“What problem are you trying to solve?” is not only a powerful question, it’s the first question of the Value Delivery Check.
The check offers additional guidance: “Not the solution you’ve already picked or been asked to deliver.”
Let’s separate the work from the problem.
Take a common request: “Fix the heat.”
Fixing the heat is the work we have to do.
But what does it mean to fix the heat?
Are we keeping the pipes from freezing, or making the room comfortable enough to work in?
A room at 55°F may keep the pipes from freezing, but it sucks to work in.
Same request. Different problems.
The room being too cold to work comfortably is a condition. It describes the environment we’re working in and what it prevents.
The problem is something about the conditions we’re in that needs to change to make something better for somebody. One thing we can point to and put into words.
The work is what we do to solve that problem.
Go back to that first question: what condition needs to change to make something better for somebody?