Charles Kettering, the famous inventor, once said: “A problem well stated is a problem half solved.” This implies that a good portion of problem solving should be devoted to a thorough understanding of what’s going on before any corrective action steps are taken.

In many cases, too much time is spent on proposing various solutions before the problem has been correctly defined. Observation is a powerful technique that can be used to help understand problems. Often, clues about how to solve a problem can come from simply observing the process. Following are a couple of examples.

One particular problem I was involved with concerned damaged product being received by an internal customer. A team had worked on the problem previously and had made the assumption that the root cause was due to shipping damage. They took measures to improve the packaging and better protect the product during shipment to the customer. This resulted in adding cost, but didn't protect the customer who continued to find defective product.

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