bootstrap business seminar 1: finding what's broken 2015

Finding Problems@PSturrock

Cultivate Curiosity➡Get your head out of your screen➡Change your routine➡Turn up!➡Carry your pencil➡Make lists➡Take Pictures➡Sketch➡Eavesdrop➡Ask for stories

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd

spend 55 minutes thinking

about the problem and

5 minutes thinking about

solutions.”

What is a good problem?

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters”- Peter Thiel

Wicked Problems

1. Multiple stakeholders: can’t be clearly defined.

2. Multidimensional

3. No boundaries

4. Any solution is partial and temporary

GOOD PROBLEMS1.Important2.Protagonist3.Boundaries4.Endpoint5.Actionable

Interpretive Innovation

Lester, R.K. & Piore, M.J. (2006) Innovation: The Missing Dimension, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press

Analytic Innovation

Vague problemFuzzy goalsUnknown solutionOngoingConversational

Where do I find a good problem?

THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE

How do I find a good problem?

Cultivate Curiosity➡Get your head out of your screen➡Change your routine➡Turn up!➡Carry your pencil➡Make lists➡Take Pictures➡Sketch➡Eavesdrop➡Ask for stories

Photo Credit: www.flickr.com VinothChandar creativecommons.org

Look with Beginner’s Mind

“at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

John Keats

Negative Capability

Epistemic Curiosity

GE T O U T O F T HE BU I L D ING !

from Alan Klements

GOOD PROBLEMS1.Important2.Protagonist3.Boundaries4.Endpoint5.Actionable

Questions?

Thank You@PSturrock