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With those criteria in mind, Naugle and his team crafted a problem statement. The following is the abstract; for the full problem statement, visit hbr. The solution is expected to facilitate access to clean water at a household level, addressing a problem that affects millions of people worldwide who are living in impoverished communities or rural areas where access to clean water is limited.
Domestic rainwater harvesting is a proven technology that can be a valuable option for accessing and storing water year round. However, the high cost of available rainwater storage systems makes them well beyond the reach of low-income families to install in their homes. A solution to this problem would not only provide convenient and affordable access to scarce water resources but would also allow families, particularly the women and children who are usually tasked with water collection, to spend less time walking distances to collect water and more time on activities that can bring in income and improve the quality of life.
What information about the proposed solution does your organization need in order to invest in it? For example, would a well-founded hypothetical approach be sufficient, or is a full-blown prototype needed? EWV decided that a solver had to submit a written explanation of the solution and detailed drawings.
The point of asking this question is to ensure that the right people are motivated to address the problem. For internal solvers, incentives can be written into job descriptions or offered as promotions and bonuses. For external solvers, the incentive might be a cash award. Addressing this question forces a company to be explicit about how it will evaluate the solutions it receives.
Clarity and transparency are crucial to arriving at viable solutions and to ensuring that the evaluation process is fair and rigorous. Most of the time, however, it is a sign that earlier steps in the process have not been approached with sufficient rigor. EWV stipulated that it would evaluate solutions on their ability to meet the criteria of low cost, high storage capacity, low weight, and easy maintenance. The overarching goal was to keep costs low and to help poor families justify the purchase.
The solution he proposed required no elaborate machinery; in fact, it had no pumps or moving parts. It was an established industrial technology that had not been applied to water storage: a plastic bag within a plastic bag with a tube at the top. The two-bag approach allowed the inner bag to be thinner, reducing the price of the product, while the outer bag was strong enough to contain a ton and a half of water.
The structure folded into a packet the size of a briefcase and weighed about eight pounds. In short, the solution was affordable, commercially viable, could be easily transported to remote areas, and could be sold and installed by local entrepreneurs.
EWV developed an initial version and tested it in Uganda, where the organization asked end users such questions as What do you think of its weight? Does it meet your needs? Even mundane issues like color came into play: The woven outer bags were white, which women pointed out would immediately look dirty.
By the end of May , 50 to 60 shops, village sales agents, and cooperatives were selling the product; more than 80 entrepreneurs had been trained to install it; and 1, units had been deployed in eight districts in southwestern Uganda.
EWV deems this a success at this stage in the rollout. It hopes to make the units available in 10 countries—and have tens or hundreds of thousands of units installed—within five years. Ultimately, it believes, millions of units will be in use for a variety of applications, including household drinking water, irrigation, and construction.
Interestingly, the main obstacle to getting people to buy the device has been skepticism that something that comes in such a small package the size of a typical five-gallon jerrican can hold the equivalent of 70 jerricans. Believing that the remedy is to show villagers the installed product, EWV is currently testing various promotion and marketing programs.
As the EWV story illustrates, critically analyzing and clearly articulating a problem can yield highly innovative solutions. Organizations that apply these simple concepts and develop the skills and discipline to ask better questions and define their problems with more rigor can create strategic advantage, unlock truly groundbreaking innovation, and drive better business performance. Asking better questions delivers better results.
You have 1 free article s left this month. You are reading your last free article for this month. Subscribe for unlimited access. Create an account to read 2 more. Decision making and problem solving. Are You Solving the Right Problem? Reprint: RF The rigor with which a problem is defined is the most important factor in finding a good solution. Establish the need for a solution.
What is the basic need? Who will benefit from a solution? Justify the need. Why should your organization attempt to solve this problem?
Is it aligned with your strategy? If a solution is found, who will implement it? Contextualize the problem. What have you and others already tried? Are there internal and external constraints to implementing a solution?
Write the problem statement. What requirements must a solution meet? What language should you use to describe the problem?
How will you evaluate solutions and measure success? Establish the Need for a Solution What is the basic need? What is the desired outcome? Who stands to benefit and why?
Justify the need Is the effort aligned with our strategy? What are the desired benefits for the company, and how will we measure them?
How will we ensure that a solution is implemented? Contextualize the problem What approaches have we tried? What have others tried? What are the internal and external constraints on implementing a solution? Write the problem statement Is the problem actually many problems? Which problem solvers should we engage? What information and language should the problem statement include? What do solvers need to submit? Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here.
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