Breaking Big Problems Into Small Problems

Big business problems are overwhelming. Using a logic map to break a big problem into its smaller components can give you the clarity and understanding you need to solve it.

At one point, I worked with a financial services firm and we had a program where we were making offers to consumers. When that program first launched, we were making about $5 million a year. The problem was, after a few months, we started losing $5 million a year. This was a huge issue and there were a lot of things that could have contributed to it. So we used the problem-solving process to get a better understanding of the issues that were really driving the problem before we rushed off to solve it. We broke the problem down by using what’s called a logic map. We looked at technology, training, systems, hiring, and processes. The good news is, once we broke the problem down, we identified the core issue. We followed the rest of the problem-solving process and turned that program around from losing $5 million a year to actually making $20 million a year a few years after that.

Let me walk you through what a logic map is and how you can use it to break down your own problem solving. Let’s imagine we have a problem where profits are down. In the logic map, what we’re going to do is take profits and break it down into its component parts of revenue and cost. By doing so, what we’ve done is taken a larger problem and broken it down into smaller components. But those are still large issues to try and solve, so let’s use the logic map to break it down even further. We’ll break revenues down into volume and price and further break down our volume into current customers and prospective customers. We’ve taken a really large item that we wouldn’t be able to solve easily and broken it down into smaller parts that are going to be much easier to figure out.

To make your logic map complete, you can’t stop there because we want to identify what all the possible issues are. So we need to look at the cost side of things. In terms of costs, maybe we’re buying more or we’re paying more for the things that we’re buying. And in terms of paying more, that’s potentially an issue where we’re getting fewer discounts or base prices have gone up. By breaking that logic map down and saying we had a profit issue, and really walking it all the way through the smaller and smaller components, the problem gets a lot easier to solve.

There are multiple ways you can break your logic maps down. It’s not always about revenues and costs. Sometimes you’ll break it down and it’s a sales problem. You see you have product A, B and C and that may be the first level of your logic map. Or, you may break things down in terms of short-term, medium-term and long-term challenges. Just break your problem down logically and blow it out to a level where you can start seeing some of the smaller solutions emerge.

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