The Six-Stage Problem Solving Process

Within the context of System Modeling, the six-stage problem solving process is used to explore a mess, determine a problem based on our customer's requirements, and then to solve that problem.  The problem solving process may, or may not, actually use a formal model for every problem.  The stages include both "divergent" and "convergent" styles of thought.  In divergent thinking stresses the generation of ideas, where convergent stresses evaluation of ideas to determine the best one.

Stage 1:  Exploring the Mess

When we receive a problem to be solved, it will more than likely be "ill-structured", in which the objective, assumptions, data and structure of the problem are all unclear (Powel, S., The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets, pg 20).  In order to explore this ill-structured problems requires primarily divergent thinking, but some convergent thinking as well.

divergent:  searching through the mess for some opportunity or problem to solve
convergent:  in a broad sense, deciding on what aspect of the mess to pursue

Stage 2:  Searching for Information

Again, stage 2 is primarily a divergent process.  Within this stage we now start searching for any information regarding the problem we chose in stage 1.  We examine the problem from different angles, and in the end we keep that data which is most important.

divergent:  gather data, observations from different viewpoints
convergent:  separate the most important data

Stage 3:  Identifying a Problem

Although we've made references to determining a problem in the first two steps, these steps are really sorting through the mess to determine a problem, but they don't yet address the specifics of that problem (i.e. the problem statement).  Stage 3 sees considerably more convergent thinking than the previous two stages.  We take the data we've mined in stage 2 and use this to determine example problem statements before eventually chosing one.

divergent:  consider several different problem statements
convergent:  decide on the one problem statement that we will focus on

Stage 4:  Searching for Solutions

Within this stage of the problem solving process, we start to search for solutions to our problem statement.  We must use both divergent & convergent thinking along the way.  Divergent thought is important in this stage, as we need to consider not just obvious solutions, but possibly solutions we may not have considered before.  As well, convergent thought is important as we narrow down the possible solutions to the one or few that are most likely.

divergent:  brainstorm, consult experts, possibly form sub-committee to determine many different solutions
convergent:  determine the most promising solution(s)

Stage 5:  Evaluating the Solutions

Within stage 5 we now must evaluate our possible solutions.  If we'd left stage 4 with two or three promising solutions, it's during this stage where we will reduce this to the best solution.  This stage uses primarily convergent thinking as we determine the evaluation criteria that is important to our proposed solutions.  However, some divergent thinking may be important as well, as we consider relevant data that just might not be obvious.

divergent:  determine criteria to be utilized for evaluation of solutions, even if not obvious
convergent:  use the most important criteria

Stage 6:  Implementing a Solution

Within the last stage of the problem solving process we focus on the actual implementation of our selected solution.  This stage primarily utilizes convergent thinking as we include change management.  Divergent thinking might include determining what barriers actually exist to implementing our solution.

divergent:  sources of resistance/assistance to implementation
convergent:  implement the solution

Powell, S & Baker, K, The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets, pgs 20 - 26