Rock climbing is one of my favorite things to do, and one of the best ways I know of understanding what is required now. If you are pushing yourself hard enough, there comes a moment in every climb where you are stuck. You are standing on a nub of granite the size of an edge of a dime looking up at a big wall. The ground is far below. There is no obvious next move. You start to panic. Your leg starts to shake. You are going to fall.
But here’s the thing: if you can move half an inch in any direction the world changes.
We are all now standing on the edge. We can’t see anywhere to go. We are afraid.
Take a step.
You have an idea for how to make things better. You can see a connection that other’s haven’t yet made. You have the passion.
I know, the resistance is strong. You doubt your ability. You worry that others won’t value your contribution. You don’t know where to begin.
Here’s a suggestion: start by encapsulating your idea in a one-sentence problem statement with this form:
Create a [the form of the thing to be designed]
to enable [the people encountering the problem]
to achieve [their goal]
when [the situations they encounter the problem]
The one-sentence problem statement helps you focus on a very clearly defined goal. The goal might be wrong or might change, but it gives you a target. I recently used the one-sentence problem statement to solve a problem at home.
Every Saturday night my kids meet a group of other pre-adolescents at the local comic book store to play Magic: The Gathering. They get a taste of freedom. They get independence. They get camaraderie. They get to test themselves against their peers. They love this game.
The first Saturday night they couldn't go to the Magic draft they realized that the shut-in was going to be long and potentially painful. We had a problem to solve: how to play a physical card game with people in distant locations. We took it as a challenge and stated a one-sentence problem statement:
Create a [toolkit]
to enable [adolescents]
[to play in person card games]
[while confined to their own homes].
In this case, I added an additional sentence to define the constraints:
Using only the tools and parts that are already available in our house.
We solved the problem with an eight-year-old document camera I had for doing remote collaborative design, an old laptop, a few spring loaded clamps, and a zoom call. Their friends on the other end hung an iPad off the edge of their kitchen table and set their cards on the floor underneath. Success.
This one innovation has made the quarantine so much easier for them, and as a result, for us. The problem now is how to get them to BE QUIET while they are playing.
We are all adapting. There are new problems to solve and, as a result, many new opportunities.
Take a step. We are all counting on you. The world will change when you do.