What do you do with a problem?
What do you do with a problem? Our chief responsibility in web development is solving difficult problems with software. However, there is a lot more that goes into problem-solving than simply building a solution. For instance, how do you even decide which solution is the right one?
To really solve someone’s problem you need to first understand it. More than that, you need to understand the problem behind the problem. Clients and customers will often come to you asking to build the solution they’ve conceived on their own. One of the things you need to do is extract from them what business problems they’re trying to solve. Often times the best solution is not what they’ve asked for. Your next problem, then, is educating and guiding your client/customer to the best solution for their actual needs.
If you’ve completed more than one project you know that problems are a recurring thing we must face in development. They are not limited to defining the start of a project. As you get into a solution you’ll encounter new challenges and roadblocks. It is paramount, in these moments, that your problem-sensing and problem-solving skills stay sharp.
More often than not, your ability to predict and avoid – or confront and subdue – mid-project problems are what will establish your reputation as the best person to contact for a project. To that end, we will also address how we can keep roadblocks from consuming us or affecting overall productivity. Better still, we’ll also discuss how to take the problems we encounter and turn them into opportunities.
What You’ll Learn
- How to embrace your problem-solving role
- Ways to improve your problem-sensing skills
- New ways to define and understand problems
- How to anticipate and plan for problems
- Proven, in-the-moment strategies for when you feel stuck
- Methods for bringing problems to clients’ attention
- How to turn perceived problems into opportunities