How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discovery: Right away I was intrigued with the idea that simplicity was the answer to my problems. After having issues trying to determine my team’s direction for project 4, I thought this talk might foreshadow the direction my thinking needed to go in. By the end of the talk I was already thinking about how my team needed to go back to the basics before we tried to tackle the complex problem that had been given to us.
Over my years at Sauder, I have become accustomed to jumping right into my projects and trying to solve a problem without even stepping back and asking some basic questions. The first question I seem to forget so often is: Why are we doing this? I am usually given a problem and expected to solve it in a short period of time. As students we seem to never be expected to step back and define the problem ourselves. As we transition from students to employees we are going to have to overcome this hurdle.
Adam Savage uses a couple of examples to illustrate this idea of starting from the basics to solve a complex problem. He describes how years ago, without advanced technology, the speed of light was calculated. It was not done in a complex way; it was solved using what was already known to be true.
I think it is amazing to see that real life problems can be solved in such a way. One of our earlier projects in Design Thinking was creating a business canvas for a start up company. We were forced to step back and look at all the pieces of the puzzle before we were allowed to jump in and give solutions to the problem. It was breaking down the company into smaller manageable chunks that made us see the whole picture. We looked at the basics and mapped out what we saw. From mapping the company on paper we then were able to make connections that allowed us to formulate the problem. This in turn allowed us to see possible solutions to the problem that applied to this specific situation.
In project 4, where we work with a company to help them achieve their climate smart objectives, my team has been struggling to step back and look at what problem we are trying to solve. Our client keeps giving us solutions that they want us to explore, which has made it difficult for us to breakdown the business to clearly define the problem.
I think over the years people have become so reliant on having an instant solution to their problems that they are unable to step back and see the whole issue from a more simplistic perspective. Having this more simplistic perspective and not being afraid to fail before you come to the right solution is necessary in order to be successful in the business world. I think we will come up with more innovative and creative solutions if we can see the problem from a more simplistic perspective rather than being so overwhelmed by its complexity that we end up struggling with where to start.