The first question on the Value Delivery Check asks, “What problem are you trying to solve?” Right under it is the prompt: “Not the solution you’ve already picked or been asked to deliver.”
But when the request comes in, it feels like the problem we need to solve. It’s natural to sketch that down as “the problem.”
Then the read comes back and says that’s a solution, not a problem.
Wait a minute. They told me what they wanted. Isn’t that the problem I have to solve?
There’s the rub.
When someone makes a request, they often ask for the solution instead of clarifying the problem they’re trying to solve. That request is a good-hearted attempt at what they think they want.
But it’s not always obvious from the proposed solution what the underlying problem is.
So we ask.
Take the request “we need a dashboard for sales.”
Seems simple. They asked for a dashboard, so the problem must be building one.
Before we build it, ask what changes for them when they have this dashboard.
Say the answer is, “We’d catch the deals nobody’s followed up on before we lose them.”
Now we’ve identified the problem: deals are slipping away because nobody follows up.
We get to the problem by asking what changes as a result.
Once we nail the problem, we can work forward to the solution. Maybe it’s the dashboard. Maybe it isn’t. Now we can work to deliver the benefit they seek.
Leave whatever got sketched for the check alone. Take the request, ask what changes as a result, and write that down in a sentence.
Then run the check again.