If we were to look at all life on this planet, be it humans or animals, the one common everyday
occurrence in everyone’s life is problems. These can be minute every day issues like waking up
and realising you are out of milk to make your morning tea, a student suddenly remembering she
forgot to complete her assignment which was due for submission today or it could be major issues
like a CEO planning merger of his firm or a national leader battling the issue of climate crisis.
Nearly all of us have subconsciously learned to navigate most of the small everyday challenges life
throws at us. But what is important is how effectively and how fast we resolve issues. Problem
solving involves using skills like time management, emotional control, working memory,
organization skills etc. A good problem-solving capacity also facilitates personal success and
professional success, whether you have your own business or have a job.
Problems can be of various types; they can be simple or complex; ill defined or well defined;
technical or socio-emotional etc. How one approaches a problem will depend on nature of
problem and resources at hand. A catchy acronym designed for problem solving is IDEAL:
I- Identify: the first step is to identify the crux of the problem. A student might face a problem that
he is not being able to solve his math sums correctly.
D- Define an outcome: by deciding an outcome first, once can work towards finding better
solutions. In our case, the outcome may be wanting to perform well in the maths test.
E- Explore possible strategies: review different steps that can take you to your goal. For eg, the
student can review the textbook, ask for math help from a friend, look up the problems online,
email or discuss with the teacher etc.
A- Anticipate Outcomes & Act: this step involves evaluating the pros and cons of whichever
method you chose to solve the problem. For eg, the student might find it easiest and most time
saving to start by reading from the textbook and will start preparing from that. He might be
apprehensive that asking the teacher or his friends might be embarrassing or he might not find
the relevant material online.
L- Look back and learn: this is a critical step in helping to stop and reflect when problem-solving
goes well and doesn’t go well. This learning from experience can make problem-solving more
efficient and effective in the future. Asking questions like “How did that go?” and “What should I
do differently next time?”. The student in our example might come to the conclusion that
although studying from textbook did not help much, asking his friend did. So he can start from
there the next time.
The principles of problem solving with applied effectively to everyday situations will help
everyone, be it students, housewives, employees, businessmen etc to save upon their time
and come up with more effective solutions faster.
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