your clients that are obstructing you? Might there be incentive issues with your own sales force that makes them want to sell the old product instead of the new one?

So literally, just identifying what type of problem does this person think about, and is there different potential way of thinking about it? Might it be an emotional problem, a timing problem, an expectations management problem? Thinking about what label of what type of problem that person is kind of thinking as it of.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That’s really interesting, too, because I think so many of us get requests for advice that we’re really not qualified to give. So, maybe the next time that happens, instead of muddying my way through, I will just ask some of those questions that we talked about instead.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: That sounds like a good idea.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, Thomas, this has really helped me reframe the way I think about a couple of problems in my own life, and I’m just wondering. I know you do this professionally, but is there a problem in your life that thinking this way has helped you solve?

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: I’ve, of course, I’ve been swallowing my own medicine on this, too, and I think I have, well, maybe two different examples, and in one case somebody else did the reframing for me. But in one case, when I was younger, I often kind of struggled a little bit. I mean, this is my teenage years, kind of hanging out with my parents. I thought they were pretty annoying people. That’s not really fair, because they’re quite wonderful, but that’s what life is when you’re a teenager.

And one of the things that struck me, suddenly, and this was kind of the positive exception was, there was actually an evening where we really had a good time, and there wasn’t a conflict. And the core thing was, I wasn’t just seeing them in their old house where I grew up. It was, actually, we were at a restaurant. And it suddenly struck me that so much of the sometimes, kind of, a little bit, you love them but they’re annoying kind of dynamic, is tied to the place, is tied to the setting you are in.

And of course, if– you know, I live abroad now, if I visit my parents and I stay in my old bedroom, you know, my mother comes in and wants to wake me up in the morning. Stuff like that, right? And it just struck me so, so clearly that it’s– when I change this setting, if I go out and have dinner with them at a different place, that the dynamic, just that dynamic disappears.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Well, Thomas, this has been really, really helpful. Thank you for talking with me today.

THOMAS WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG: Thank you, Sarah.  

HANNAH BATES: That was Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg in conversation with Sarah Green Carmichael on the HBR IdeaCast. He’s an expert in problem solving and innovation, and he’s the author of the book, What’s Your Problem?: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve .

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about leadership from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review.

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This episode was produced by Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. Special thanks to Maureen Hoch, Adi Ignatius, Karen Player, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener.

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