“Ah ha, now I get it!” …
Not really, what usually happens is quite different.
I have actually had what could be called a few real breakthroughs in my scientific career. Nothing that is going to generate true fame; you will not see my name in text books fifty years from now. But I have gotten a few awards for my work. Some of these breakthroughs fall into the realm of scientific understanding some are more like engineering inventions. Pretty good work, but then that is what I have been paid to do.
These days I am being paid to help others achieve the breakthroughs. I was recently asked by a young scientist just how to achieve such breakthroughs. Honestly, I was a little stumped how to answer. I had never really thought about how to put the answer into words. To me, the breakthrough was not something you controlled or planned. It was something that happened while you worked on solving a problem. But the question made me give some serious thought about my past experiences. And there was a pattern that in retrospect could perhaps actually be made a more conscious part of problem solving for many people. Thinking about it, I realize that it is something I do that I am not sure others do. But it has always been part of how I have approached problems and has always been a part of the breakthroughs I have achieved.
There is a major push within the corporation I work for to utilize Six Sigma methodologies. There is much that is good about Six Sigma and the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) problem solving approach that is part of Six Sigma. But I take issue when people blindly follow process steps and then stop thinking about data and observation when trying to solve a problem. When I gave serious consideration to how to answer the young scientist, I thought not only about how I had successfully solved problems but also how I had seen others struggle to solve problems. What I came to realize was that more often than not, those that struggled did so because once they defined the problem they never reconsidered whether they fully understood the problem when they stated the question. Further, I came to realize that my own approach to problem solving is to continuously question the statement of the problem I am trying to solve. I question the statement of the problem so much that it is an unconscious part of my approach. As an aside, I now understand why I get is so many disagreements (arguments?) with Six Sigma facilitators when I work with them 
. Every breakthrough has occurred when I realized I was not asking the question correctly.
So bottom line, when you start to solve a problem you should remember that not only do you need to learn the answer; you have to learn how to properly state the question. When you can to both, you will have truly solved the problem.
Is Still Here
This is a fascinating post, one that got my own puzzler to puzzle (that’s the extent of my cool science speak.)
In my own industry, obviously not science, I too was forced to come up with solutions/breakthroughs and often had success.
When I read your method, I realized I did NOT follow that pattern at all. What I did was as follows: I gathered as much evidence, clues, facts, opinions as I could related to the issue at hand. The most diverse the better.
Next, I did NOTHING. I merely sat in the presence of all that stuff staring at it all and let it seep into my conscious and unconcious mind.
Eventually, sometimes pretty darn fast, an answer was just there, like it had always been there, and hadn’t I been stupid not to see it!
Thanks for a great post. May both of our methods, and everyone else’s that work, happily reign!
It is amazing how the right answer to the right question is usually so simple. When you have to do a Kabuki dance to explain things, you most likely have not arrived at a final solution to your problem.
I agree that rephrasing the question often leads to valuable insights. But I find that the best answers come at random, like Kekule’s dream of the benzene structure. The most important aspect to problem solving — scientific or otherwise, for me, is trusting that my mind will solve it. Sometimes I get the answer in the middle of meditation, or washing dishes, or even during a conversation about something else.
Thanks for the input. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to my initial feeling of being stumped how to answer the young scientist! I guess we each have our own best way to solve problems.
But I also suspect that if more of us would speak up, there would be a lot more disagreements with the Six Sigma facilitators.