problems that need to be solved

100+ global problems worth solving

Of course this list is far from being complete. It’s just a tiny start.

CONTRIBUTE And you can add to this list of “global problems worth solving” on our Google Drive . Feel free to add yourself to the contributor list. Do not spam it – please. We will update this post once in a while.

(1) Building a platform that collects problems, anybody can contribute and be curated by the community.

ENVIRONMENT

(2) Inventing new material or techniques to replace plastic (3) Inventing new techniques, and materials to replace paper (4)Inventing new techniques and products, recycling any given material (5) Inventing new materials replacing plastic bottles and cups (6) Creating new ways to package food (100’s of varieties of food) environmentally friendly (7) Finding artificial, yet environmentally friendly replacement for wood to reduce deforestation (8) Inventing new motors that neither use electricity nor fuel

(9) Finding ways to augment education in conventional schools and universities with highly relevant education (10) Creating social education programs that can run in parallel to schools, universities or jobs (11) Offering classes for undergrads, how to get successful and rich (12) Providing better base education programs on political know how (13) Providing better education programs on the general concept of economies (14) Providing better education on how wars are started and how peace is achieved and maintained today (15) Creating more tangible lifelong learning concepts (16) Creating more universally applicable career guidance mechanisms or platforms (17) Creating solutions to shift from an “all learn – all work” model to a more balance model

(18) Exploring new ways to generally reduce and safe energy (19) Providing a more transparent and plausible energy consumption prediction for the scenario that most people on earth are out of poverty, living in newly developed countries (20) New ways to harvest energy from bio thermal energy sources (21) New ways to harvest solar energy (22) New ways to harvest hydro energy (23) Finding ways to transmit energy created on the moon, down to earth (24) Identifying new ways to harvest energy from unidentified sources (25) Finding all new ways to store electric energy in bigger volume and less in size and weight (26) Smart energy re-distribution for those who produce excess energy that can be provided to others

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY

(27) Lower cost reliable Internet connections (28) Independent and reliable “News & Information Publishing” organization (29) Better, social media integrated search engines (30) All new and modern operating systems (31) Fully integrated business application tools (32) Meteorology technology provider not only for weather forecasts but for everything agricultural (33) Generally available intelligent traffic lights, connected to a traffic flow system, but autonomous features (34) Low cost mini satellites to explore earth and space, provide data hubs, accessibility and more (35) Omnipresent, inexpensive and easy mobile payment system (36) Building robots for all kinds of dedicated tasks such as cleaning shoes, planting crops, cleaning windows, etc. (37) The whole range of wearable products counting, watching, recording, measuring all kinds of things underway (38) Situation dependent automatically changing materials to turn a lofty t-shirt into a rain covering shirt (39) Smart materials that change their behavior based on environmental conditions i.e, taking the carbon out of carbon dioxide and returning the dioxide back to air (40) Smart Contract development for cryptocurrency agnostic blockchain like media (41) Universal low voltage power connection system that handles everything from a single wall plug to staggering distribution (42) Creating universal ultra small IOT devices that allows any product to be programmed by a smartphone including remote controls, refrigerators, heaters, air conditioner, lights – anything. One interface for any product in the future. (43) New better zipper that do not stuck, break or derail WATER & SANITATION

(44) New ways to get to clean water (45) Better ways to turn salt water into sweet water (46) New ways to manage waste water in rural areas (47) Cheaper ways to produce sanitation products i.e. toilets (48) All new toilette models alleviating paper use (49) More efficient ways for flushing toilets than using precious water (50) New product for cleaning replacing bathtubs and showers or make their use a less used luxury (51) More water consumption sensitive products such as water cranes, showers, garden watering systems

FOOD & DIET 

(52) New ways to offer unified insights into the ingredients of food in any supermarket (53) Ways to eradicate factory farming (mass animal farming) (54) More scientifically proven and generally understood advice to a healthy diet (55) New ways to provide food portions in smaller sizes to stimulate reduction of food consumption and reduction of food waste RESEARCH, DATA & INFORMATION

(56) Finding new ways to research all the facts and sources of climate change (57) Finding new ways to deal with climate change and leverage the development so far (58) Finding ways to predict climate change more precisely for the next 50 years and provide meaningful indications for the agricultural industry (59) Better ways to organize research in general, creating more unbiased data. (60) Catalog of things that could be done with AI and inspires developer (61) An AI development system that could be used by virtually anybody (62) Research for a more rational view of the evolving powers of Artificial Intelligence (63) Creating algorithms that focus on environmental dependencies of new technologies (64) Identify new ways that help certain countries to get off of the data protection hysteria (65) New suggestions for data privacy models that give more power to the individual (66) Developing ways to deal with the general risk of eradicating life through asteroids (67) Developing scenarios to evacuate earth if needed, even though we would probably take 1,000 years to find the technical possibilities. (68) New tools and platforms to interact with governments and communities (69) New apps that cover all of the problems, allow to contribute in all kinds of ways and see reports (70) 3-D printing companies, producing unique products, spare-parts, artificial organs, and more (71) Cyber security improvements to significantly reduce or even alleviate hack attacks (72) Data ownership mechanisms, rules and technology that makes sure that personal data are controllable by its owner

(73) Providing better technology for customer experience management (74) Providing a new value system for corporate balance sheets involving employee contribution (75) Providing new ways to offer equity to highly innovative employees (76) Develop new systems that can track the degree of innovation development (77) Design new systems for customer interaction with corporations (78) Design new corporate employee education systems including lifelong learning (79) Create a fortune 100,000 leader board with indexes addressing environmental, employee and other key aspects (80) Creating all new insurance business models that provide much more contract transparency and easier to deal with (81) Online grocery stores with home delivery like a few in Germany or Switzerland (82) New media business models, disrupting the user unfriendly monopolies (83) Much easier booking systems for public transportation anywhere in the world (84) Creating systems that alleviate waiting (in line, at doctors, at shops, at bus stops….)

(85) More effective ways to deal with birth control in times where we help more people to survive (86) Starting large scale research that can only be done with tens of thousands of supporters (87) Finding better ways to deal with migration, integration and return mechanisms (88) Finding ways to replace prisons with socially effective methods of societal reintegration (89) Finding new policies to deal with people ignoring the generally accepted rules of societal coexistence (90) Finding solutions to get to a broader reach of well being for all humans (91) Developing new political concepts or new varieties of democracy that is more applicable in today’s world (92) Developing new job concepts for people who work on social or macro economic solutions to be financed (93) Developing new concepts for city creation addressing the bigger problems of today’s cities (94) Developing new and holistic ways to reduce traffic congestion in larger cities (95) Developing new logistical concepts to bring the huge amount of products directly to the citizens (96) Developing new techniques to transport the remaining waste to the designated areas without the current waste disposal chain (97) Finding new methods to alleviate corruption in government and other large organizations (98) Finding new mechanisms to make governments more accountable, providing rewards and punishment solutions based on their achievements relative to their promises

(99) New ways to provide a more balanced healthcare for the various developed nations (100) New ways to provide healthcare in the first place for developing nations (101) New ways for mental health care (102) New ways to produce cheaper medicine or secure living without medicine

This list of “global problems worth solving” will sooner or later grow much bigger. We are looking forward to your inputs.

Leave a Reply

Leave a reply cancel reply.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

So sorry for the repeat information. Yes we are using cookies and you need to agree to continue.

Cookie and Privacy Settings

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

14 Problems in the World — And Their Potential Solutions

This article is presented in partnership with project hope.

Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian organization, working side-by-side with local health workers and communities to save lives and improve the health and well-being of people around the world.

→ Learn more about Project HOPE

Chances are, if you’re a human being living in the world as part of this vast, diverse global community, you care about other people.

When crises strike, and you are heartbroken by the news — whether the culprit is climate disasters , health inequalities , or violent conflict — there’s a little spark inside you that desperately wishes things were different.

Then, you might feel frozen. 

These massive issues are indeed massive. They are big, overwhelming, and often the cause of huge systems — like colonialism, racism, sexism, and more — that many of us had no hand in building. But we do have a hand in dismantling them, and many of these large-scale problems are deeply intertwined with that work — and with each other.

The good news? That means we can solve them.

And solving global issues — or at least confronting them more proactively — starts with knowing about them.

Of course, we’re not asking everyone to become a world-class expert in income inequality or water and sanitation, but it helps to know about the issues we face so we can be part of the solution.

Here is a list of some of the major challenges of our time — and what is being done to change things.

Global Challenges & Their Solutions

Poverty is not only a lack of income or resources to live a safe, sustainable life. It intersects with so many other challenges and leads to outcomes like food and water insecurity, health concerns, little to no access to education, and more. 

According to the most recent estimates from the United Nations , as of 2015, 10% of the world’s population was in extreme poverty — living on less than $1.90 a day. 

The largest areas of the world facing extreme poverty are Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and the COVID-19 pandemic only made this issue worse, putting millions more below the international poverty line. 

While progress has certainly been made in eliminating extreme poverty, projections still show a major percentage of the world’s population in extreme poverty by 2030. 

Aside from extreme poverty, about 60% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 US per day . Additionally, the UN shares that about four billion people — a little over half of the global population — do not benefit from any form of social protection or support. 

Possible Solutions:

• Universal basic income
• Robust social safety nets
• Ending social marginalization
• Investments in equitable education
• Increased access to food and clean water
• Ending civil wars and armed conflict 

Why We Have Hope:

• The number of people in extreme poverty, while still too many, has fallen every decade . 
• Organizations and communities are working together to fight period poverty and hygiene poverty .
• New opportunities in the green economy open doors to financial security in areas across Africa and South Asia. 

Climate Change

It’s hard to sum up the seriousness of the climate crisis in just a few paragraphs. Scientists and leaders around the globe know that the planet is in grave trouble, giving us specific windows and countdowns to reverse the damage of climate change and save the world.

It’s a big ask. 

Whether climate change comes in the form of biodiversity loss, extreme weather events, resource depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, damages to human health, or any number of scary and persistent realities, repairing and restoring the planet should be our top priority.

Seriously, the United Nations calls climate change “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” 

But before your climate anxiety rears its angry head (stay angry, just maybe a little less anxious!), it’s important to note that huge progress is being made. 

Whether it’s major corporations beginning to shift their unsustainable practices in alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals , governments investing in renewable energy or wildlife protections , or simply larger and more accessible cultural awareness about how to be better stewards of the Earth, we can face this.

• Pro-climate policy change
• Access to clean energy for all
• Promotion of sustainable economic growth (perhaps through Doughnut Economics )
• Wildlife conservation
• Ending reliance on fossil fuels
• Halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation
• Landback initiatives
• Social equality and justice
• The renewable energy sector is on track to hit net-zero goals by 2030 .
• Technological developments are working to protect wildlife and monitor human activity at sea .
• The U.S. has passed the largest and most comprehensive climate bill in the country’s history — and climate activists are just getting started.

→ Read more climate good news

Health Inequality

Regardless of whether it manifests as chronic disease, curable illnesses with vastly expensive treatments, or life-threatening epidemics, health inequality is central to the challenges of the global community.

Shaped by poverty and climate change, as well, health inequality leads to a lack of access to basic essentials, medicine, and economic opportunities, especially in developing countries.

While life expectancy has increased cumulatively in the last century, many countries still face high rates of disease and maternal and child mortality. 

Haiti continues to face cholera outbreaks. In Sierra Leone, one in 20 women die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth . And the World Health Organization calculates that 10 million people across the globe fall ill with Tuberculosis — a preventable and treatable disease — every year.

That being said, there is a lot to celebrate. As technological improvements, distribution of care, and funding dollars increase, there is hope for the future of global health.

• Clean drinking water and sanitation across the globe
• Improved nutrition and sustainable agriculture
• Equitable access to healthcare
• Equitable resources for healthcare providers to succeed
• Doctors are using AI to more effectively diagnose and treat tuberculosis. 
• Namibia is ahead of schedule in goals to eliminate HIV/AIDS .
• Women in Sierra Leone are getting degrees in neonatal nursing to expand care.

→ Read more health good news

War & Conflict

With violent conflict, wars, and terrorist insurgencies popping up around the globe in places like Sudan , Ukraine , Afghanistan , Somalia , and more, peace feels more and more distant by the day.

Often a result of economic, political, religious, or cultural strife, war is not only detrimental to the soldiers and veterans on the front lines, but also for the civilians, economies, lands, and cultures impacted by violence.

In fact, experts estimate that 90% of wartime casualties are innocent civilians . As of August 2023, at least 940,000 people have been killed by direct war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan. 

The number of people who have been wounded or fallen ill as a result of war is much higher, and these calculations do not include people who have died as a result of destruction, contamination, poverty, or other war-related issues. 

The human cost of war cannot be underestimated, and the need for peace is paramount.

• Stopping terrorism
• Strengthening democracy
• Protecting free speech and access to information
• Peace negotiations and treaties
• Economic penalties for aggressors
• Disarmament
• This nonprofit turns firearms into gardening tools .
• An organization in Ukraine is creatively problem-solving to house civilians who have been displaced within the country due to war.
• A Civil War expert has outlined how to keep America from civil war .

→ Read more good news in response to war and conflict

Displacement

As of the end of 2022, 108.4 million people have been forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

Of that number, 35.3 million are refugees, 62.5 million are internally displaced, 5.4 million are asylum seekers, and another 5.2 million are in need of international protection. 

What’s even more staggering is that over half of those people come from just three countries: Syria, Ukraine, and Afghanistan. As neighboring countries become generous hosts , others impose strict immigration policies , and more complex challenges present themselves.

Aside from the stress of war, conflict or whatever else may have caused someone to flee their home, they are met with barriers like financial and housing issues, language barriers, lack of access to education or healthcare, and even prejudice and racism. 

The trauma of fleeing is often met with the trauma of resettling , which causes further harm and stress for those most in need of safety and stability.

• Strong resettlement support systems
• Safe routes to sanctuary
• The end of trafficking, looting, and violence for refugees seeking asylum
• The end of racism and xenophobia
• Improved international relations and diplomacy 
• This organization is finding creative solutions to housing Ukraine’s internally displaced communities
• A Somali refugee now leads the clinic she visited as a child
• Ukrainian refugee psychologists in Poland are providing mental health help to their peers, which provides them with job opportunities

→ Read more refugee good news

Food Insecurity

According to the World Bank, approximately 9.2% of the world’s population faced hunger in 2022 . Moderate or severe food insecurity impacted 29.6% of the global population in 2022. That’s 2.4 billion people.

Hunger has compounding impacts on health, economic well-being, education, and sustainable development. The bottom line? If you can’t nourish your body and mind, you can’t do much else. 

Whether caused by climate change, wealth inequality and poverty, inflation, supply chain issues, war, or all of the above, food insecurity impacts people across the globe at staggering rates. 

In fact, the United Nations currently shares that we are not on track to reach the goal of Zero Hunger , as part of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, by 2030. 

That said, people are working hard to turn things around. 

• Assistance from initiatives like the World Food Program  
• Sustainable agriculture
• Climate resilience
• Gender equality — especially focusing on the women who make up 45% of the global agricultural workforce
• Decreased food waste
• Wealth redistribution
• Tech startups are doing their part to help feed families and connecting hungry folks to resources with ease
• A teen is fighting food insecurity with hydroponic gardens in communities in Israel and the U.S. 
• Government involvement works! Governments and nonprofits likely kept millions of Americans from food insecurity during COVID-19

→ Read more food good news

Water & Sanitation Insecurity

WASH — or water, sanitation, and hygiene systems — are crucial to the health and development of a country. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control , 2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water at home, 3.6 billion people lack access to safely managed sanitation services, and 2.3 billion lack basic hygiene services, like soap and water, at home — and 670 million have no access to hand-washing facilities at all. 

In addition to the universal detriment to health and safety that comes as a result of WASH insecurity, there is also a large-scale impact on gender equality as well.

A lack of adequate sanitation for girls and women impacts menstrual health and often keeps them from attending school. Additionally, women and girls are more likely to be responsible for collecting water for their families, also making it difficult for them to attend school.

• Nature-based solutions like wetland restoration, mangrove conservation, and preserving of flood plains
• Installation of clean water and sanitation systems in areas of need
• Automation of water treatment and processing
• Proper disposal of contaminants
• Cape Town, South Africa solved its water crisis through community collaboration
• Vending machines in Nairobi provide cheap, clean water in impoverished areas
• Activists are working to ensure that the Navajo Nation has access to clean water

→ Read more good water news

Mental Health

There has been a 13% rise in mental health conditions and substance use disorders worldwide over the past decade, and the WHO estimates that one in eight people in the world live with a mental health condition . 

While mental disorders include a wide variety of conditions and experiences, most all can have a substantial impact on all areas of life, like school or work performance, relationships, and community. Unequal access to healthcare further exacerbates these challenges, as well.

The WHO estimates that depression and anxiety cost the global economy $1 trillion each year. Despite the widespread nature of mental health struggles, the global median of government health expenditures on mental health is less than 2%. 

• Investment in the improvement and availability of mental healthcare
• Widespread access to effective treatment and care
• De-stigmatization of mental health conditions
• Improved treatment of mental health conditions through effective research
• Implementation of prevention programs
• Improved living conditions on every level
• Lawmakers are increasing mental health funding
• Advancements like telemedicine and equitable insurance coverage are making mental healthcare more accessible
• Passionate advocates are doing their part to fund mental health research  

→ Read more good news about mental health

Gender Inequality

It’s certainly no secret that gender plays a major role in how likely you are to succeed and thrive in the world. Gender inequality encompasses all kinds of compounding issues, like economic opportunity, education, health and survival, and political empowerment, to better understand where women and girls require more support.

About 2.4 billion women of working age are not afforded equal economic opportunity, and 178 countries maintain legal barriers that prevent their full economic participation, according to the World Bank .

Worldwide, 130 million girls are out of school , also according to the World Bank. While enrollment rates and parity with male peers are rising, completion of schooling is still low among girls around the globe. 

As far as health and survival, women’s health actually declined in 2021 , including sobering data from the pandemic, as well as consistently abysmal maternal health statistics worldwide. This is, of course, not to mention, the increasingly dangerous terrain of reproductive justice in the U.S. and beyond. 

Lastly, although women are increasingly present in political conversations, they still pale in comparison to their male peers. As of the beginning of 2023, 11.3% of countries have women Heads of State , and 9.8% have women Heads of Government, according to the UN. 

• The end of political persecution of women
• The end of child marriage and sexual harassment
• Expanded economic opportunities — especially in the green economy
• Women’s leadership widely supported
• Protected and expanded access to women’s healthcare
• Removal of barriers to success, like clean water and menstrual hygiene
• Equal human rights and freedoms allowed for all, no matter their gender
• Women are improving their own health outcomes by entering the medical field in countries like Rwanda and Sierra Leone
• This NGO aims to educate 5 million girls in Africa by 2030
• More women are becoming entrepreneurs than ever before

→ Read more good news about women

Children’s Rights

Children make up about a third of the total human population, and although their human rights — like the right to speak out and express opinions, and the rights to equality, health, education, clean environment, and a safe place to live — are protected in the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), many still face harm. 

(By the way, the UNCRC is the most ratified human rights treaty in the world, and only one member of the UN’s 197 member states hasn’t ratified it — the United States.)

These harms include physical, sexual, or emotional violence or neglect; child labor violations; child marriage; genital mutilation; the recruitment into armed conflict; and more. 

In fact, about 1 billion children between the ages of two and 17 are estimated to have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence or neglect in 2015, according to the WHO. 152 million children are engaged in child labor , according to World Vision. And, according to UNICEF, 41% of girls in least-developed countries are married before the age of 18 . 

• End child marriage
• Enable strict consequences for the violation of child labor laws
• Invest in and support policies to protect children
• Ensure access to necessities like clean water, food, and education for all children
• Eradicate poverty 
• Reduce violent conflict
• And if you’re the United States… ratify the UNCRC
• This startup helps people turn their wedding gifts into educational opportunities for girls in need as a way to end child marriage
• Ukrainian refugee children are finding normalcy and development through playrooms in Moldova
• The world has experienced a 59% decline in deaths of children under five since 1990

→ Read more human rights good news

Disability Rights

The WHO estimates that 1.3 billion people in the world — or one in every six people — have a disability .

While having a disability in itself isn’t a bad thing or a moral failing by any means, it significantly impacts one’s quality of life and social status. 

Disabled folks face many health inequities that arise from unfair conditions like stigma, discrimination, poverty, social exclusion, a lack of education and employment opportunities, and barriers in the health system.

Additionally, disabled people have twice the risk of developing other conditions, such as depression, asthma, diabetes, and more. Plus, the world is simply not built with disabled folks in mind. For example, disabled folks might find inaccessible transportation up to 15 times more difficult to navigate than able-bodied people. 

• Universal and accessible design in cities and buildings
• Improved access and affordability of healthcare
• De-stigmatization of disabled people and disabilities in general
• Policies that ensure equal opportunity in both education and employment
• Widespread willingness to provide modifications and/or accommodations to disabled folks
• Removal of social, physical, communication, and attitudinal barriers
• “Disability doulas” are helping people with newly diagnosed disabilities
• These popular pharmacy mascot dolls are giving disabled textile workers more career mobility 
• Disability activists are making social media a more diverse and educational place

LGBTQ+ Rights

As of 2022, 68 countries criminalize homosexuality worldwide . Most of them are located in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, and four countries even have legislation that imposes the death penalty for sexual relations between people of the same sex. 

Of course, this is an egregious violation of human rights, and all LGBTQ+ folks should be free to love who they love, without the fear of persecution, violence, or death.

Even in the United States, where LGBTQ+ folks have many more freedoms than queer folks in other countries, these freedoms are under attack. In 2023, the ACLU tracked nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in state legislatures across the country, many of which aimed to criminalize transgender people or gender-affirming care. 

While, globally, the average level of acceptance for LGBTQ+ people has increased since 1980 — especially in western Europe, North America, and Australia — 57 countries and locations have still experienced a decline in acceptance during that time, according to the UCLA Williams Institute. 

• Decriminalization of homosexuality (or any LGBTQ+ identity)
• Improved social acceptance of LGBTQ+ folks
• Creation of agencies and initiatives that protect and improve the well-being of LGBTQ+ people
• Increased nondiscriminatory healthcare services, economic security, and financial stability across the board
• Creation of safe, inclusive, welcoming, and affirming schools for LGBTQ+ youth
• Greater access to safe and stable housing for LGBTQ+ folks
• This nonprofit helps LGBTQ+ people flee persecution  
• Transgender fiber artists are using quilts to help tell their stories
• LGBTQ+ legislators in the United States are working hard to protect trans rights

→ Read more good LGBTQ+ news

Education Inequality

A lack of access to education is a large pillar of gender inequality across the globe. According to UNICEF, nearly one in three adolescent girls from the poorest households around the world has never set foot in a classroom. 

And we know it matters! According to the World Bank, one additional school year can increase a woman’s earnings by 10-20% . 

While global literacy rates have exponentially increased in the last century, education is still widely unequal, and primary school attendance remains a challenge, especially among developing countries. 

Another UN Sustainable Development Goal, ‘ Every Child Learns ,’ aims to provide equitable access to learning opportunities, improved learning and skills for all, and improved learning and protection for children in emergencies and crises. 

• Reduced cost of education
• Free or reduced meals for students at school
• Improved resources and pay for teachers
• Improved access to necessities like water and hygiene
• Flexible modes of learning through technology and modern teaching models
• Increased accessibility for disabled students
• A new program, partly created by Hank Green, is helping to make getting college credits more accessible and affordable
• This school on wheels provides tutoring to students experiencing homelessness
• A school in Uganda is fusing Indigenous and financial education in a new, innovative approach

→ Read more good news about education

Homelessness & Housing Insecurity 

While it is difficult to track, the UN estimates that there are approximately 1.6 billion people living in inadequate housing worldwide , with around 15 million being forcibly evicted each year. 

Whether caused by war or conflict, climate disaster, skyrocketing cost of living, or the lack of affordable housing in an area, homelessness touches nearly every region of the world. 

Poverty and homelessness are closely linked , contributing to a cycle of instability that makes it difficult to find and keep work. Homelessness also impacts personal and public health concerns , occasionally leading to the spreading of disease, substance abuse, and poor mental health.

Countries that have successfully confronted homelessness include those like Finland , which have implemented a Housing First approach. 

• Implementation of Housing First policies
• Sustainable building models and city planning
• Improved crisis response
• Permanent supportive housing for vulnerable populations
• Increased employment and income opportunities
• An African startup is using plastic waste to build affordable housing
• This TikTok-viral Sleep Trailer invention aims to provide affordable and transitional housing
• Creative housing solutions are bringing affordable housing to cities all around the globe

→ Read more housing good news

The world faces an array of challenges; but we also have the solutions.

Article Details

Less than 100 of these wildcats remain, but innovative conservation efforts spark hope

12 Ways to Celebrate Disability Pride Month

Want to stay up-to-date on positive news.

The best email in your inbox. Filled with the day’s best good news.

• About Good Good Good
• Privacy Policy & Terms
• Take Action
• Subscriber Account
• Affiliate Program

Join the Good News Community

For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser .

The World’s Biggest Problems Are Interconnected. Here’s How We Can Solve Them This Decade

T wo decades ago, people around the world rang in the new millennium with a growing sense of optimism. The threat posed by the Cold War was fading slowly in the rearview mirror. Leading thinkers like Francis Fukuyama touted the benefits of globalization , saying it would bring democracy and prosperity to the developing world. The nascent Internet economy promised to bring us closer together.

The following 20 years took some of the air out of the assumption of steady progress, but when future historians assess the 21st century, the year 2020 is likely to serve as the point at which the optimism bubble burst. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a complex web of interlocking problems that have morphed into full-blown crises. The coronavirus laid bare the dangers of endemic poverty not only in the developing world but also in rich countries like the U.S., where millions lack health care and are one paycheck away from living on the street. Around the world, racial and ethnic minorities have demanded justice after centuries of structural discrimination. Woven through it all, the earth’s climate is increasingly unstable, posing an existential threat to human society as we know it. In the next decade, societies will be forced to either confront this snarl of challenges, or be overwhelmed by them. Our response will define the future for decades to come.

The recognition that these challenges are fundamentally linked isn’t new. Activists and academics have for many years pointed to the cascading effects of various social ills. Whether it’s the way racism contributes to poor health outcomes or gender discrimination harms economic growth , the examples are seemingly endless. But this understanding has made its way into the conversation about solutions too.

Notably, for the past five years, the U.N. has touted 17 interrelated sustainable development goals, objectives for building a more viable world, and called for a push to achieve them by 2030. The goals, which cover environmental, social and economic progress, are nonbinding but have become key benchmarks for commitments at a national and corporate level. Countries from China to the Maldives, as well as companies like Amazon , Microsoft and PwC, have committed to rolling out policies over the next decade that will set them on a path to eliminate their carbon footprints.

The understanding that these problems require holistic solutions has only grown amid the pandemic and its fallout. President Joe Biden has referred to four urgent crises—the pandemic, the economic crisis, racial injustice and climate change—and promised a push to tackle them all together. The European Union’s program to propel the bloc out of the COVID-19 crisis targets climate change, while incorporating equity concerns. As stock markets soared last year, institutions with trillions of dollars in assets demanded that their investments deliver not only a good return for their wallets but also a good return for society.

All these developments and many more have created new opportunities for bold ideas . These new ways of thinking will come from government leaders, to be sure, but also from activists, entrepreneurs and academics. Here, our eight inaugural members of the 2030 committee offer their own specific solutions—and in them, perhaps, the seeds of 21st century optimism.

This appears in the February 1, 2021 issue of TIME.

More Must-Reads from TIME

• Welcome to the Noah Lyles Olympics
• Melinda French Gates Is Going It Alone
• What to Do if You Can’t Afford Your Medications
• How to Buy Groceries Without Breaking the Bank
• Sienna Miller Is the Reason to Watch  Horizon
• Why So Many Bitcoin Mining Companies Are Pivoting to AI
• The 15 Best Movies to Watch on a Plane
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Write to Justin Worland at [email protected]

Pocket-lint

50 incredibly clever solutions to modern problems.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

How to personalize Garmin watch faces to your style and needs

Save $400 off a fold 5 or $200 off a sony bravia tv with the best early prime day deals, 5 reasons i'd buy the new beats pill over jbl's iconic flip 6.

Human beings have all sorts of problems, some are worse than others, but we're always coming up with new ideas and solutions to make our lives easier.

Some of these solutions are simpler than others, some are for problems you didn't even know existed.

We've collected some brilliant designs from around the world that will certainly make you think.

Practice roads

This is a playground in Copenhagen designed to help children learn how to interact with traffic. Particularly how to ride their bikes with road sense and to deal with various types of pedestrian crossing.

Satellites hunting ocean waste

We all know there's a problem with microplastic waste in the ocean. Now scientists from the University of Michigan are putting NASA's satellites to work tracking the issue .

They're using multiple satellites that are usually used to track wind and speed movement over the ocean and using that data to work out where microplastics are most likely to congregate as a result.

Plastic as payment

One major problem we have in modern society is the issue of plastic pollution. Greenpeace estimates there are 12.7 million tonnes of plastic in our oceans and we aren't doing enough to recycle our waste. There are some interesting solutions to these sorts of problems, one of the most eyebrow-raising of which actually started in China several years back.

In 2013 , an initiative began which saw the installation of special machines in the various subway stations in Beijing. These machines allowed travellers to pay with plastic. Passengers could deposit plastic bottles and receive credit towards their subway fares. A simple, yet effective way to encourage people to recycle.

Another pollution system is Seabin , which is a gadget that works as a drain by collecting any rubbish on the water's surface and stopping it from moving onwards into the sea.

Although not encouraging recycling, it's certainly a great way to help cut down on the problem and remove waste from our waterways.

Extra elevator buttons

This lift has extra buttons that you can press with your feet if your hands are full/busy. A brilliant and convenient solution if you're carrying shopping bags, holding onto a small child or just in the middle of travelling and don't have free hands. Also good if you're averse to germs.

Indoor puddles

We all know how much children love playing in puddles. These clever bods at a preschool in Japan have designed the building in such a way that they get indoor puddles without all the muddy mess of the outside world.

So kids can play until their hearts are content but without getting covered in mud. Though that is half the fun isn't it?

Try before you buy

There's a Dutch Supermarket known as Jumbo that has a selection of toilet rolls on offer in its facilities.

These toilet rolls are available to buy in the store, giving you the chance to try before you buy. Not something you'll usually get the chance to do.

An indoor pooch toilet

Another modern solution to a first-world problem, this is a dog bathroom that's located at an airport. It has spots for dogs to do their business indoors. Everyone's got to go some time.

Do not disturb shopping baskets

If you love shopping, but hate being bothered by sales staff who are constantly trying to upsell you then this might be the perfect solution.

This shop has different baskets, one tells staff that you'd prefer not to be bothered, one says you might like help. The "need help" baskets are no doubt useful for people who want help but also don't want to be a bother. A nice concept, whatever your preference.

A touch-free bathroom door

Public washrooms are potentially awash with germs. Sure you might have washed and dried your hands, but what about the hundreds of others who have passed through that door?

If you have clean hands and touch the same handle, you might as well have not washed them in the first place. This simple design gets you to use your wrist instead - for hands-free, germ-avoiding opening.

Surprise vending machine

Ever had trouble deciding what drink you want from a vending machine? If so, then this drinks dispenser might be built just for you. There are no options other than "surprise". At just 35 cents per can, you can't really go wrong, unless you hate surprises?

A thumb drive with a capacity display

This might be the most first-world problem solution you're going to see on this list. This is a USB storage drive that has a built-in display on it.

That display shows how much storage space there is left without needing you to plug it in. We admit, that actually sounds useful. You can pick one up from Amazon if you agree.

The coffee chart

If you're new to coffee then all the different types can be a bit intimidating.

This helpful chart from one coffee shop shows what you get for your money and makes choosing a lot easier without the hassle of having to ask someone.

Ceiling puzzles to keep you entertained at the dentist

This dentist knows how intimidated people can feel on visiting the dentist.

This one has cleverly installed a Where's Wally (or Where's Waldo) puzzle in the ceiling so visitors can be kept distracted/entertained while they're examined. We suspect it might be a problem when going on a repeat visit though.

A pen that tells you how many pages you can write

If you enjoyed the USB drive with the capacity gauge, then you'll love this pen too.

A simple ink pen with a window on the side that lets you know how many more pages you can write before it runs out of ink.

A credit card tip jar

We really like the idea of this one - Dipjar is a credit card tip jar that lets you use your credit or debit card to leave a tip for staff when you don't have enough cash on you.

We'd love to see this sort of thing popping up in more places so people get the gratuity they deserve.

Lockers with chargers

This device is clever for several reasons. Firstly, it's a locker with various device chargers inside, so you can be sure your stuff is safe and nicely charged when you return too.

Secondly, this was located at a bar - so if you're the sort of person that's constantly losing your phone when you're out drinking, then this might be the best drinking spot for you.

Dial 68 for bedtime stories

When one Redditor checked into their hotel room, they got a nice surprise when they discovered the room's landline had a special number he could dial for bedtime stories.

This was at a Moxy Hotel, a funky new hotel that also had a guitar and phonograph in the room and a welcome cocktail on arrival. We're not sure where it's located, but we'd like to stay there.

A customisable cash machine

This bank's ATM lets users choose which denomination they want their bills in.

Depending on how much money you're getting out you can choose what size bills you get. Brilliant if you have a particular use in mind and don't want huge bills that shops will have trouble changing.

Bathroom privacy tunes

To save users' modesty, this smart toilet in Japan has a privacy music system that can be used to play music so no one can hear what's happening.

It's an intelligent dignity saver and a brilliant modern solution to an age-old problem.

Petrol pump problems

In Seoul, South Korea, they have a brilliant solution to petrol pump problems. The pumps hang from above where you park your car, so you don't need to worry about which side your petrol cap is on, you can simply park, grab and get pumping without a fuss. Simple genius.

Rental car reflections

This smart driving solution comes in the form of a reflection on the driver's window. A sticker on the dashboard of a rental car reminds foreign drivers what side of the road they should stick to by simply reflecting a sign into their eye line. Clever stuff.

This shop sign has two settings "open" and "nope". All the owner has to do is slide the N to the other end when they're open or closed. Brilliant and amusing too.

A biker's jacket with safety lights

Safety first! This biker's jacket has cleverly got some lights built into it that shows when they're braking or turning.

Yes, they already have lights on their bike, but we admire the extra safety measures.

A dual-purpose water fountain

This public park has a water fountain that's cleverly designed so the overspilling water can be drunk by man's best friend. It's a water fountain for both dogs and people. Genius.

Winter simulation room

If you've ever bought clothing in the shop but not been sure if it's good enough to do the job, then this special room in a shop might be the solution.

It's essentially a cold room that works as a winter simulator. Don the coat or other outwear then step inside to experience freezing conditions.

Shoe tester

Another shop with a brilliant shopping solution. This is a special test ramp that allows you to test out different safety shoes and boots on offer before you buy so you know how much grip you're getting and what they'll be like to wear as you work.

Toilet button

This bathroom has a panel that you can wave your hand at to open the automatic door rather than having to touch a germ-ridden door handle. Hygienic genius.

Photocopier with a browser

This photocopier has a built-in browser so you can surf the web while waiting for your photocopying or printing to finish. Of course, that's probably not what you're meant to use it for, but come on, who wouldn't?

A hockey button

This Canadian TV remote control has a dedicated hockey button so sports fans can get right to the action

Tyre wear indicators

This tyre has a special (yet simple) wear indicator built into it that gives you an idea of how much legal tread is left. A great way to see at a glance when tyres need replacing.

Self-esteem support picture

Feeling a bit low? Suffering from terrible self-esteem? Maybe this bathroom picture will help. Instead of a mirror, this bathroom has an encouraging message for you instead.

Short story printer

This is a nifty little machine discovered at an airport that allowed travellers to print out free short stories to keep them entertained while they wait for their flights.

Redditors imagined the hilarity that might ensue if at another airport they had a machine that let you write stories to pass the time (then they printed at the other end).

Noise guide

This school library has a warning system that lets people know when there's too much noise being made in the library. Easier than having a librarian shushing people constantly.

Water bottle map

This is a nifty little water bottle that has a map of the college it's distributed at as well as small water symbols to let users know where it can be refilled around the campus. Hydration is important.

An elevator capacity gauge

You know those signs in elevators that say things like "the maximum capacity of this elevator is 20 people" and you wonder how 20 people could even fit in there? Well, this is a more useful gauge of how many people is too many.

Shower beers

Hotel room mini bars are so old hat. This modern hotel room has a shower beer fridge dedicated to drinking and showering, because what's more relaxing?

Pavement traffic lights

A modern solution to a phone-obsessed society. This pavement has traffic lights built into it to let pedestrians know when they can cross the road without having to look up from their phones. We suspect it's more of a safety idea than a convenience one and one that really shouldn't exist, but it's still neat.

Fire rating

In Australia, brush fires are a serious problem. They have a system to let people know when there's danger or particular risk in order to help avoid fire-based disasters.

Parking lines

Ever opened your window or door to check to see if you've parked properly in a parking space? We're fairly sure everyone has. This car park has made life easier for everyone by continuing the lines onto the nearby wall so drivers can see where the spaces start and end with ease.

Blood bank gauges

There's a spot where you can go and donate blood. At one blood bank, they have clever digital gauges where you can see how much blood of each type the bank has. This is a great way to get people donating.

Socially distanced escalator

In an effort to keep people socially distanced at the mall, this place has painted spacing between each step to give a decent gap and keep people safe.

A clever solution for a Covid world.

Saddle protection

At this bike park, users get the bonus of having a little rooftop cover for their seats. If it rains you'll come back to a drier seat and a much nicer ride home. Assuming it isn't still raining when you leave of course.

Solar powered paddles

This clever bod obviously finds paddling too much effort. To make life easier they've constructed solar-powered paddles to paddle automatically. Genius.

Shirt with built in spectacle cloth

This Redditor discovered their shirt had a built-in spectacle cloth sewn into it.

For a glasses wearer, this is simple and genius. Now you can keep your glasses clean with ease while also not worrying about scratching the lenses.

Skateboard storage rack

This University has plenty of people attending who travel by skateboard. Rather than having them scattered about the place, they've installed a storage rack. Locks mean users also can be sure their boards will be safe while they're busy learning too.

Kids go free

This is a public restroom where people are expected to pay to use the facilities. But there's no charge for young children, so if they can fit they can go in.

This business card

This imaginative business card gives the recipient info on various different important bits of information about the owner. Including their website, email address, Twitter handle and, of course, their name.

Safety before music

This person's car wouldn't let them play music until the seatbelt was buckled. Since most people like to listen to music while they drive it's a pretty clever solution to encouraging safety on the road.

Anti-paparazzi clothing

For public figures, this clothing is an excellent solution for privacy while out and about. These trousers essentially glow when photographed rendering paparazzi-style photography useless. Not for everyone, but if you suddenly find yourself famous then you might want to snag some.

14 Major Tech Issues — and the Innovations That Will Resolve Them

Members of the Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the past year’s most pressing technology concerns and how we should address them.

The past year has seen unprecedented challenges to public-health systems and the global economy. Many facets of daily life and work have moved into the digital realm, and the shift has highlighted some underlying business technology issues that are getting in the way of productivity, communication and security.

As successful business leaders, the members of the  Young Entrepreneur Council understand how important it is to have functional, up-to-date technology. That ’ s why we asked a panel of them to share what they view as the biggest business tech problem of the past year. Here are the issues they ’ re concerned about and the innovations they believe will help solve them.

Current Major Technology Issues

• Need For Strong Digital Conference Platforms
• Remote Internet Speed and Connections
• Phishing and Data Privacy Issues
• Deepfake Content
• Too Much Focus on Automation
• Data Mixups Due to AI Implementation
• Poor User Experience

1. Employee Productivity Measurement

As most companies switched to 100 percent remote almost overnight, many realized that they lacked an efficient way to measure employee productivity. Technology with “ user productivity reports ”  has become invaluable. Without being able to “ see ”  an employee in the workplace, companies must find technology that helps them to track and report how productive employees are at home. — Bill Mulholland , ARC Relocation

2. Digital Industry Conference Platforms

Nothing beats in-person communication when it comes to business development. In the past, industry conferences were king. Today, though, the move to remote conferences really leaves a lot to be desired and transforms the largely intangible value derived from attending into something that is purely informational. A new form or platform for industry conferences is sorely needed. — Nick Reese , Elder Guide

3. Remote Internet Speed and Equipment

With a sudden shift to most employees working remotely, corporations need to boost at-home internet speed and capacity for employees that didn ’ t previously have the requirements to produce work adequately. Companies need to invest in new technologies like 5G and ensure they are supported at home. — Matthew Podolsky , Florida Law Advisers, P.A.

4. Too Much Focus on Automation

Yes, automation and multi-platform management might be ideal for big-name brands and companies, but for small site owners and businesses, it ’ s just overkill. Way too many people are overcomplicating things. Stick to your business model and what works without trying to overload the process. — Zac Johnson , Blogger

5. Phishing Sites

There are many examples of phishing site victims. Last year, I realized the importance of good pop-up blockers for your laptop and mobile devices. It is so scary to be directed to a website that you don ’ t know or to even pay to get to sites that actually don ’t  exist. Come up with better pop-up blockers if possible. — Daisy Jing , Banish

6. Data Privacy

I think data privacy is still one of the biggest business tech issues around. Blockchain technology can solve this problem. We need more and more businesses to understand that blockchains don’t just serve digital currencies, they also protect people’s privacy. We also need Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. to understand that personal data belongs in the hands of the individual. — Amine Rahal , IronMonk Solutions

7. Mobile Security

Mobile security is a big issue because we rely so much on mobile internet access today. We need to be more aware of how these networks can be compromised and how to protect them. Whether it ’ s the IoT devices helping deliver data wirelessly to companies or people using apps on their smartphones, we need to become more aware of our mobile cybersecurity and how to protect our data. — Josh Kohlbach , Wholesale Suite

8. Deepfake Content

More and more people are embracing deepfake content, which is content created to look real but isn ’ t. Using AI, people can edit videos to look like someone did something they didn ’ t do and vice versa, which hurts authenticity and makes people question what ’ s real. Lawmakers need to take this issue seriously and create ways to stop people from doing this. — Jared Atchison , WPForms

9. Poor User Experience

I ’ ve noticed some brands struggling with building a seamless user experience. There are so many themes, plugins and changes people can make to their site that it can be overwhelming. As a result, the business owner eventually builds something they like, but sacrifices UX in the process. I suspect that we will see more businesses using customer feedback to make design changes. — John Brackett , Smash Balloon LLC

10. Cybersecurity Threats

Cybersecurity threats are more prevalent than ever before with increased digital activities. This has drawn many hackers, who are becoming more sophisticated and are targeting many more businesses. Vital Information, such as trade secrets, price-sensitive information, HR records, and many others are more vulnerable. Strengthening cybersecurity laws can maintain equilibrium. — Vikas Agrawal , Infobrandz

11. Data Backup and Recovery

As a company, you ’ ll store and keep lots of data crucial to keeping business moving forward. A huge tech issue that businesses face is their backup recovery process when their system goes down. If anything happens, you need access to your information. Backing up your data is crucial to ensure your brand isn ’ t at a standstill. Your IT department should have a backup plan in case anything happens. — Stephanie Wells , Formidable Forms

12. Multiple Ad and Marketing Platforms

A major issue that marketers are dealing with is having to use multiple advertising and marketing platforms, with each one handling a different activity. It can overload a website and is quite expensive. We ’ re already seeing AdTech and MarTech coming together as MAdTech. Businesses need to keep an eye on this convergence of technologies and adopt new platforms that support it. — Syed Balkhi , WPBeginner

13. Location-Based Innovation

The concentration of tech companies in places like Seattle and San Francisco has led to a quick rise in living costs in these cities. Income isn ’ t catching up, and there ’ s stress on public infrastructure. Poor internet services in rural areas also exacerbate this issue. Innovation should be decentralized. — Samuel Thimothy , OneIMS

14. Artificial Intelligence Implementation

Businesses, especially those in the tech industry, are having trouble implementing AI. If you ’ ve used and improved upon your AI over the years, you ’ re likely having an easier time adjusting. But new online businesses test multiple AI programs at once and it ’ s causing communication and data mix-ups. As businesses settle with specific programs and learn what works for them, we will see improvements. — Chris Christoff , MonsterInsights

Recent Corporate Innovation Articles

• New releases
• All articles
• Introduction
• Meet the team
• Take our survey
• Donate to 80,000 Hours
• Stay updated
• Acknowledgements
• Work with us
• Evaluations
• Our mistakes
• Research process and principles
• What others say about us
• Translations of our content

Part 5: The world’s biggest problems and why they’re not what first comes to mind

By Benjamin Todd · Last updated May 2023 · First published March 2017

• Like (opens in new window)
• Tweet (opens in new window)
• Share (opens in new window)
• Save to Pocket Pocket (opens in new window)

On this page:

• 1 Why issues facing rich countries aren't always the most important — and why charity shouldn't always begin at home
• 2 Global health: a problem where you could really make progress
• 3 Why focusing on future generations might be even more effective than tackling global health
• 4.1 Biorisk: the threat from future disease
• 4.2 Preventing an AI-related catastrophe
• 5.1 Global priorities research
• 5.2 Broad interventions, such as improved politics
• 5.3 Capacity building and promoting effective altruism
• 6 How to work out which problems you should focus on
• 7 Apply this to your own career

We’ve spent much of the last 10+ years trying to answer a simple question: what are the world’s biggest and most neglected problems?

We wanted to have a positive impact with our careers, and so we set out to discover where our efforts would be most effective.

Our analysis suggests that choosing the right problem could increase your impact by over 100 times, which would make it the most important driver of your impact.

Here, we give a summary of what we’ve learned. Read on to hear why ending diarrhoea might save as many lives as world peace, why artificial intelligence might be an even bigger deal, and what to do in your own career to make the most urgent changes happen.

In short, the most pressing problems are those where people can have the greatest impact by working on them. As we explained in the previous article , this means problems that are not only big, but also neglected and solvable . The more neglected and solvable, the further extra effort will go. And this means they’re not the problems that first come to mind.

If you just want to see what we think the answer is, go to our list of the world’s most pressing problems .

Reading time: 25 minutes.

Table of Contents

• 1 Why issues facing rich countries aren’t always the most important — and why charity shouldn’t always begin at home
• 8 Want to come back later?: Get the guide as a free book

Why issues facing rich countries aren’t always the most important — and why charity shouldn’t always begin at home

Most people who want to do good focus on issues in their home country. In rich countries, this often means issues like homelessness, inner-city education, and unemployment. But are these the most urgent issues?

In the US, only 5% of charitable donations are spent on international causes. 1 The most popular careers for talented graduates who want to do good are teaching and health, which together receive around 40% of graduates, and mainly involve helping people in the US. 2

There are some good reasons to focus on helping your own country — you know more about the issues, and you might feel you have special obligations to it. However, back in 2009, we encountered the following series of facts. They led us to think that the most urgent problems are not local, but rather related to poverty in the world’s poorest countries — especially efforts within health, such as fighting malaria and parasitic worms. (And as we’ll come onto later, we now think there are even more pressing issues than global poverty — in particular, catastrophic risks that could affect the whole world and future.)

Why do we say the most urgent problems aren’t local? Well, here’s a pretty staggering chart we came across in our research.

It’s the distribution of world income that we saw in an earlier article .

Even someone living on the US poverty line of $14,580 per year (as of 2023) is richer than about 85% of the world’s population , and about 20 times wealthier than the world’s poorest 700 million, who mostly live in Central America, Africa, and South Asia on under $800 per year. These figures are already adjusted for the fact that money goes further in poor countries (purchasing power parity). 4

As we also saw earlier, the poorer you are, the bigger difference extra money makes to your welfare . Based on this research, because poorer people in Africa are 20 times poorer, we’d expect resources to go about 20 times further in helping them.

There are also only about 40 million people living in relative poverty in the US, about 6% as many as the 700 million in extreme global poverty. 5

There are also far more resources dedicated to helping this smaller number of people. Overseas development aid from the world’s developed countries is, in total, only about $200 billion per year, compared to $1.7 trillion spent on welfare in the US alone. 6

Finally, as we saw earlier , a significant fraction of US social interventions probably don’t work. This is because problems facing the poor in rich countries are complex and hard to solve. Moreover, even the most evidence-backed interventions are expensive and have modest effects .

The same comparison holds for other rich countries, such as the UK, Australia, Canada, and the EU. (Though if you live in a low-income country, then it may well be best to focus on issues there.)

All this isn’t to deny that the poor in rich countries have very tough lives, perhaps even worse in some respects than those in the developing world. Rather, the issue is that there are far fewer of them, and they’re harder to help.

So if you’re not focusing on issues in your home country, what should you focus on?

Global health: a problem where you could really make progress

Earlier we told the story of Dr Nalin, who helped to develop oral rehydration therapy as a treatment for diarrhoea.

What if we were to tell you that, over the second half of the 20th century, efforts by Dr Nalin and others did as much to save lives as achieving world peace over the same period would have done?

The number of deaths each year due to diarrhoea have fallen by 3 million over the last five decades due to advances like oral rehydration therapy.

Meanwhile, all wars and political famines killed about 2 million people per year over the second half of the 20th century. 7

And we’ve had similar victories over other infectious diseases.

The global fight against disease is one of humanity’s greatest achievements, but it’s also an ongoing battle that you can contribute to with your career.

A large fraction of these gains were driven by humanitarian aid, such as the campaign to eradicate smallpox. 7 In fact, although many experts in economics think much international aid hasn’t been effective , even the most sceptical agree there’s an exception: global health.

For instance, William Easterly, author of The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good , wrote:

Put the focus back where it belongs: get the poorest people in the world such obvious goods as the vaccines, the antibiotics, the food supplements, the improved seeds, the fertilizer, the roads…. This is not making the poor dependent on handouts; it is giving the poorest people the health, nutrition, education, and other inputs that raise the payoff to their own efforts to better their lives.

Within health, where to focus? An economist at the World Bank sent us this data, which also amazed us.

This is a list of health treatments, such as providing tuberculosis medicine or surgeries, ranked by how much health they produce per dollar, as measured in rigorous randomised controlled trials . Health is measured in a standard unit used by health economists, called the “ quality-adjusted life year .”

The first point is that all these treatments are effective. Essentially all of them would be funded in countries like the US and UK. People in poor countries, however, routinely die from diseases that would certainly have been treated if they’d happened to have been born somewhere else.

Even more surprising, however, is that the top interventions are far better than the average, as shown by the spike on the right. The top interventions, like vaccines, have been shown to have significant benefits, but are also extremely cheap. The top intervention is over 10 times more cost-effective than the average, and 15,000 times more than the worst. 8 This means if you were working at a health charity focused on one of the top interventions, you’d expect to have 10 times as much impact compared to a randomly selected one.

This study isn’t perfect — there were mistakes in the analysis affecting the top results (and that’s what you’d expect due to regression to the mean ) — but the main point is solid: the best health interventions are many times more effective than the average.

So how much more impact might you make with your career by switching your focus to global health?

Because, as we saw in the first chart, the world’s poorest people are over 20 times poorer than the poor in rich countries, resources go about 20 times as far in helping them (read about why here ). 9

Then, if we focus on health, there are cheap, effective interventions that everyone agrees are worth doing. We can use the research in the second chart to pick the very best interventions, letting us have perhaps five times as much impact again. 10 In total, this makes for a 100-fold difference in impact. 11

Does this check out? The UK’s National Health Service and many US government agencies are willing to spend over $30,000 to give someone an extra year of healthy life. 12 This is a fantastic use of resources by ordinary standards.

However, research by GiveWell has found that it’s possible to give an infant a year of healthy life by donating around $100 to one of the most cost-effective global health charities, such as Against Malaria Foundation. This is about 0.33% as much. 13 This suggests that, at least in terms of improving health, one career working somewhere like AMF might achieve as much as 300 careers focused on one typical way of doing good in a rich country. (Though our best guess is that a more rigorous and comprehensive comparison would find a somewhat smaller difference. 14 )

It’s hard for us to grasp such big differences in scale, but that would mean that one year of (equally skilled) effort towards the best treatments within global health could have as much impact as what would have taken others 100 years working on typical rich country issues.

These discoveries caused many of us at 80,000 Hours to start giving at least 10% of our incomes to effective global health charities . No matter which job we ended up in, these donations would enable us to make a significant difference. In fact, if the 100-fold figure is correct, a 10% donation would be equivalent to donating 1,000% of our income to charities focused on poverty in rich countries.

See more detail on how to contribute to global health in our full profile .

However, everything we learned about global health raised many more questions. If it’s possible to have 10 or 100 times more impact with just a little research, maybe there are even better areas to discover?

We considered lots of avenues to help the global poor, like trade reform , promoting migration , crop yield research , and biomedical research .

To go in a very different direction, we also seriously considered working to end factory farming . The idea — in brief — is that the interests of animals get very little protection by our current economic and political systems, but there are huge numbers of them: around 100 billion animals die every year in factory farms. For example, we helped to found Animal Charity Evaluators , which does research into how to most effectively improve animal welfare. We still think factory farming is an urgent problem, as we explain in our full profile . But in the end, we decided to focus on something else.

Why focusing on future generations might be even more effective than tackling global health

Which would you choose from these two options?

• Prevent one person from suffering next year.
• Prevent 100 people from suffering (the same amount) 100 years from now.

Most people choose the second option. It’s a crude example, but it suggests that they value future generations .

If people didn’t want to leave a legacy to future generations, it would be hard to understand why we invest so much in science, create art, and preserve the wilderness.

We would certainly choose the second option. And if you value future generations, then there are powerful arguments that helping them should be your focus. We were first exposed to these by researchers at the University of Oxford’s (modestly named) Future of Humanity Institute.

So, what’s the reasoning?

First, future generations matter, but they can’t vote, they can’t buy things, and they can’t stand up for their interests. This means our system neglects them. You can see this in the global failure to come to an international agreement to tackle climate change that actually works.

Second, their plight is abstract. We’re reminded of issues like global poverty and factory farming far more often. But we can’t so easily visualise suffering that will happen in the future. Future generations rely more on our goodwill, and even that is hard to muster.

Third, there will probably be many more people alive in the future than there are today. The Earth will remain habitable for at least hundreds of millions of years. 15 We may die out long before that point, but if there’s a chance of making it, then many more people will live in the future than are alive today.

To use some hypothetical figures: if each generation lasts for 100 years, then over 100 million years there could be one million future generations. 16

This is such a big number that any problem that affects future generations potentially has a far greater scale than one that only affects the present — it could affect one million times more people, and all the art, science, culture, and wellbeing that will entail. So problems that affect future generations are potentially the largest in scale and the most neglected.

What’s more, because the future could be long and the universe is so vast, almost no matter what you value, there could be far more of what matters in the future.

This suggests that we have much greater reason than people usually realise to help the future — and not just the near future but also the very long-run future — go well. (We cover these ideas in more depth in a separate article .)

But can we actually help future generations, or improve the long term? Perhaps the problems that affect the future are big and neglected, but not solvable?

One way to help future generations: avert neglected existential risks

In the summer of 2013, Barack Obama referred to climate change as “the global threat of our time.” He’s not alone in this opinion. When many people think of the biggest problems facing future generations, climate change is often the first to come to mind.

One reason for that is that many fear that climate change could lead to a catastrophic civilisational collapse — and could even lead to the end of the human species. 17

We think this thought is, to some extent, on the right track. The most powerful way we can help future generations is, we think, to prevent a catastrophe that could end advanced civilisation, or even prevent any future generations from existing. If civilisation survives, we’ll have a chance to later solve problems like poverty and disease; while anything that poses a truly existential threat will prevent any such progress. (We argue for the importance of reducing existential risks elsewhere.)

However, climate change is also widely acknowledged as a major problem (conspiracy theorists aside), and receives tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars of investment. Our guess is also that there are issues that pose much greater risks of ending civilisation.

So while we think tackling climate change is an important way to help future generations, we think it’s likely even higher impact for many to focus on more neglected and more existentially dangerous issues.

(You can read more about the risk from climate change in our full profile .)

Biorisk: the threat from future disease

In 2006, The Guardian ordered segments of smallpox DNA via mail. If assembled into a complete strand and transmitted to 10 people, a study estimated it could infect up to 2.2 million people in 180 days — potentially killing 660,000 — if authorities did not respond quickly with vaccinations and quarantines. 18

We first wrote about the risks posed by catastrophic pandemics back in 2016 . Seven years later, and three years after the emergence of COVID-19, we’re still concerned.

COVID-19 disrupted the world and has, so far, killed over 10 million people . But it’s easy to imagine scenarios far worse.

In the future, we might face diseases even deadlier than COVID-19 or smallpox — whether through natural evolution, or created through bioengineering (the technology for which is becoming cheaper and more accessible every year).

In our eyes, the chance of a pandemic that kills over 100 million people over the next century seems similar to and likely greater than the risk of nuclear war or runaway climate change. So it poses a threat that’s at least similar in magnitude to both the present generation and future generations.

But risks from pandemics are, even now, far more neglected than either of these. We estimate that over $600 billion is spent annually on efforts to fight climate change, compared to $1–$10 billion towards biosecurity aimed at addressing the worst-case pandemics .

Moreover, there are some ways the risks from pandemics could be even greater. It’s very difficult to see how nuclear war or climate change could kill literally everyone , and permanently end civilisation — but bioweapons with this power seem very much within the realm of possibility, if given enough time.

At the same time, there’s plenty of relatively straightforward things that could be done to improve biosecurity, such as improving regulation of labs, building bigger stockpiles of personal protective equipment (PPE), and developing cheap diagnostics to detect new diseases quickly. Overall, we think biosecurity is likely more pressing than climate change. We currently think that biosecurity is one of the world’s most pressing problems.

Read more about how to contribute to biosecurity in our full profile .

But there are issues that might be even more important, and seem to be even more neglected.

Preventing an AI-related catastrophe

Around 1800, civilisation underwent one of the most profound shifts in human history: the Industrial Revolution. 19

Looking forward, what might be the next transition of this scale — the next pivotal event in history that shapes what happens to all future generations? If we could identify such a transition, that may well be the most important area in which to work.

One candidate is bioengineering — the ability to fundamentally redesign human beings — as discussed, for example, by Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens .

But we think there’s an issue that’s even more neglected, and is developing far more rapidly: artificial intelligence.

Billions of dollars are spent trying to make artificial intelligence more powerful, but hardly any effort is devoted to making sure that those added capabilities are implemented safely and for the benefit of humanity.

This matters for two main reasons.

First, powerful AI systems have the potential to be misused. For instance, they might be used to develop dangerous new technology , such as new and more powerful weapons.

Second, there is a risk of accidents when powerful new AI systems are deployed. This is especially pressing due to the “alignment problem.” This is a complex topic, so if you want to explore it properly, we recommend reading our full problem profile on artificial intelligence . But here’s a quick introduction.

In the 1980s, chess was held up as an example of something a machine could never do. But in 1997, world chess champion Garry Kasparov was defeated by the computer program Deep Blue. Since then, computers have become far better at chess than humans.

In 2004, two experts in artificial intelligence used truck driving as an example of a job that would be really hard to automate. But today, self-driving cars are already on the road. 20

In August 2021, a team of expert forecasters predicted that it would take five years for a computer to be able to solve high school competition–level maths problems . Less than a year later, Google built an AI that could do just that .

At the end of 2022, ChatGPT became the fastest growing web platform ever .

Some problems are more pressing than others, but most are pretty good.

But instead, we’ve found that it looks more like this.

Some problems are far higher impact than others, because they can differ by 10 or 100 times in terms of how big, neglected, and solvable they are, as well as your degree of personal fit. 25 So getting this decision right could mean you achieve over 100 times as much with your career.

If there’s one lesson we draw from all we’ve covered, it’s this: if you want to do good in the world, it’s worth at some point really taking the time to learn about different global problems, and how you might contribute to them. It takes time, and there’s a lot to learn, but it’s hard to imagine anything more interesting, or more important.

Apply this to your own career

You don’t need to figure out which global problems you want to focus on right at the start of your career. Early on, the top priority is to explore to figure out what you’re good at, and to build valuable skills. It’s common to not directly tackle the problems you think are most pressing for many years.

However, it is useful to at least have a rough idea of which problems you’d like to work on in the future, since this can greatly affect which kinds of skills seem most useful to build. For instance, if you guess that reducing risks from AI is in your shortlist, that could suggest gaining some pretty different skills and experience than you would for global health (though some skills are useful in both, such as management). So, even if you’re right at the start of your career, we’d suggest spending at least a couple of days thinking about this question.

Here’s an exercise:

• Using the resources above, write down the three global problems that you think most need additional people working on them. These will depend on your values and empirical assumptions.

Don’t worry too much about your personal fit — while it’s an important consideration, your fit for a role can be difficult to assess, so we’ve got a whole article on it later in the guide. For now, just focus on getting the best picture of what the world needs.

• What are you most uncertain about with respect to your list? How might you learn more about those questions? (For example: Is there something you could read? Someone you could talk to?)

As a reminder, you can see a list of all the problem areas we’ve reviewed here . Click through to the individual profiles to learn more about each issue. You can also view our topics list to see everything we’ve produced about a certain issue.

If you’d like to dive much more deeply into comparing global problems, see the relevant articles in our advanced series .

This list of problems is just a starting point. The next step is to find concrete career options that will make a difference within the area (which we cover in the next article), then to find an option with excellent personal fit (which we also cover later ).

Read next: Part 6: Which jobs help people the most?

Continue →

Or see an overview of the whole career guide.

Want to come back later? Get the guide as a free book

Sign up to our newsletter, and we’ll mail you the entire career guide as a book.

You’ll be joining over 400,000 people who receive weekly updates on our research and job opportunities. T&Cs here . You can unsubscribe in one click.

Notes and references

In 2021, Americans gave $484.85 billion to charity, a 4.0% increase over 2020. Adjusted for inflation, total giving remained relatively flat, with -0.7% growth.

Archived link , retrieved 11-January-2023 ↩

• 21% of employed graduates are in health (this remains at 21% at 5 years and at 10 years after graduating)
• 17% of employed graduates are in education (this rises to 19% at 5 years and 21% at 10 years after graduating)
• 5% of employed graduates are in public administration (this rises to 6% at 5 years and 7% at 10 years after graduating).

Note that a large fraction of government spending goes into education and health, so those who go into government are also contributing to these areas.

We downloaded the raw data from the Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes page of the US Census Bureau website and aggregated these figures ourselves. See all the aggregated data here .

The US Census Bureau notes:

The PSEO are made possible through data sharing partnerships between universities, university systems, State Departments of Education, State Labor Market Information offices, and the U.S. Census Bureau. PSEO data are available for post-secondary institutions whose transcript data have been made available to the Census Bureau through a data-sharing agreement.

We’d guess that a high enough proportion of colleges are involved for these figures to be roughly right, but there may be some systematic bias (e.g., state colleges may be more likely to share data than private colleges). ↩

Briefly, the data for percentiles 1 to 79 were taken from PovcalNet : the online tool for poverty measurement developed by the Development Research Group of the World Bank. Note that this is in fact a measure of consumption , which closely tracks income and is the standard way of tracking the wealth of people towards the lower part of the distribution. The data for income percentiles 80 to 99 were provided by Branko Milanović in private correspondence. ↩

Archived link , retrieved 10-February-2023. ↩

The official poverty rate in 2021 was 11.6 percent, with 37.9 million people in poverty.

The US poverty threshold varies depending on the size of the household . For a single person, the threshold in 2022 was $13,950 . ↩

This OECD report finds total ODA (overseas development assistance) spending of $178.9 billion in 2021. Note official ODA only includes spending by the 31 members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) (roughly, European and North American countries, the EU, Japan, and South Korea).

Archived PDF , retrieved 23-February-2023.

The OECD estimate of ODA-like flows from key providers of development cooperation that do not report to the OECD-DAC was $4 billion in 2020.

They note that:

Scholars have estimated that China’s development aid is much larger [than the reported USD 3.2 billion in 2019 and USD 2.9 billion in 2020], standing at USD 5.9 billion in 2018 (see Kitano and Miyabayashi ) or as high as USD 7.9 billion if one includes preferential buyers credits (see Kitano 2019). China’s development co-operation is estimated to have decreased due to expenditure cuts to deal with COVID-19 ( Kitano and Miyabayashi ).

The OECD measure of Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD ), which also includes loans, investments, and spending by many, but not all, other countries (including ‘South-South’ spending by developing countries in other developing countries) came to a total of $434 billion in 2021.

There is also international philanthropy, but we don’t think adding it would more than double the figure. The US is the largest source of philanthropic funding at $400–$500 billion, but only a few percent goes to international causes. A Giving US report estimated that US giving to “international affairs” was only $27 billion in 2021.

Archived link , retrieved 11-January-2023.

Moreover, if we were to include international philanthropy, we’d need to include philanthropic spending on poor people in the US.

Estimates of welfare spending vary depending on exactly what is included. Total spending also varies from year to year. We used a representative figure from usgovernmentspending.com

In FY 2022 total US government spending on welfare — federal, state, and local — was “guesstimated” to be $1,662 billion, including $792 billion for Medicaid, and $869 billion in other welfare.

Archived link , retrieved 20-January-2023. ↩

All wars, democides, and politically motivated famines killed an estimated 160 million to 240 million people during the 20th century, or an average of 1.6 million to 2.4 million per year.

International humanitarian aid has contributed substantially to reductions in the number of annual deaths from disease. $500 million of the $1.5 billion spent on eliminating smallpox came from international funders.

Aid Works on Average , by Toby Ord, Slideshare , retrieved 27-Febuary-2017. Toby Ord is an advisor to 80,000 Hours. ↩

(In the DCP2) in total, the interventions are spread over more than four orders of magnitude, ranging from 0.02 to 300 DALYs per $1,000, with a median of 5. Thus, moving money from the least effective intervention to the most effective would produce about 15,000 times the benefit, and even moving it from the median intervention to the most effective would produce about 60 times the benefit.

In private correspondence, Dr Ord added that the mean intervention had an effectiveness of 24 DALYs averted per $1,000. Note that a DALY is a “disability-adjusted life year” i.e. a year of life lost to ill health — the opposite of a “quality-adjusted life year.”

If you selected an intervention at random, then on average you’d pick something with the mean effectiveness. Most of the interventions are worse than the mean, but if you picked randomly you’d have a small chance of landing on the top one. Read more about how much solutions differ in effectiveness . ↩

• One potential complication is that making poor US or UK citizens better off could eventually have spillover benefits for the global poor, as briefly discussed here , which would cap the degree of difference. However, I expect the spillover is less than 1/20, so this consideration doesn’t have much effect on the 20-fold ratio. ↩
• In 2018, GiveWell estimated that it cost $900 to do an amount of good equivalent to averting the death of an individual under five through the most effective global health intervention: Deworm the World. GiveWell estimates that it costs $11,300 to do an equivalent amount of good by giving cash to the global poor through donating to GiveDirectly. This would imply that the best global health interventions are 13 times more effective than giving cash to the global poor. To be conservative, we assume that global health interventions are only five times more effective. GiveWell’s analysis is available here . ↩
• Though if you could find a similarly leveraged way to do good in a rich country, that would bring the ratio back to more like 20 times. The 100-fold comparison is with a typical rich country social intervention. ↩

NICE health technology evaluations: the manual, 2022. Archived link ↩

• AMF and Population Ethics by GiveWell. ↩

For instance, making the US wealthier has spillover benefits to the developing world, such as increased foreign aid and improved technology. Very roughly, this might reduce the size of the difference by a factor of three .

If we took into account further corrections, the difference would probably shrink still further . Nevertheless, if we made an all-considered comparison in terms of what most benefits the present generation, we’d still expect investing in global health to be over 20 times more effective than randomly selected US social interventions. ↩

Two new modeling studies find that the gradually brightening sun won’t vaporize our planet’s water for at least another 1 billion to 1.5 billion years—hundreds of millions of years later than a slightly older model had forecast.

Archived link , retrieved 4-March-2017 ↩

• It’s possible that future generations would live for longer than 100 years. This would probably reduce the number of future generations, but wouldn’t necessarily decrease the number of future people. ↩

Three in four Americans think climate change will eventually result in the extinction of humanity, according to new research. A new survey of 2,000 Americans aiming to reveal just how much “climate anxiety” people carry found that nearly half of Americans think climate change will result in the end of the world within the next 200 years. Not only that, but one in five millennials think climate change will trigger the end of the world in their lifetime. ↩

The DNA sequence of smallpox, as well as other potentially dangerous pathogens such as polio virus and 1918 flu are freely available in online public databases. So to build a virus from scratch, a terrorist would simply order consecutive lengths of DNA along the sequence and glue them together in the correct order. This is beyond the skills and equipment of the kitchen chemist, but could be achieved by a well-funded terrorist with access to a basic lab and PhD-level personnel. One study estimated that because most people on the planet have no resistance to the extinct virus, an initial release which infected just 10 people would spread to 2.2 million people in 180 days.

Archived link , retrieved 27-Febuary-2017 ↩

• Graph produced from Maddison, Angus (2007): Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD. Essays in Macro-Economic History , Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-922721-1, p. 379, table A.4. ↩

The New Division of Labor by Frank Levy and Richard Murnane (2004). Chapter 2 is titled “Why People Still Matter.” Archived link , retrieved 27-Febuary-2017 ↩

Researchers were asked about “high-level machine intelligence” (HLMI). This was defined as:

When unaided machines can accomplish every task better and more cheaply than human workers. Ignore aspects of tasks for which being a human is intrinsically advantageous, e.g. being accepted as a jury member. Think feasibility, not adoption.

Two other surveys, Zhang et al. (2022) , conducted in 2019, and Grace et al. (2018) , conducted in 2016, found similar results.

For more information on these surveys, including information on their accuracy, see our full problem profile on artificial intelligence . ↩

Over 100,000 western lowland gorillas are thought to exist in the wild, with 4,000 in zoos; eastern lowland gorillas have a population of under 5,000 in the wild and 24 in zoos. Mountain gorillas are the most severely endangered, with an estimated population of about 880 left in the wild and none in zoos.

In May 2023, Geoffrey Hinton resigned from his position at Google :

Google computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, who has made significant contributions to the development of artificial intelligence, has left the technology giant to warn the world of the “existential risk” posed by AI systems to humans. ↩

• Giving What We Can, like 80,000 Hours, is a project of the Effective Ventures group — the umbrella term for Effective Ventures Foundation and Effective Ventures Foundation USA, Inc., which are two separate legal entities that work together. ↩
• Because the three factors multiply together, if each can vary by a factor of 100, the overall variation could be up to six orders of magnitude. In practice, the factors anti-correlate, so it’s not quite as large as this, and there are other reasons for modesty. See our advanced series article on how much your choice of problem area matters . ↩

40 problem-solving techniques and processes

All teams and organizations encounter challenges. Approaching those challenges without a structured problem solving process can end up making things worse.

Proven problem solving techniques such as those outlined below can guide your group through a process of identifying problems and challenges , ideating on possible solutions , and then evaluating and implementing the most suitable .

In this post, you'll find problem-solving tools you can use to develop effective solutions. You'll also find some tips for facilitating the problem solving process and solving complex problems.

Design your next session with SessionLab

Join the 150,000+ facilitators 
using SessionLab.

Recommended Articles

A step-by-step guide to planning a workshop, 54 great online tools for workshops and meetings, how to create an unforgettable training session in 8 simple steps.

• 18 Free Facilitation Resources We Think You’ll Love

What is problem solving?

Problem solving is a process of finding and implementing a solution to a challenge or obstacle. In most contexts, this means going through a problem solving process that begins with identifying the issue, exploring its root causes, ideating and refining possible solutions before implementing and measuring the impact of that solution.

For simple or small problems, it can be tempting to skip straight to implementing what you believe is the right solution. The danger with this approach is that without exploring the true causes of the issue, it might just occur again or your chosen solution may cause other issues.

Particularly in the world of work, good problem solving means using data to back up each step of the process, bringing in new perspectives and effectively measuring the impact of your solution.

Effective problem solving can help ensure that your team or organization is well positioned to overcome challenges, be resilient to change and create innovation. In my experience, problem solving is a combination of skillset, mindset and process, and it’s especially vital for leaders to cultivate this skill.

What is the seven step problem solving process?

A problem solving process is a step-by-step framework from going from discovering a problem all the way through to implementing a solution.

With practice, this framework can become intuitive, and innovative companies tend to have a consistent and ongoing ability to discover and tackle challenges when they come up.

You might see everything from a four step problem solving process through to seven steps. While all these processes cover roughly the same ground, I’ve found a seven step problem solving process is helpful for making all key steps legible.

We’ll outline that process here and then follow with techniques you can use to explore and work on that step of the problem solving process with a group.

The seven-step problem solving process is:

1. Problem identification 

The first stage of any problem solving process is to identify the problem(s) you need to solve. This often looks like using group discussions and activities to help a group surface and effectively articulate the challenges they’re facing and wish to resolve.

Be sure to align with your team on the exact definition and nature of the problem you’re solving. An effective process is one where everyone is pulling in the same direction – ensure clarity and alignment now to help avoid misunderstandings later.

2. Problem analysis and refinement

The process of problem analysis means ensuring that the problem you are seeking to solve is  the   right problem . Choosing the right problem to solve means you are on the right path to creating the right solution.

At this stage, you may look deeper at the problem you identified to try and discover the root cause at the level of people or process. You may also spend some time sourcing data, consulting relevant parties and creating and refining a problem statement.

Problem refinement means adjusting scope or focus of the problem you will be aiming to solve based on what comes up during your analysis. As you analyze data sources, you might discover that the root cause means you need to adjust your problem statement. Alternatively, you might find that your original problem statement is too big to be meaningful approached within your current project.

Remember that the goal of any problem refinement is to help set the stage for effective solution development and deployment. Set the right focus and get buy-in from your team here and you’ll be well positioned to move forward with confidence.

3. Solution generation

Once your group has nailed down the particulars of the problem you wish to solve, you want to encourage a free flow of ideas connecting to solving that problem. This can take the form of problem solving games that encourage creative thinking or techniquess designed to produce working prototypes of possible solutions. 

The key to ensuring the success of this stage of the problem solving process is to encourage quick, creative thinking and create an open space where all ideas are considered. The best solutions can often come from unlikely places and by using problem solving techniques that celebrate invention, you might come up with solution gold. 

4. Solution development

No solution is perfect right out of the gate. It’s important to discuss and develop the solutions your group has come up with over the course of following the previous problem solving steps in order to arrive at the best possible solution. Problem solving games used in this stage involve lots of critical thinking, measuring potential effort and impact, and looking at possible solutions analytically. 

During this stage, you will often ask your team to iterate and improve upon your front-running solutions and develop them further. Remember that problem solving strategies always benefit from a multitude of voices and opinions, and not to let ego get involved when it comes to choosing which solutions to develop and take further.

Finding the best solution is the goal of all problem solving workshops and here is the place to ensure that your solution is well thought out, sufficiently robust and fit for purpose. 

5. Decision making and planning

Nearly there! Once you’ve got a set of possible, you’ll need to make a decision on which to implement. This can be a consensus-based group decision or it might be for a leader or major stakeholder to decide. You’ll find a set of effective decision making methods below.

Once your group has reached consensus and selected a solution, there are some additional actions that also need to be decided upon. You’ll want to work on allocating ownership of the project, figure out who will do what, how the success of the solution will be measured and decide the next course of action.

Set clear accountabilities, actions, timeframes, and follow-ups for your chosen solution. Make these decisions and set clear next-steps in the problem solving workshop so that everyone is aligned and you can move forward effectively as a group. 

Ensuring that you plan for the roll-out of a solution is one of the most important problem solving steps. Without adequate planning or oversight, it can prove impossible to measure success or iterate further if the problem was not solved. 

6. Solution implementation 

This is what we were waiting for! All problem solving processes have the end goal of implementing an effective and impactful solution that your group has confidence in.

Project management and communication skills are key here – your solution may need to adjust when out in the wild or you might discover new challenges along the way. For some solutions, you might also implement a test with a small group and monitor results before rolling it out to an entire company.

You should have a clear owner for your solution who will oversee the plans you made together and help ensure they’re put into place. This person will often coordinate the implementation team and set-up processes to measure the efficacy of your solution too.

7. Solution evaluation 

So you and your team developed a great solution to a problem and have a gut feeling it’s been solved. Work done, right? Wrong. All problem solving strategies benefit from evaluation, consideration, and feedback.

You might find that the solution does not work for everyone, might create new problems, or is potentially so successful that you will want to roll it out to larger teams or as part of other initiatives. 

None of that is possible without taking the time to evaluate the success of the solution you developed in your problem solving model and adjust if necessary.

Remember that the problem solving process is often iterative and it can be common to not solve complex issues on the first try. Even when this is the case, you and your team will have generated learning that will be important for future problem solving workshops or in other parts of the organization. 

It’s also worth underlining how important record keeping is throughout the problem solving process. If a solution didn’t work, you need to have the data and records to see why that was the case. If you go back to the drawing board, notes from the previous workshop can help save time.

What does an effective problem solving process look like?

Every effective problem solving process begins with an agenda . In our experience, a well-structured problem solving workshop is one of the best methods for successfully guiding a group from exploring a problem to implementing a solution.

The format of a workshop ensures that you can get buy-in from your group, encourage free-thinking and solution exploration before making a decision on what to implement following the session.

This Design Sprint 2.0 template is an effective problem solving process from top agency AJ&Smart. It’s a great format for the entire problem solving process, with four-days of workshops designed to surface issues, explore solutions and even test a solution.

Check it for an example of how you might structure and run a problem solving process and feel free to copy and adjust it your needs!

For a shorter process you can run in a single afternoon, this remote problem solving agenda will guide you effectively in just a couple of hours.

Whatever the length of your workshop, by using SessionLab, it’s easy to go from an idea to a complete agenda . Start by dragging and dropping your core problem solving activities into place . Add timings, breaks and necessary materials before sharing your agenda with your colleagues.

The resulting agenda will be your guide to an effective and productive problem solving session that will also help you stay organized on the day!

Complete problem-solving methods

In this section, we’ll look at in-depth problem-solving methods that provide a complete end-to-end process for developing effective solutions. These will help guide your team from the discovery and definition of a problem through to delivering the right solution.

If you’re looking for an all-encompassing method or problem-solving model, these processes are a great place to start. They’ll ask your team to challenge preconceived ideas and adopt a mindset for solving problems more effectively.

Six Thinking Hats

Individual approaches to solving a problem can be very different based on what team or role an individual holds. It can be easy for existing biases or perspectives to find their way into the mix, or for internal politics to direct a conversation.

Six Thinking Hats is a classic method for identifying the problems that need to be solved and enables your team to consider them from different angles, whether that is by focusing on facts and data, creative solutions, or by considering why a particular solution might not work.

Like all problem-solving frameworks, Six Thinking Hats is effective at helping teams remove roadblocks from a conversation or discussion and come to terms with all the aspects necessary to solve complex problems.

The Six Thinking Hats   #creative thinking   #meeting facilitation   #problem solving   #issue resolution   #idea generation   #conflict resolution   The Six Thinking Hats are used by individuals and groups to separate out conflicting styles of thinking. They enable and encourage a group of people to think constructively together in exploring and implementing change, rather than using argument to fight over who is right and who is wrong.

Lightning Decision Jam

Featured courtesy of Jonathan Courtney of AJ&Smart Berlin, Lightning Decision Jam is one of those strategies that should be in every facilitation toolbox. Exploring problems and finding solutions is often creative in nature, though as with any creative process, there is the potential to lose focus and get lost.

Unstructured discussions might get you there in the end, but it’s much more effective to use a method that creates a clear process and team focus.

In Lightning Decision Jam, participants are invited to begin by writing challenges, concerns, or mistakes on post-its without discussing them before then being invited by the moderator to present them to the group.

From there, the team vote on which problems to solve and are guided through steps that will allow them to reframe those problems, create solutions and then decide what to execute on. 

By deciding the problems that need to be solved as a team before moving on, this group process is great for ensuring the whole team is aligned and can take ownership over the next stages. 

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ)   #action   #decision making   #problem solving   #issue analysis   #innovation   #design   #remote-friendly   It doesn’t matter where you work and what your job role is, if you work with other people together as a team, you will always encounter the same challenges: Unclear goals and miscommunication that cause busy work and overtime Unstructured meetings that leave attendants tired, confused and without clear outcomes. Frustration builds up because internal challenges to productivity are not addressed Sudden changes in priorities lead to a loss of focus and momentum Muddled compromise takes the place of clear decision- making, leaving everybody to come up with their own interpretation. In short, a lack of structure leads to a waste of time and effort, projects that drag on for too long and frustrated, burnt out teams. AJ&Smart has worked with some of the most innovative, productive companies in the world. What sets their teams apart from others is not better tools, bigger talent or more beautiful offices. The secret sauce to becoming a more productive, more creative and happier team is simple: Replace all open discussion or brainstorming with a structured process that leads to more ideas, clearer decisions and better outcomes. When a good process provides guardrails and a clear path to follow, it becomes easier to come up with ideas, make decisions and solve problems. This is why AJ&Smart created Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ). It’s a simple and short, but powerful group exercise that can be run either in-person, in the same room, or remotely with distributed teams.

Problem Definition Process

While problems can be complex, the problem-solving methods you use to identify and solve those problems can often be simple in design. 

By taking the time to truly identify and define a problem before asking the group to reframe the challenge as an opportunity, this method is a great way to enable change.

Begin by identifying a focus question and exploring the ways in which it manifests before splitting into five teams who will each consider the problem using a different method: escape, reversal, exaggeration, distortion or wishful. Teams develop a problem objective and create ideas in line with their method before then feeding them back to the group.

This method is great for enabling in-depth discussions while also creating space for finding creative solutions too!

Problem Definition   #problem solving   #idea generation   #creativity   #online   #remote-friendly   A problem solving technique to define a problem, challenge or opportunity and to generate ideas.

The 5 Whys 

Sometimes, a group needs to go further with their strategies and analyze the root cause at the heart of organizational issues. An RCA or root cause analysis is the process of identifying what is at the heart of business problems or recurring challenges. 

The 5 Whys is a simple and effective method of helping a group go find the root cause of any problem or challenge and conduct analysis that will deliver results. 

By beginning with the creation of a problem statement and going through five stages to refine it, The 5 Whys provides everything you need to truly discover the cause of an issue.

The 5 Whys   #hyperisland   #innovation   This simple and powerful method is useful for getting to the core of a problem or challenge. As the title suggests, the group defines a problems, then asks the question “why” five times, often using the resulting explanation as a starting point for creative problem solving.

World Cafe is a simple but powerful facilitation technique to help bigger groups to focus their energy and attention on solving complex problems.

World Cafe enables this approach by creating a relaxed atmosphere where participants are able to self-organize and explore topics relevant and important to them which are themed around a central problem-solving purpose. Create the right atmosphere by modeling your space after a cafe and after guiding the group through the method, let them take the lead!

Making problem-solving a part of your organization’s culture in the long term can be a difficult undertaking. More approachable formats like World Cafe can be especially effective in bringing people unfamiliar with workshops into the fold. 

World Cafe   #hyperisland   #innovation   #issue analysis   World Café is a simple yet powerful method, originated by Juanita Brown, for enabling meaningful conversations driven completely by participants and the topics that are relevant and important to them. Facilitators create a cafe-style space and provide simple guidelines. Participants then self-organize and explore a set of relevant topics or questions for conversation.

Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)

One of the best approaches is to create a safe space for a group to share and discover practices and behaviors that can help them find their own solutions.

With DAD, you can help a group choose which problems they wish to solve and which approaches they will take to do so. It’s great at helping remove resistance to change and can help get buy-in at every level too!

This process of enabling frontline ownership is great in ensuring follow-through and is one of the methods you will want in your toolbox as a facilitator.

Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)   #idea generation   #liberating structures   #action   #issue analysis   #remote-friendly   DADs make it easy for a group or community to discover practices and behaviors that enable some individuals (without access to special resources and facing the same constraints) to find better solutions than their peers to common problems. These are called positive deviant (PD) behaviors and practices. DADs make it possible for people in the group, unit, or community to discover by themselves these PD practices. DADs also create favorable conditions for stimulating participants’ creativity in spaces where they can feel safe to invent new and more effective practices. Resistance to change evaporates as participants are unleashed to choose freely which practices they will adopt or try and which problems they will tackle. DADs make it possible to achieve frontline ownership of solutions.

Design Sprint 2.0

Want to see how a team can solve big problems and move forward with prototyping and testing solutions in a few days? The Design Sprint 2.0 template from Jake Knapp, author of Sprint, is a complete agenda for a with proven results.

Developing the right agenda can involve difficult but necessary planning. Ensuring all the correct steps are followed can also be stressful or time-consuming depending on your level of experience.

Use this complete 4-day workshop template if you are finding there is no obvious solution to your challenge and want to focus your team around a specific problem that might require a shortcut to launching a minimum viable product or waiting for the organization-wide implementation of a solution.

Open space technology

Open space technology- developed by Harrison Owen – creates a space where large groups are invited to take ownership of their problem solving and lead individual sessions. Open space technology is a great format when you have a great deal of expertise and insight in the room and want to allow for different takes and approaches on a particular theme or problem you need to be solved.

Start by bringing your participants together to align around a central theme and focus their efforts. Explain the ground rules to help guide the problem-solving process and then invite members to identify any issue connecting to the central theme that they are interested in and are prepared to take responsibility for.

Once participants have decided on their approach to the core theme, they write their issue on a piece of paper, announce it to the group, pick a session time and place, and post the paper on the wall. As the wall fills up with sessions, the group is then invited to join the sessions that interest them the most and which they can contribute to, then you’re ready to begin!

Everyone joins the problem-solving group they’ve signed up to, record the discussion and if appropriate, findings can then be shared with the rest of the group afterward.

Open Space Technology   #action plan   #idea generation   #problem solving   #issue analysis   #large group   #online   #remote-friendly   Open Space is a methodology for large groups to create their agenda discerning important topics for discussion, suitable for conferences, community gatherings and whole system facilitation

Techniques to identify and analyze problems

Using a problem-solving method to help a team identify and analyze a problem can be a quick and effective addition to any workshop or meeting.

While further actions are always necessary, you can generate momentum and alignment easily, and these activities are a great place to get started.

We’ve put together this list of techniques to help you and your team with problem identification, analysis, and discussion that sets the foundation for developing effective solutions.

Let’s take a look!

Fishbone Analysis

Organizational or team challenges are rarely simple, and it’s important to remember that one problem can be an indication of something that goes deeper and may require further consideration to be solved.

Fishbone Analysis helps groups to dig deeper and understand the origins of a problem. It’s a great example of a root cause analysis method that is simple for everyone on a team to get their head around. 

Participants in this activity are asked to annotate a diagram of a fish, first adding the problem or issue to be worked on at the head of a fish before then brainstorming the root causes of the problem and adding them as bones on the fish. 

Using abstractions such as a diagram of a fish can really help a team break out of their regular thinking and develop a creative approach.

Fishbone Analysis   #problem solving   ##root cause analysis   #decision making   #online facilitation   A process to help identify and understand the origins of problems, issues or observations.

Problem Tree 

Encouraging visual thinking can be an essential part of many strategies. By simply reframing and clarifying problems, a group can move towards developing a problem solving model that works for them. 

In Problem Tree, groups are asked to first brainstorm a list of problems – these can be design problems, team problems or larger business problems – and then organize them into a hierarchy. The hierarchy could be from most important to least important or abstract to practical, though the key thing with problem solving games that involve this aspect is that your group has some way of managing and sorting all the issues that are raised.

Once you have a list of problems that need to be solved and have organized them accordingly, you’re then well-positioned for the next problem solving steps.

Problem tree   #define intentions   #create   #design   #issue analysis   A problem tree is a tool to clarify the hierarchy of problems addressed by the team within a design project; it represents high level problems or related sublevel problems.

SWOT Analysis

Chances are you’ve heard of the SWOT Analysis before. This problem-solving method focuses on identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is a tried and tested method for both individuals and teams.

Start by creating a desired end state or outcome and bare this in mind – any process solving model is made more effective by knowing what you are moving towards. Create a quadrant made up of the four categories of a SWOT analysis and ask participants to generate ideas based on each of those quadrants.

Once you have those ideas assembled in their quadrants, cluster them together based on their affinity with other ideas. These clusters are then used to facilitate group conversations and move things forward. 

SWOT analysis   #gamestorming   #problem solving   #action   #meeting facilitation   The SWOT Analysis is a long-standing technique of looking at what we have, with respect to the desired end state, as well as what we could improve on. It gives us an opportunity to gauge approaching opportunities and dangers, and assess the seriousness of the conditions that affect our future. When we understand those conditions, we can influence what comes next.

Agreement-Certainty Matrix

Not every problem-solving approach is right for every challenge, and deciding on the right method for the challenge at hand is a key part of being an effective team.

The Agreement Certainty matrix helps teams align on the nature of the challenges facing them. By sorting problems from simple to chaotic, your team can understand what methods are suitable for each problem and what they can do to ensure effective results. 

If you are already using Liberating Structures techniques as part of your problem-solving strategy, the Agreement-Certainty Matrix can be an invaluable addition to your process. We’ve found it particularly if you are having issues with recurring problems in your organization and want to go deeper in understanding the root cause. 

Agreement-Certainty Matrix   #issue analysis   #liberating structures   #problem solving   You can help individuals or groups avoid the frequent mistake of trying to solve a problem with methods that are not adapted to the nature of their challenge. The combination of two questions makes it possible to easily sort challenges into four categories: simple, complicated, complex , and chaotic .  A problem is simple when it can be solved reliably with practices that are easy to duplicate.  It is complicated when experts are required to devise a sophisticated solution that will yield the desired results predictably.  A problem is complex when there are several valid ways to proceed but outcomes are not predictable in detail.  Chaotic is when the context is too turbulent to identify a path forward.  A loose analogy may be used to describe these differences: simple is like following a recipe, complicated like sending a rocket to the moon, complex like raising a child, and chaotic is like the game “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”  The Liberating Structures Matching Matrix in Chapter 5 can be used as the first step to clarify the nature of a challenge and avoid the mismatches between problems and solutions that are frequently at the root of chronic, recurring problems.

Organizing and charting a team’s progress can be important in ensuring its success. SQUID (Sequential Question and Insight Diagram) is a great model that allows a team to effectively switch between giving questions and answers and develop the skills they need to stay on track throughout the process. 

Begin with two different colored sticky notes – one for questions and one for answers – and with your central topic (the head of the squid) on the board. Ask the group to first come up with a series of questions connected to their best guess of how to approach the topic. Ask the group to come up with answers to those questions, fix them to the board and connect them with a line. After some discussion, go back to question mode by responding to the generated answers or other points on the board.

It’s rewarding to see a diagram grow throughout the exercise, and a completed SQUID can provide a visual resource for future effort and as an example for other teams.

SQUID   #gamestorming   #project planning   #issue analysis   #problem solving   When exploring an information space, it’s important for a group to know where they are at any given time. By using SQUID, a group charts out the territory as they go and can navigate accordingly. SQUID stands for Sequential Question and Insight Diagram.

To continue with our nautical theme, Speed Boat is a short and sweet activity that can help a team quickly identify what employees, clients or service users might have a problem with and analyze what might be standing in the way of achieving a solution.

Methods that allow for a group to make observations, have insights and obtain those eureka moments quickly are invaluable when trying to solve complex problems.

In Speed Boat, the approach is to first consider what anchors and challenges might be holding an organization (or boat) back. Bonus points if you are able to identify any sharks in the water and develop ideas that can also deal with competitors!   

Speed Boat   #gamestorming   #problem solving   #action   Speedboat is a short and sweet way to identify what your employees or clients don’t like about your product/service or what’s standing in the way of a desired goal.

The Journalistic Six

Some of the most effective ways of solving problems is by encouraging teams to be more inclusive and diverse in their thinking.

Based on the six key questions journalism students are taught to answer in articles and news stories, The Journalistic Six helps create teams to see the whole picture. By using who, what, when, where, why, and how to facilitate the conversation and encourage creative thinking, your team can make sure that the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the are covered exhaustively and thoughtfully. Reporter’s notebook and dictaphone optional.

The Journalistic Six – Who What When Where Why How   #idea generation   #issue analysis   #problem solving   #online   #creative thinking   #remote-friendly   A questioning method for generating, explaining, investigating ideas.

Individual and group perspectives are incredibly important, but what happens if people are set in their minds and need a change of perspective in order to approach a problem more effectively?

Flip It is a method we love because it is both simple to understand and run, and allows groups to understand how their perspectives and biases are formed. 

Participants in Flip It are first invited to consider concerns, issues, or problems from a perspective of fear and write them on a flip chart. Then, the group is asked to consider those same issues from a perspective of hope and flip their understanding.  

No problem and solution is free from existing bias and by changing perspectives with Flip It, you can then develop a problem solving model quickly and effectively.

Flip It!   #gamestorming   #problem solving   #action   Often, a change in a problem or situation comes simply from a change in our perspectives. Flip It! is a quick game designed to show players that perspectives are made, not born.

LEGO Challenge

Now for an activity that is a little out of the (toy) box. LEGO Serious Play is a facilitation methodology that can be used to improve creative thinking and problem-solving skills. 

The LEGO Challenge includes giving each member of the team an assignment that is hidden from the rest of the group while they create a structure without speaking.

What the LEGO challenge brings to the table is a fun working example of working with stakeholders who might not be on the same page to solve problems. Also, it’s LEGO! Who doesn’t love LEGO! 

LEGO Challenge   #hyperisland   #team   A team-building activity in which groups must work together to build a structure out of LEGO, but each individual has a secret “assignment” which makes the collaborative process more challenging. It emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, conflict, cooperation, patience and problem solving strategy.

What, So What, Now What?

If not carefully managed, the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the problem-solving process can actually create more problems and misunderstandings.

The What, So What, Now What? problem-solving activity is designed to help collect insights and move forward while also eliminating the possibility of disagreement when it comes to identifying, clarifying, and analyzing organizational or work problems. 

Facilitation is all about bringing groups together so that might work on a shared goal and the best problem-solving strategies ensure that teams are aligned in purpose, if not initially in opinion or insight.

Throughout the three steps of this game, you give everyone on a team to reflect on a problem by asking what happened, why it is important, and what actions should then be taken. 

This can be a great activity for bringing our individual perceptions about a problem or challenge and contextualizing it in a larger group setting. This is one of the most important problem-solving skills you can bring to your organization.

W³ – What, So What, Now What?   #issue analysis   #innovation   #liberating structures   You can help groups reflect on a shared experience in a way that builds understanding and spurs coordinated action while avoiding unproductive conflict. It is possible for every voice to be heard while simultaneously sifting for insights and shaping new direction. Progressing in stages makes this practical—from collecting facts about What Happened to making sense of these facts with So What and finally to what actions logically follow with Now What . The shared progression eliminates most of the misunderstandings that otherwise fuel disagreements about what to do. Voila!

Journalists  

Problem analysis can be one of the most important and decisive stages of all problem-solving tools. Sometimes, a team can become bogged down in the details and are unable to move forward.

Journalists is an activity that can avoid a group from getting stuck in the problem identification or problem analysis stages of the process.

In Journalists, the group is invited to draft the front page of a fictional newspaper and figure out what stories deserve to be on the cover and what headlines those stories will have. By reframing how your problems and challenges are approached, you can help a team move productively through the process and be better prepared for the steps to follow.

Journalists   #vision   #big picture   #issue analysis   #remote-friendly   This is an exercise to use when the group gets stuck in details and struggles to see the big picture. Also good for defining a vision.

Problem-solving techniques for brainstorming solutions

Now you have the context and background of the problem you are trying to solving, now comes the time to start ideating and thinking about how you’ll solve the issue.

Here, you’ll want to encourage creative, free thinking and speed. Get as many ideas out as possible and explore different perspectives so you have the raw material for the next step.

Looking at a problem from a new angle can be one of the most effective ways of creating an effective solution. TRIZ is a problem-solving tool that asks the group to consider what they must not do in order to solve a challenge.

By reversing the discussion, new topics and taboo subjects often emerge, allowing the group to think more deeply and create ideas that confront the status quo in a safe and meaningful way. If you’re working on a problem that you’ve tried to solve before, TRIZ is a great problem-solving method to help your team get unblocked.

Making Space with TRIZ   #issue analysis   #liberating structures   #issue resolution   You can clear space for innovation by helping a group let go of what it knows (but rarely admits) limits its success and by inviting creative destruction. TRIZ makes it possible to challenge sacred cows safely and encourages heretical thinking. The question “What must we stop doing to make progress on our deepest purpose?” induces seriously fun yet very courageous conversations. Since laughter often erupts, issues that are otherwise taboo get a chance to be aired and confronted. With creative destruction come opportunities for renewal as local action and innovation rush in to fill the vacuum. Whoosh!

Mindspin  

Brainstorming is part of the bread and butter of the problem-solving process and all problem-solving strategies benefit from getting ideas out and challenging a team to generate solutions quickly. 

With Mindspin, participants are encouraged not only to generate ideas but to do so under time constraints and by slamming down cards and passing them on. By doing multiple rounds, your team can begin with a free generation of possible solutions before moving on to developing those solutions and encouraging further ideation. 

This is one of our favorite problem-solving activities and can be great for keeping the energy up throughout the workshop. Remember the importance of helping people become engaged in the process – energizing problem-solving techniques like Mindspin can help ensure your team stays engaged and happy, even when the problems they’re coming together to solve are complex. 

MindSpin   #teampedia   #idea generation   #problem solving   #action   A fast and loud method to enhance brainstorming within a team. Since this activity has more than round ideas that are repetitive can be ruled out leaving more creative and innovative answers to the challenge.

The Creativity Dice

One of the most useful problem solving skills you can teach your team is of approaching challenges with creativity, flexibility, and openness. Games like The Creativity Dice allow teams to overcome the potential hurdle of too much linear thinking and approach the process with a sense of fun and speed. 

In The Creativity Dice, participants are organized around a topic and roll a dice to determine what they will work on for a period of 3 minutes at a time. They might roll a 3 and work on investigating factual information on the chosen topic. They might roll a 1 and work on identifying the specific goals, standards, or criteria for the session.

Encouraging rapid work and iteration while asking participants to be flexible are great skills to cultivate. Having a stage for idea incubation in this game is also important. Moments of pause can help ensure the ideas that are put forward are the most suitable. 

The Creativity Dice   #creativity   #problem solving   #thiagi   #issue analysis   Too much linear thinking is hazardous to creative problem solving. To be creative, you should approach the problem (or the opportunity) from different points of view. You should leave a thought hanging in mid-air and move to another. This skipping around prevents premature closure and lets your brain incubate one line of thought while you consciously pursue another.

Idea and Concept Development

Brainstorming without structure can quickly become chaotic or frustrating. In a problem-solving context, having an ideation framework to follow can help ensure your team is both creative and disciplined.

In this method, you’ll find an idea generation process that encourages your group to brainstorm effectively before developing their ideas and begin clustering them together. By using concepts such as Yes and…, more is more and postponing judgement, you can create the ideal conditions for brainstorming with ease.

Idea & Concept Development   #hyperisland   #innovation   #idea generation   Ideation and Concept Development is a process for groups to work creatively and collaboratively to generate creative ideas. It’s a general approach that can be adapted and customized to suit many different scenarios. It includes basic principles for idea generation and several steps for groups to work with. It also includes steps for idea selection and development.

Problem-solving techniques for developing and refining solutions 

The success of any problem-solving process can be measured by the solutions it produces. After you’ve defined the issue, explored existing ideas, and ideated, it’s time to develop and refine your ideas in order to bring them closer to a solution that actually solves the problem.

Use these problem-solving techniques when you want to help your team think through their ideas and refine them as part of your problem solving process.

Improved Solutions

After a team has successfully identified a problem and come up with a few solutions, it can be tempting to call the work of the problem-solving process complete. That said, the first solution is not necessarily the best, and by including a further review and reflection activity into your problem-solving model, you can ensure your group reaches the best possible result. 

One of a number of problem-solving games from Thiagi Group, Improved Solutions helps you go the extra mile and develop suggested solutions with close consideration and peer review. By supporting the discussion of several problems at once and by shifting team roles throughout, this problem-solving technique is a dynamic way of finding the best solution. 

Improved Solutions   #creativity   #thiagi   #problem solving   #action   #team   You can improve any solution by objectively reviewing its strengths and weaknesses and making suitable adjustments. In this creativity framegame, you improve the solutions to several problems. To maintain objective detachment, you deal with a different problem during each of six rounds and assume different roles (problem owner, consultant, basher, booster, enhancer, and evaluator) during each round. At the conclusion of the activity, each player ends up with two solutions to her problem.

Four Step Sketch

Creative thinking and visual ideation does not need to be confined to the opening stages of your problem-solving strategies. Exercises that include sketching and prototyping on paper can be effective at the solution finding and development stage of the process, and can be great for keeping a team engaged. 

By going from simple notes to a crazy 8s round that involves rapidly sketching 8 variations on their ideas before then producing a final solution sketch, the group is able to iterate quickly and visually. Problem-solving techniques like Four-Step Sketch are great if you have a group of different thinkers and want to change things up from a more textual or discussion-based approach.

Four-Step Sketch   #design sprint   #innovation   #idea generation   #remote-friendly   The four-step sketch is an exercise that helps people to create well-formed concepts through a structured process that includes: Review key information Start design work on paper,  Consider multiple variations , Create a detailed solution . This exercise is preceded by a set of other activities allowing the group to clarify the challenge they want to solve. See how the Four Step Sketch exercise fits into a Design Sprint

Ensuring that everyone in a group is able to contribute to a discussion is vital during any problem solving process. Not only does this ensure all bases are covered, but its then easier to get buy-in and accountability when people have been able to contribute to the process.

1-2-4-All is a tried and tested facilitation technique where participants are asked to first brainstorm on a topic on their own. Next, they discuss and share ideas in a pair before moving into a small group. Those groups are then asked to present the best idea from their discussion to the rest of the team.

This method can be used in many different contexts effectively, though I find it particularly shines in the idea development stage of the process. Giving each participant time to concretize their ideas and develop them in progressively larger groups can create a great space for both innovation and psychological safety.

1-2-4-All   #idea generation   #liberating structures   #issue analysis   With this facilitation technique you can immediately include everyone regardless of how large the group is. You can generate better ideas and more of them faster than ever before. You can tap the know-how and imagination that is distributed widely in places not known in advance. Open, generative conversation unfolds. Ideas and solutions are sifted in rapid fashion. Most importantly, participants own the ideas, so follow-up and implementation is simplified. No buy-in strategies needed! Simple and elegant!

15% Solutions

Some problems are simpler than others and with the right problem-solving activities, you can empower people to take immediate actions that can help create organizational change. 

Part of the liberating structures toolkit, 15% solutions is a problem-solving technique that focuses on finding and implementing solutions quickly. A process of iterating and making small changes quickly can help generate momentum and an appetite for solving complex problems.

Problem-solving strategies can live and die on whether people are onboard. Getting some quick wins is a great way of getting people behind the process.   

It can be extremely empowering for a team to realize that problem-solving techniques can be deployed quickly and easily and delineate between things they can positively impact and those things they cannot change. 

15% Solutions   #action   #liberating structures   #remote-friendly   You can reveal the actions, however small, that everyone can do immediately. At a minimum, these will create momentum, and that may make a BIG difference.  15% Solutions show that there is no reason to wait around, feel powerless, or fearful. They help people pick it up a level. They get individuals and the group to focus on what is within their discretion instead of what they cannot change.  With a very simple question, you can flip the conversation to what can be done and find solutions to big problems that are often distributed widely in places not known in advance. Shifting a few grains of sand may trigger a landslide and change the whole landscape.

Problem-solving techniques for making decisions and planning

After your group is happy with the possible solutions you’ve developed, now comes the time to choose which to implement. There’s more than one way to make a decision and the best option is often dependant on the needs and set-up of your group.

Sometimes, it’s the case that you’ll want to vote as a group on what is likely to be the most impactful solution. Other times, it might be down to a decision maker or major stakeholder to make the final decision. Whatever your process, here’s some techniques you can use to help you make a decision during your problem solving process.

How-Now-Wow Matrix

The problem-solving process is often creative, as complex problems usually require a change of thinking and creative response in order to find the best solutions. While it’s common for the first stages to encourage creative thinking, groups can often gravitate to familiar solutions when it comes to the end of the process. 

When selecting solutions, you don’t want to lose your creative energy! The How-Now-Wow Matrix from Gamestorming is a great problem-solving activity that enables a group to stay creative and think out of the box when it comes to selecting the right solution for a given problem.

Problem-solving techniques that encourage creative thinking and the ideation and selection of new solutions can be the most effective in organisational change. Give the How-Now-Wow Matrix a go, and not just for how pleasant it is to say out loud. 

How-Now-Wow Matrix   #gamestorming   #idea generation   #remote-friendly   When people want to develop new ideas, they most often think out of the box in the brainstorming or divergent phase. However, when it comes to convergence, people often end up picking ideas that are most familiar to them. This is called a ‘creative paradox’ or a ‘creadox’. The How-Now-Wow matrix is an idea selection tool that breaks the creadox by forcing people to weigh each idea on 2 parameters.

Impact and Effort Matrix

All problem-solving techniques hope to not only find solutions to a given problem or challenge but to find the best solution. When it comes to finding a solution, groups are invited to put on their decision-making hats and really think about how a proposed idea would work in practice. 

The Impact and Effort Matrix is one of the problem-solving techniques that fall into this camp, empowering participants to first generate ideas and then categorize them into a 2×2 matrix based on impact and effort.

Activities that invite critical thinking while remaining simple are invaluable. Use the Impact and Effort Matrix to move from ideation and towards evaluating potential solutions before then committing to them. 

Impact and Effort Matrix   #gamestorming   #decision making   #action   #remote-friendly   In this decision-making exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas along these lines is a useful technique in decision making, as it obliges contributors to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing to them.

If you’ve followed each of the problem-solving steps with your group successfully, you should move towards the end of your process with heaps of possible solutions developed with a specific problem in mind. But how do you help a group go from ideation to putting a solution into action? 

Dotmocracy – or Dot Voting -is a tried and tested method of helping a team in the problem-solving process make decisions and put actions in place with a degree of oversight and consensus. 

One of the problem-solving techniques that should be in every facilitator’s toolbox, Dot Voting is fast and effective and can help identify the most popular and best solutions and help bring a group to a decision effectively. 

Dotmocracy   #action   #decision making   #group prioritization   #hyperisland   #remote-friendly   Dotmocracy is a simple method for group prioritization or decision-making. It is not an activity on its own, but a method to use in processes where prioritization or decision-making is the aim. The method supports a group to quickly see which options are most popular or relevant. The options or ideas are written on post-its and stuck up on a wall for the whole group to see. Each person votes for the options they think are the strongest, and that information is used to inform a decision.

Straddling the gap between decision making and planning, MoSCoW is a simple and effective method that allows a group team to easily prioritize a set of possible options.

Use this method in a problem solving process by collecting and summarizing all your possible solutions and then categorize them into 4 sections: “Must have”, “Should have”, “Could have”, or “Would like but won‘t get”.

This method is particularly useful when its less about choosing one possible solution and more about prioritorizing which to do first and which may not fit in the scope of your project. In my experience, complex challenges often require multiple small fixes, and this method can be a great way to move from a pile of things you’d all like to do to a structured plan.

MoSCoW   #define intentions   #create   #design   #action   #remote-friendly   MoSCoW is a method that allows the team to prioritize the different features that they will work on. Features are then categorized into “Must have”, “Should have”, “Could have”, or “Would like but won‘t get”. To be used at the beginning of a timeslot (for example during Sprint planning) and when planning is needed.

When it comes to managing the rollout of a solution, clarity and accountability are key factors in ensuring the success of the project. The RAACI chart is a simple but effective model for setting roles and responsibilities as part of a planning session.

Start by listing each person involved in the project and put them into the following groups in order to make it clear who is responsible for what during the rollout of your solution.

• Responsibility  (Which person and/or team will be taking action?)
• Authority  (At what “point” must the responsible person check in before going further?)
• Accountability  (Who must the responsible person check in with?)
• Consultation  (Who must be consulted by the responsible person before decisions are made?)
• Information  (Who must be informed of decisions, once made?)

Ensure this information is easily accessible and use it to inform who does what and who is looped into discussions and kept up to date.

RAACI   #roles and responsibility   #teamwork   #project management   Clarifying roles and responsibilities, levels of autonomy/latitude in decision making, and levels of engagement among diverse stakeholders.

Problem-solving warm-up activities

All facilitators know that warm-ups and icebreakers are useful for any workshop or group process. Problem-solving workshops are no different.

Use these problem-solving techniques to warm up a group and prepare them for the rest of the process. Activating your group by tapping into some of the top problem-solving skills can be one of the best ways to see great outcomes from your session.

Check-in / Check-out

Solid processes are planned from beginning to end, and the best facilitators know that setting the tone and establishing a safe, open environment can be integral to a successful problem-solving process. Check-in / Check-out is a great way to begin and/or bookend a problem-solving workshop. Checking in to a session emphasizes that everyone will be seen, heard, and expected to contribute. 

If you are running a series of meetings, setting a consistent pattern of checking in and checking out can really help your team get into a groove. We recommend this opening-closing activity for small to medium-sized groups though it can work with large groups if they’re disciplined!

Check-in / Check-out   #team   #opening   #closing   #hyperisland   #remote-friendly   Either checking-in or checking-out is a simple way for a team to open or close a process, symbolically and in a collaborative way. Checking-in/out invites each member in a group to be present, seen and heard, and to express a reflection or a feeling. Checking-in emphasizes presence, focus and group commitment; checking-out emphasizes reflection and symbolic closure.

Doodling Together  

Thinking creatively and not being afraid to make suggestions are important problem-solving skills for any group or team, and warming up by encouraging these behaviors is a great way to start. 

Doodling Together is one of our favorite creative ice breaker games – it’s quick, effective, and fun and can make all following problem-solving steps easier by encouraging a group to collaborate visually. By passing cards and adding additional items as they go, the workshop group gets into a groove of co-creation and idea development that is crucial to finding solutions to problems. 

Doodling Together   #collaboration   #creativity   #teamwork   #fun   #team   #visual methods   #energiser   #icebreaker   #remote-friendly   Create wild, weird and often funny postcards together & establish a group’s creative confidence.

Show and Tell

You might remember some version of Show and Tell from being a kid in school and it’s a great problem-solving activity to kick off a session.

Asking participants to prepare a little something before a workshop by bringing an object for show and tell can help them warm up before the session has even begun! Games that include a physical object can also help encourage early engagement before moving onto more big-picture thinking.

By asking your participants to tell stories about why they chose to bring a particular item to the group, you can help teams see things from new perspectives and see both differences and similarities in the way they approach a topic. Great groundwork for approaching a problem-solving process as a team! 

Show and Tell   #gamestorming   #action   #opening   #meeting facilitation   Show and Tell taps into the power of metaphors to reveal players’ underlying assumptions and associations around a topic The aim of the game is to get a deeper understanding of stakeholders’ perspectives on anything—a new project, an organizational restructuring, a shift in the company’s vision or team dynamic.

Constellations

Who doesn’t love stars? Constellations is a great warm-up activity for any workshop as it gets people up off their feet, energized, and ready to engage in new ways with established topics. It’s also great for showing existing beliefs, biases, and patterns that can come into play as part of your session.

Using warm-up games that help build trust and connection while also allowing for non-verbal responses can be great for easing people into the problem-solving process and encouraging engagement from everyone in the group. Constellations is great in large spaces that allow for movement and is definitely a practical exercise to allow the group to see patterns that are otherwise invisible. 

Constellations   #trust   #connection   #opening   #coaching   #patterns   #system   Individuals express their response to a statement or idea by standing closer or further from a central object. Used with teams to reveal system, hidden patterns, perspectives.

Draw a Tree

Problem-solving games that help raise group awareness through a central, unifying metaphor can be effective ways to warm-up a group in any problem-solving model.

Draw a Tree is a simple warm-up activity you can use in any group and which can provide a quick jolt of energy. Start by asking your participants to draw a tree in just 45 seconds – they can choose whether it will be abstract or realistic. 

Once the timer is up, ask the group how many people included the roots of the tree and use this as a means to discuss how we can ignore important parts of any system simply because they are not visible.

All problem-solving strategies are made more effective by thinking of problems critically and by exposing things that may not normally come to light. Warm-up games like Draw a Tree are great in that they quickly demonstrate some key problem-solving skills in an accessible and effective way.

Draw a Tree   #thiagi   #opening   #perspectives   #remote-friendly   With this game you can raise awarness about being more mindful, and aware of the environment we live in.

Closing activities for a problem-solving process

Each step of the problem-solving workshop benefits from an intelligent deployment of activities, games, and techniques. Bringing your session to an effective close helps ensure that solutions are followed through on and that you also celebrate what has been achieved.

Here are some problem-solving activities you can use to effectively close a workshop or meeting and ensure the great work you’ve done can continue afterward.

One Breath Feedback

Maintaining attention and focus during the closing stages of a problem-solving workshop can be tricky and so being concise when giving feedback can be important. It’s easy to incur “death by feedback” should some team members go on for too long sharing their perspectives in a quick feedback round. 

One Breath Feedback is a great closing activity for workshops. You give everyone an opportunity to provide feedback on what they’ve done but only in the space of a single breath. This keeps feedback short and to the point and means that everyone is encouraged to provide the most important piece of feedback to them. 

One breath feedback   #closing   #feedback   #action   This is a feedback round in just one breath that excels in maintaining attention: each participants is able to speak during just one breath … for most people that’s around 20 to 25 seconds … unless of course you’ve been a deep sea diver in which case you’ll be able to do it for longer.

Who What When Matrix 

Matrices feature as part of many effective problem-solving strategies and with good reason. They are easily recognizable, simple to use, and generate results.

The Who What When Matrix is a great tool to use when closing your problem-solving session by attributing a who, what and when to the actions and solutions you have decided upon. The resulting matrix is a simple, easy-to-follow way of ensuring your team can move forward. 

Great solutions can’t be enacted without action and ownership. Your problem-solving process should include a stage for allocating tasks to individuals or teams and creating a realistic timeframe for those solutions to be implemented or checked out. Use this method to keep the solution implementation process clear and simple for all involved. 

Who/What/When Matrix   #gamestorming   #action   #project planning   With Who/What/When matrix, you can connect people with clear actions they have defined and have committed to.

Response cards

Group discussion can comprise the bulk of most problem-solving activities and by the end of the process, you might find that your team is talked out! 

Providing a means for your team to give feedback with short written notes can ensure everyone is head and can contribute without the need to stand up and talk. Depending on the needs of the group, giving an alternative can help ensure everyone can contribute to your problem-solving model in the way that makes the most sense for them.

Response Cards is a great way to close a workshop if you are looking for a gentle warm-down and want to get some swift discussion around some of the feedback that is raised. 

Response Cards   #debriefing   #closing   #structured sharing   #questions and answers   #thiagi   #action   It can be hard to involve everyone during a closing of a session. Some might stay in the background or get unheard because of louder participants. However, with the use of Response Cards, everyone will be involved in providing feedback or clarify questions at the end of a session.

Tips for effective problem solving

Problem-solving activities are only one part of the puzzle. While a great method can help unlock your team’s ability to solve problems, without a thoughtful approach and strong facilitation the solutions may not be fit for purpose.

Let’s take a look at some problem-solving tips you can apply to any process to help it be a success!

Clearly define the problem

Jumping straight to solutions can be tempting, though without first clearly articulating a problem, the solution might not be the right one. Many of the problem-solving activities below include sections where the problem is explored and clearly defined before moving on.

This is a vital part of the problem-solving process and taking the time to fully define an issue can save time and effort later. A clear definition helps identify irrelevant information and it also ensures that your team sets off on the right track.

Don’t jump to conclusions

It’s easy for groups to exhibit cognitive bias or have preconceived ideas about both problems and potential solutions. Be sure to back up any problem statements or potential solutions with facts, research, and adequate forethought.

The best techniques ask participants to be methodical and challenge preconceived notions. Make sure you give the group enough time and space to collect relevant information and consider the problem in a new way. By approaching the process with a clear, rational mindset, you’ll often find that better solutions are more forthcoming.  

Try different approaches  

Problems come in all shapes and sizes and so too should the methods you use to solve them. If you find that one approach isn’t yielding results and your team isn’t finding different solutions, try mixing it up. You’ll be surprised at how using a new creative activity can unblock your team and generate great solutions.

Don’t take it personally 

Depending on the nature of your team or organizational problems, it’s easy for conversations to get heated. While it’s good for participants to be engaged in the discussions, ensure that emotions don’t run too high and that blame isn’t thrown around while finding solutions.

You’re all in it together, and even if your team or area is seeing problems, that isn’t necessarily a disparagement of you personally. Using facilitation skills to manage group dynamics is one effective method of helping conversations be more constructive.

Get the right people in the room

Your problem-solving method is often only as effective as the group using it. Getting the right people on the job and managing the number of people present is important too!

If the group is too small, you may not get enough different perspectives to effectively solve a problem. If the group is too large, you can go round and round during the ideation stages.

Creating the right group makeup is also important in ensuring you have the necessary expertise and skillset to both identify and follow up on potential solutions. Carefully consider who to include at each stage to help ensure your problem-solving method is followed and positioned for success.

Create psychologically safe spaces for discussion

Identifying a problem accurately also requires that all members of a group are able to contribute their views in an open and safe manner.

It can be tough for people to stand up and contribute if the problems or challenges are emotive or personal in nature. Try and create a psychologically safe space for these kinds of discussions and where possible, create regular opportunities for challenges to be brought up organically.

Document everything

The best solutions can take refinement, iteration, and reflection to come out. Get into a habit of documenting your process in order to keep all the learnings from the session and to allow ideas to mature and develop. Many of the methods below involve the creation of documents or shared resources. Be sure to keep and share these so everyone can benefit from the work done!

Bring a facilitator 

Facilitation is all about making group processes easier. With a subject as potentially emotive and important as problem-solving, having an impartial third party in the form of a facilitator can make all the difference in finding great solutions and keeping the process moving. Consider bringing a facilitator to your problem-solving session to get better results and generate meaningful solutions!

Develop your problem-solving skills

It takes time and practice to be an effective problem solver. While some roles or participants might more naturally gravitate towards problem-solving, it can take development and planning to help everyone create better solutions.

You might develop a training program, run a problem-solving workshop or simply ask your team to practice using the techniques below. Check out our post on problem-solving skills to see how you and your group can develop the right mental process and be more resilient to issues too!

Design a great agenda

Workshops are a great format for solving problems. With the right approach, you can focus a group and help them find the solutions to their own problems. But designing a process can be time-consuming and finding the right activities can be difficult.

Check out our workshop planning guide to level-up your agenda design and start running more effective workshops. Need inspiration? Check out templates designed by expert facilitators to help you kickstart your process!

Save time and effort creating an effective problem solving process

A structured problem solving process is a surefire way of solving tough problems, discovering creative solutions and driving organizational change. But how can you design for successful outcomes?

With SessionLab, it’s easy to design engaging workshops that deliver results. Drag, drop and reorder blocks  to build your agenda. When you make changes or update your agenda, your session  timing   adjusts automatically , saving you time on manual adjustments.

Collaborating with stakeholders or clients? Share your agenda with a single click and collaborate in real-time. No more sending documents back and forth over email.

Explore  how to use SessionLab  to design effective problem solving workshops or  watch this five minute video  to see the planner in action!

Over to you

The problem-solving process can often be as complicated and multifaceted as the problems they are set-up to solve. With the right problem-solving techniques and a mix of exercises designed to guide discussion and generate purposeful ideas, we hope we’ve given you the tools to find the best solutions as simply and easily as possible.

Is there a problem-solving technique that you are missing here? Do you have a favorite activity or method you use when facilitating? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you! 

thank you very much for these excellent techniques

Certainly wonderful article, very detailed. Shared!

Your list of techniques for problem solving can be helpfully extended by adding TRIZ to the list of techniques. TRIZ has 40 problem solving techniques derived from methods inventros and patent holders used to get new patents. About 10-12 are general approaches. many organization sponsor classes in TRIZ that are used to solve business problems or general organiztational problems. You can take a look at TRIZ and dwonload a free internet booklet to see if you feel it shound be included per your selection process.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Going from a mere idea to a workshop that delivers results for your clients can feel like a daunting task. In this piece, we will shine a light on all the work behind the scenes and help you learn how to plan a workshop from start to finish. On a good day, facilitation can feel like effortless magic, but that is mostly the result of backstage work, foresight, and a lot of careful planning. Read on to learn a step-by-step approach to breaking the process of planning a workshop into small, manageable chunks.  The flow starts with the first meeting with a client to define the purposes of a workshop.…

Effective online tools are a necessity for smooth and engaging virtual workshops and meetings. But how do you choose the right ones? Do you sometimes feel that the good old pen and paper or MS Office toolkit and email leaves you struggling to stay on top of managing and delivering your workshop? Fortunately, there are plenty of great workshop tools to make your life easier when you need to facilitate a meeting and lead workshops. In this post, we’ll share our favorite online tools you can use to make your life easier and run better workshops and meetings. In fact, there are plenty of free online workshop tools and meeting…

How does learning work? A clever 9-year-old once told me: “I know I am learning something new when I am surprised.” The science of adult learning tells us that, in order to learn new skills (which, unsurprisingly, is harder for adults to do than kids) grown-ups need to first get into a specific headspace.  In a business, this approach is often employed in a training session where employees learn new skills or work on professional development. But how do you ensure your training is effective? In this guide, we'll explore how to create an effective training session plan and run engaging training sessions. As team leader, project manager, or consultant,…

Design your next workshop with SessionLab

Join the 150,000 facilitators using SessionLab

Sign up for free

• Member States

Main Bodies

• Secretary-General
• Secretariat
• Emblem and Flag
• ICJ Statute
• Nobel Peace Prize

Peace and Security

Human rights.

• Humanitarian Aid
• Sustainable Development and Climate
• International Law
• Global Issues
• Official Languages
• Observances
• Events and News
• Get Involved
• Israel-Gaza

As the world’s only truly universal global organization, the United Nations has become the foremost forum to address issues that transcend national boundaries and cannot be resolved by any one country acting alone.

To its initial goals of safeguarding peace, protecting human rights, establishing the framework for international justice and promoting economic and social progress, in the seven decades since its creation the United Nations has added on new challenges, such as AIDS, big data and climate change.

While conflict resolution and peacekeeping continue to be among its most visible efforts, the UN, along with its specialized agencies, is also engaged in a wide array of activities to improve people’s lives around the world – from disaster relief, through education and advancement of women, to peaceful uses of atomic energy.

This section offers an overview of some of these issues, and links to other resources, where you can get additional information.

The UN system plays a crucial role in coordinating assistance of all kinds — to help Africa help itself.  From promoting the development of democratic institutions, to the establishment of peace between warring nations, the UN is present on the ground supporting economic and social development and the promotion and protection of human rights.

The world’s population is ageing: virtually every country in the world is experiencing growth in the number and proportion of older persons in their population. The number of older persons, those aged 60 years or over, has increased substantially in recent years in most countries and regions, and that growth is projected to accelerate in the coming decades.

HIV infections have been reduced by 59% since the peak in 1995, (by 58% among children since 2010) and AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 69% since the peak in 2004 and by 51% since 2010. Globally 46% of all new HIV infections were among women and girls in 2022. The UN family has been in the vanguard of this progress.

Atomic Energy

More than 30 countries worldwide are operating 413 nuclear reactors for electricity generation and 58 new nuclear plants are under construction. By the end of 2022, 12 countries relied on nuclear energy to supply at least one-quarter of their total electricity.

Big Data for Sustainable Development

The volume of data in the world is increasing exponentially. New sources of data, new technologies, and new analytical approaches, if applied responsibly, can allow to better monitor progress toward achievement of the SDGs in a way that is both inclusive and fair.

Child and Youth Safety Online

Rising Internet connectivity has the potential to transform children and young people’s lives for the better, but also makes them vulnerable to sexual abuse, cyberbullying, and other risks. The UN is actively working to protect children and youth online through various programmes and initiatives.

Every child has the right to health, education and protection, and every society has a stake in expanding children’s opportunities in life. Yet, around the world, millions of children are denied a fair chance for no reason other than the country, gender or circumstances into which they are born.

Climate Change

Climate change is one of the major challenges of our time. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. 

Countering Terrorism

Each year, thousands of innocent lives are shattered by terrorist violence driven by violent extremism. To counter this threat, the international community must strengthen cooperation in preventing and combating terrorism.

• Decolonization

The wave of decolonization, which changed the face of the planet, was born with the UN and represents the world body’s first great success. As a result of decolonization many countries became independent and joined the UN.

Democracy is a universally recognized ideal and is one of the core values and principles of the United Nations. Democracy provides an environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights.

Disarmament

Since the birth of the United Nations, the goals of multilateral disarmament and arms limitation have been central to the Organization’s efforts to maintain international peace and security.

Ending Poverty

At current rates of progress, the world is unlikely to meet the global goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030, with estimates suggesting that nearly 600 million people will still be living in extreme poverty.

The world is not on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2, Zero Hunger by 2030. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gender Equality

Women and girls represent half of the world’s population and, therefore, also half of its potential. Gender equality, besides being a fundamental human right, is essential to achieve peaceful societies, with full human potential and sustainable development.

The United Nations, since its inception, has been actively involved in promoting and protecting good health worldwide. Leading that effort within the UN system is the World Health Organization (WHO), whose constitution came into force on 7 April 1948.

Promoting respect for human rights is a core purpose of the United Nations and defines its identity as an organization for people around the world. Member States have mandated the Secretary-General and the UN System to help them achieve the standards set out in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights .

International Law and Justice

The UN continues to promote justice and international law across its three pillars of work: international peace and security, economic and social progress and development, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

International migration

Since the earliest times, humanity has been on the move. Today, more people than ever before live in a country other than the one in which they were born.

Oceans and the Law of the Sea

Life itself arose from the oceans. The ocean is vast, some 72 per cent of the earth's surface. Not only has the oceans always been a prime source of nourishment for the life it helped generate, but from earliest recorded history it has served for trade and commerce, adventure and discovery.

Saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war was the main motivation for creating the United Nations, whose founders lived through the devastation of two world wars.

In 1950, five years after the founding of the United Nations, world population was estimated at around 2.6 billion people. It reached 5 billion in 1987 and 6 in 1999. In October 2011, the global population was estimated to be 7 billion.

There were 110 million people forcibly displaced world-wide at the end of June 2023. Among those were 36.4 million refugees, (30.5 million refugees under UNHCR's mandate, and 5.94 million Palestine refugees under UNRWA's mandate). ;

Fresh water sustains human life and is vital for human health. There is enough fresh water for everyone on Earth. However, due to bad economics or poor infrastructure, millions of people (most of them children) die from diseases associated with inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene.

As youth are increasingly demanding more just, equitable and progressive opportunities and solutions in their societies, the need to address the multifaceted challenges faced by young people (such as access to education, health, employment and gender equality) have become more pressing than ever.

• General Assembly
• Security Council
• Economic and Social Council
• Trusteeship Council
• International Court of Justice

Departments / Offices

• UN System Directory
• UN System Chart
• Global Leadership
• UN Information Centres

Resources / Services

• Emergency information
• Reporting Wrongdoing
• Guidelines for gender-inclusive language
• UN iLibrary
• UN Chronicle
• UN Yearbook
• Publications for sale
• Media Accreditation
• NGO accreditation at ECOSOC
• NGO accreditation at DGC
• Visitors’ services
• Procurement
• Internships
• Academic Impact
• UN Archives
• UN Audiovisual Library
• How to donate to the UN system
• Information on COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
• Africa Renewal
• Ten ways the UN makes a difference
• High-level summits 2023

Key Documents

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Statute of the International Court of Justice
• Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization

News and Media

• Press Releases
• Spokesperson
• Social Media
• The Essential UN
• Awake at Night podcast

Issues / Campaigns

• Sustainable Development Goals
• Our Common Agenda
• Summit of the Future
• Climate Action
• UN and Sustainability
• Action for Peacekeeping (A4P)
• Global Ceasefire
• Global Crisis Response Group
• Call to Action for Human Rights
• Disability Inclusion Strategy
• Fight Racism
• Hate Speech
• LGBTIQ+ People
• Safety of Journalists
• Rule of Law
• Action to Counter Terrorism
• Victims of Terrorism
• Children and Armed Conflict
• Violence Against Children (SRSG)
• Sexual Violence in Conflict
• Refugees and Migrants
• Action Agenda on Internal Displacement
• Spotlight Initiative
• Preventing Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
• Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect
• The Rwanda Genocide
• The Holocaust
• The Question of Palestine
• The Transatlantic Slave Trade
• Messengers of Peace
• Roadmap for Digital Cooperation
• Digital Financing Task Force
• Data Strategy
• Countering Disinformation
• UN75: 2020 and Beyond
• Women Rise for All
• Stop the Red Sea Catastrophe
• Black Sea Grain Initiative Joint Coordination Centre
• Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Response (Donate)
• Israel-Gaza Crisis

Top 20 Current Global Issues We Must Address

What are the most pressing issues in the world today? What will demand the most attention in the next 5, 10, and 20+ years? In this article, which frequently refers to the World Economic Forum’s 17th Edition of the Global Risks Report, we’ll highlight 20 current global issues we must address, including issues related to climate change, COVID-19, social rights, and more. While it’s hardly a comprehensive discussion, it’s a solid introduction to the kinds of concerns facing our world today.

#1. Poverty

In fall 2022, the World Bank will update the International Poverty Line from $1.90 to $2.15. This means anyone living on less than $2.15 is in “extreme poverty.” Why the change? Increases in the costs of food, clothing, and shelter between 2011-2017 make the “real value of $2.15 in 2017 prices equal to $1.90 in 2011 prices. As for the World Bank’s goal to reduce extreme poverty to 3% or less by 2030, the pandemic has made it even harder. Extreme poverty isn’t the only poverty we have to contend with. 62% of the global population lives on less than $10/day. While there’s been progress over the years, the end of poverty is still far off.

Learn more about tackling poverty with an online course: Poverty & Population: How Demographics Shape Policy (Columbia University)

#2. Climate change

The IPCC released its sixth report in 2022. In its summary for policy-makers, the report’s authors outlined a series of near-term, mid-term, and long-term risks. If global warming reaches 1.5°C in the near term (2021-2040), it would cause “unavoidable increases in multiple climate hazards,” as well as “multiple risks to ecosystems and humans.” In the long term, climate change will present major health issues, premature deaths, risks to cities and settlements , and other dangers. Mitigation is desperately needed – and fast. Because of climate change ’s connection to other issues on this list, it’s one of the most serious challenges facing humanity.

Learn more about climate change with an online course: Science and Engineering of Climate Change (EDHEC Business School)

#3. Food insecurity

According to the 2022 Global Report on Food Crises , which is produced by the Global Network against Food Crises, the number of people in crisis or worse is the highest it’s been in the six years since the report has existed. Close to 193 million people were experiencing acute food insecurity in 2021, which is an increase of almost 40 million since 2020. This represents a staggering 80% increase since 2016. Causes include “economic shocks,” like an increase in global food prices. Domestic food price inflation in low-income countries also rose a lot. “Weather-related disasters” are also a big driver. For 15.7 million people in 15 countries, it was the primary driver of acute food insecurity.

Learn more about food insecurity with an online course: Feeding the World (University of Pennsylvania)

#4. Refugee rights

According to UNHCR, the war in Ukraine sparked the fastest-growing refugee crisis since WWII. Almost 6 million (as of May 10, 2022) people have fled. The UNCHR’s Refugee Brief , which compiles the week’s biggest refugee stories, has recently described situations in places like Somalia, where thousands of people were displaced due to severe drought. Between January and mid-April, more than 36,000 refugees from Nigeria, Mali, and Burkina Faso arrived in Niger. These are only a few examples of the refugee crises, which endangers already marginalized groups – like women and children – and puts them at an increased risk of trafficking , violence, and death.

Learn more about refugee rights with an online course: Refugees in the 21st Century (University of London)

#5. COVID-19

The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2022. It will continue to be a major issue for the world. The WEF’s Global Risks Report 2022 discusses COVID’s effects at length , including major economic recovery disparities and social erosion. According to a January 2022 article from NPR , there are also issues with vaccinations as many countries continue to have trouble getting doses. Distribution, vaccine hesitancy, healthcare systems, and other problems also factor into low vaccination rates. While we may never know the exact impact, the WHO estimates that between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021, there were around 14.9 million excess deaths linked to COVID-19.

Learn more about the impact of COVID-19 with an online course: Life After COVID-19: Get Ready for our Post-Pandemic Future (Institute for the Future)

#6. Future pandemic preparation and response

COVID-19 taught the world the importance of prepardeness. In a Harvard blog , Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, outlined the lessons the world should take to heart. The first: science has to guide policy. The politicization of the pandemic led to a lot of unnecessary damage. Another lesson is that science must pair with equity or it can actually make inequalities worse. This is obvious when looking at how low-income countries struggled to get the vaccines while wealthier countries stocked up. More resilient healthcare systems are also a must, as well as more coherent, global plans on how to respond. The world must also invest in research on contagious diseases, zoonotic diseases, the effectiveness of outbreak responses, and more.

Learn more about future pandemic response with an online course: Pandemic preparedness, prevention, and response (Politecnico di Milano)

#7. Healthcare

The healthcare industry has experienced major shifts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the World Economic Forum, there’s been new investments and innovations, especially from the technology and telehealth sectors. In 2021, $44 billion was spent on health innovation. The world will be seeing the effects of these innovations for years to come, though equity will no doubt be a major issue. In places like the United States, the pandemic also reaffirmed how broken healthcare systems can be. In an MIT News blog , Andrea Campbell, a professor of political science, says the pandemic revealed a “dire need” for investments in public-health infrastructure, as well as a need to expand healthcare access and insurance coverage.

Learn more about health inequity issues with an online course: Addressing Racial Health Inequity in Healthcare (University of Michigan)

#8. Mental health

Globally, almost 1 billion people have some form of mental disorder. The pandemic made the world’s mental health worse. According to a scientific brief from the WHO , there’s been a 25% increase in anxiety and depression worldwide. Causes include social isolation, fear of sickness, grief, and financial anxieties. Health workers were also severely impacted, as well as young women and girls. The brief also highlights how the pandemic disrupted many mental health services, including services for substance abuse. Countries need to ensure access to mental health services as part of their COVID-19 recovery plans and beyond. It’s an economic decision, as well. The Lancet states that anxiety and depression alone cost the global economy around $1 trillion a year.

Learn more about mental health with an online course: The Science of Well-Being (Yale University)

#9. Disability rights

According to the WHO , over 1 billion people have some form of disability. Half can’t afford healthcare. They’re also more likely to live in poverty than those without a disability, have poorer health outcomes, and have less access to work and education opportunities. Human Rights Watch lists other discriminations disabled people face, such as an increased risk of violence. There’s been progress regarding disability rights, but many countries lack strong protections. The world still has a long way to go to ensure equality for those with disabilities.

Learn more about disability rights with an online courses: Disability Awareness and Support (University of Pittsburgh)

#10. LGBTQ+ rights

Members of the LGBTQ+ community face discrimination in many forms. According to Amnesty International , discrimination can target sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics. Even in more progressive countries like the United States, people face violence and discrimination. According to the Human Rights Campaign, more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were proposed in 2022. At least a dozen states are considering legislation that forbids schools from discussing or using a curriculum that covers sexual orientation and gender identity. Considering the United States’ influence in the world, this attack on LGBTQ+ rights will likely have consequences that need to be addressed.

Learn more about LGBTQ+ issues with an online courses .

#11. Reproductive justice

Reproductive justice – which encompasses more than just abortion rights – is threatened by legislation, lack of funding, lack of education, and restricted healthcare access. In most places, wealth is a big determinant of whether a person can access reproductive services. It’s better in some places than others, but as we’ve seen with other issues on this list, even “progressive” countries like the United States are experiencing major shifts. In June 2022, the Supreme Court is expected to overrule Roe v. Wade , a milestone court case that protected a pregnant woman’s right to abortion. The impact would be immediate and will likely influence other countries.

Learn more about reproductive justice and women’s rights: International Women’s Health and Human Rights (Stanford University)

#12. Children’s rights

Children are a very vulnerable group. In 2019, around 5.2 million children under five from mostly preventable and treatable causes. 2.4 million were newborns under 28 days old. Leading causes include preterm birth complications, pneumonia, and malaria. According to UNICEF, the climate crisis also represents a severe threat to kids. Around 1 billion kids live in “extremely high-risk countries” that are hit by the worst effects of climate change. 920 kids have trouble accessing clean water and 600 million are exposed to vector-borne diseases like malaria. Child labor also remains an issue. At the beginning of 2020, around 160 million were forced into labor while COVID-19 put 9 million more kids at risk. That’s almost 1 in 10 children globally. Almost half are in dangerous environments. As is often the case, the other issues on this list – climate change, poverty, COVID, gender equality, etc – factor into children’s rights.

Learn more about children’s rights: Children’s Human Rights – An Interdisciplinary Introduction (University of Geneva)

#13. Gender equality

Global gender equality has gradually improved over the years, but data from the 2021 Global Gender Report shows that the end of the global gender gap is still 135 years away. The pandemic played a huge role in reversing positive trends as women were hit harder financially. According to Oxfam , women experienced a 5% job loss while men experienced 3.9%. That means women lost about $800 million in 2020. This is a low estimate since it doesn’t count the informal economy, which includes millions of women. Women are also more likely to live in poverty, more affected by gender-based violence, and more affected by climate change.

Learn more about gender equality: Gender Analytics: Gender Equity through Inclusive Design (University of Toronto)

#14. Cybersecurity

The WEF’s Global Risks Report 2022 (page 9) listed cybersecurity vulnerabilities as a concern. The reason is rapid digitalization, which was triggered in part by COVID-19. Many “advanced economies” are now at a higher risk for cyberattacks. GRPS respondents identified cybersecurity failure as a critical short-term risk. In 2020, malware and ransomware attacks went up by 358% and 435%. There are a few reasons for this, including better (and easier) attack methods and poor governance. Cyberattacks have a swath of serious consequences and erode public trust. As countries become more dependent on digitalization, their cybersecurity needs to keep up.

Learn more about cybersecurity: IBM Cybersecurity Analyst Professional Certificate (IBM)

#15. Disinformation

Rapid digitalization comes with many issues, including the lightning-fast spread of disinformation. The WEF report describes deepfakes, an accessible AI technology, and its potential to sway elections and other political outcomes. Disinformation doesn’t need to be sophisticated to be successful, however. Through social media posts and videos, twelve anti-vax activists were responsible for almost ⅔ of all anti-vaccine content on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Their content flooded the internet with the type of harmful, fear-mongering disinformation that played a significant role in vaccine hesitancy and political radicalization. Because disinformation travels faster online than the truth, it’s a global issue that should be addressed.

Learn more about tackling disinformation: Communicating Trustworthy Information in the Digital World (University of Rotterdam)

#16. Freedom of the press

According to the Varieties of Democracy Institute (as reported in The Economist ), about 85% of people live in a country where press freedom has gone down in the past 5 years. After peaking at .65 in the early 2000s and 2011, the global average dropped to .49 in 2021. Major countries like China, India, Russia, Brazil, and Turkey saw significant declines. Journalists and news organizations face threats like violence, imprisonment, lack of funding, and coordinated online attacks and harassment. A free press is essential to a functioning democracy. Without press freedom, all human rights are at risk.

Learn more about freedom of expression: Human Rights for Open Societies (Utrecht University)

#17. Debt crises

In the WEF Global Risks Report (page 7), respondents named debt crises as one of the most pressing issues over the next decade, though respondents believe they will become most serious in just 3-5 years. COVID-19 is a big reason why. Government stimulus was necessary, but many countries are now left with debt burdens. For corporate and public finances in large economies, debt burdens can lead to defaults, bankruptcies, insolvency, and more. This is a far-reaching issue as it affects budgets for areas like healthcare and green energy.

Learn more about the debt: Finance for everyone – Debt (McMaster University)

#18. Corruption

Corruption encompasses a host of actions such as bribery, election manipulation, fraud, and state capture. The World Bank Group names corruption as a barrier to ending extreme poverty and “boosting shared prosperity” for the poorest populations. When it comes to addressing poverty, climate change, healthcare, gender equality, and more, corruption gets in the way. Because corruption is a global problem, global solutions are necessary. Reform, better accountability systems, and open processes will all help.

Learn more about tackling corruption: What is Corruption: Anti-Corruption and Compliance (University of Pennsylvania)

#19. Authoritarianism

According to Freedom House, global democracy is eroding. That includes countries with long-established democracies. In their 2022 report, the organization reveals that global freedom has been declining for the past 16 years. 60 countries faced declines in the last year. Only 25 saw improvements. Only 20% of the global population lives in Free countries. China, Russia, and other authoritarian countries have gained more power in the international system, while countries with established democracies – like the United States – are losing their freedoms. What can be done? Freedom House says success “requires a bold, sustained response that establishes support for democracy and countering authoritarianism.” Governments and citizens engage and stand for democracy.

Learn more about tackling authoritarianism: Citizenship and the Rule of Law (University of London)

#20. Global cooperation

Addressing the issues in this article is not an easy task. True progress is only possible through global cooperation, a fact which is woven through the WEF report. Everything from addressing cybersecurity threats to humanitarian emergencies to protecting democracy depends on strong cooperation between countries. As the report says in its preface: “Restoring trust and fostering cooperation within and between countries will be crucial to addressing these challenges and preventing the world from drifting further apart.” The challenges threatening global cooperation are just as clear as the need, however, which makes it one of the most serious issues of the day.

Learn more about global cooperation: Global Diplomacy: the United Nations in the World

You may also like

15 Inspiring Quotes for Black History Month

10 Inspiring Ways Women Are Fighting for Equality

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for Clean Water

15 Trusted Charities Supporting Trans People

15 Political Issues We Must Address

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for LGBTQ+ Rights

16 Inspiring Civil Rights Leaders You Should Know

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for Housing Rights

15 Examples of Gender Inequality in Everyday Life

11 Approaches to Alleviate World Hunger 

15 Facts About Malala Yousafzai

12 Ways Poverty Affects Society

About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Top Problems in the World That Can Be Solved

Top Problems that can be Solved

The Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank that researches the smartest solutions to global issues, organized a panel of five distinguished economists in 2012 to set priorities for fighting the 10 top problems in the world that can be solved:

• Armed Conflict
• Chronic Disease
• Infectious Disease
• Population Growth
• Biodiversity
• Climate Change
• Hunger and Malnutrition
• Natural Disasters
• Water and Sanitation

The panel was asked to describe the best ways to advance global welfare, specifically that of developing countries. The experts then assembled a prioritized list of thirty solutions.

Solutions to the World’s Issues

The number one solution was “bundled interventions to reduce undernutrition in pre-schoolers” and addressed the challenge of hunger and education. Some other proposals high on the list were subsidies for malaria combination treatment and expanding childhood immunization coverage.

The group of experts covered topics besides health, with solutions ranging from investing in early warning systems for natural disasters to increased funding for green energy.

With this list in mind, world leaders at the U.N. Sustainable Development Summit adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Sept. 2015. On Jan. 1, 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced the eight Millennium Development Goals of 2015.

The new 17 SDGs were to:

• End poverty
• End hunger and improve nutrition and sustainable agriculture
• Promote well being for all ages
• Ensure equitable and quality education
• Achieve gender equality
• Ensure water and sanitation for all
• Ensure access to modern energy for all
• Promote sustainable economic growth and productive employment
• Build resilient and innovative infrastructure
• Reduce inequality
• Make settlements safe, resilient and sustainable
• Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
• Take urgent action to combat climate change
• Conserve and sustainably use Earth’s water
• Promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems and forests, and halt and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss
• Promote peaceful societies, provide access to justice and build effective, accountable institutions
• Implement and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

A New Set of Problems

80,000 Hours, an independent nonprofit organization that researches how graduates can make the biggest difference possible with their careers, came up with another list defining problems in the world that can be solved. Drawing from research from groups such as the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute and the Copenhagen Consensus Center, 80,000 Hours created a framework to rate global issues.

The organization based its scoring on how solving the problem would reduce the risk of extinction , raise the global economic output, increase the income among the world’s poorest 2 billion people and save years of healthy life. It also used factors like the amount of good done compared to the percent of the problem solved and the number of resources required.

Risks from artificial intelligence topped 80,000 Hours’ list  out of 11. Also on the list were biosecurity, developing world health and climate change. Other issues 80,000 Hours has yet to rate include science policy and infrastructure, cheap green energy and promoting human rights. The group indicates that improving health would be more beneficial than topics like empowering the poor and education.

Due to how differently each solution overlaps with others there are various ways to rank a list of top problems in the world that can be solved. Thankfully, experts are doing their best to target issues to focus on and world leaders are taking calculated steps to implement solutions to such issues.

– Connie Loo

Photo: Flickr

“The Borgen Project is an incredible nonprofit organization that is addressing poverty and hunger and working towards ending them.”

-The Huffington Post

Inside the borgen project.

• Board of Directors

Get Smarter

• Global Poverty 101
• Global Poverty… The Good News
• Global Poverty & U.S. Jobs
• Global Poverty and National Security
• Innovative Solutions to Poverty
• Global Poverty & Aid FAQ’s

Ways to Help

• Call Congress
• Email Congress
• 30 Ways to Help
• Volunteer Ops
• Internships
• Courses & Certificates
• The Podcast

Problems We Want Solved

By collaborative team @collabfund.

Billions of people wake up every day trying to solve the world’s problems. It’s an amazing thing.

But the world is still filled with problems. Some are extreme (climate change, terrorism), some are just annoying (traffic, storage).

We back entrepreneurs tackling these problems. They usually come to us with a business or an idea. But it’s also on us to share what we see as problems that need solving, hoping to spur ideas.

Here’s a list of problems we’d like to see solved – and perhaps businesses we’d fund. (This list will be updated.)

1. Low-cost, reliable internet access. More than 34 million Americans don’t have access to high-speed internet. It’s not even available. And more than 25 million can’t afford high-speed internet. So 60 million Americans aren’t using high-speed internet in their homes, which is about equal to the combined populations of California and Texas. This is absurd. We’re investors in Tazca-Connects , which is running full speed at this problem. But we’d love to see it taken seriously by a greater number of companies and regulators.

2. Next-gen children’s toys. Wired Magazine once ranked the top toys of all time: Stick, box, string, cardboard tube, and dirt. This will be true 50 years from now. But if you’ve ever watched a three-year-old masterfully operate an iPad, you know how much potential kids have with technology. Parents, however, tend to limit or ban screen time out of fear of rotting their kids’ brains. That fear comes from a rational realization that most technology doesn’t foster creativity and dexterity the way a sick or string does. It’s time to change that. Kids grow up in a world dominated by technology and they should be exposed to it from the time they’re babies.

3. (Ambitious) Low-energy, low-cost, scalable, desalination. I have a feeling the person who figures this out will be one of the heroes of the 21st Century.

4. Traffic lights. Seriously, someone please make a better traffic light and convince municipalities to buy them. Few moments remind you of your life slipping away than sitting at a red light when no cars are crossing the other way.

5. Civic engagement tools to hold politicians accountable. It’s too easy to campaign one way and legislate another. We need something like Change.org, but beyond petitions. Something with teeth, that politicians sign onto and holds them accountable. Apps that cleanly show exactly how government money is being spent could also be helpful.

6. A media company devoted to helping you understand the everyday lives of people outside your socioeconomic group. This has to be done in a way that is engaging enough to get people to want to read it. It’s so vital that everyone is able to understand how people of different means – higher or lower – think and live their life.

7. A better way to sell a home. It’s insane that people still pay 4-6% real estate commissions. It made a little sense 30 years ago, when all home data was proprietary to real estate brokers. But the Internet has changed that. Stock brokers, travel agents, and insurances salesmen have all seen their margins shrink, if not disappear, due to broader access to information. But realtors are hanging on. Time to shake that up.

8. Khan Academy for adults. Visually teach me something important that I need to know to be a functioning adult. You have three minutes.

9. A cure for social media overload/addiction. I shudder to think how much productivity I’ve lost over the last decade due to checking Twitter/Facebook/Instagram. I don’t want to get rid of these products. But I need a way to check them less often while not feeling like I’m missing out.

10. Analytics that shows how much my daily habits are detracting from my goals. A lot of bad things happen too slow for people to notice until it’s too late. Poor diet can lead to cancer and heart disease, but you’d never know that from eating a single cheeseburger. Sleep deprivation takes its toll, but what’s one late night going to do? To understand what I’m doing to myself I need to see the cumulative long-term effects of my habits every time I engage in those habits.

11. More efficient home insulation. My thermos keeps my coffee warm for eight hours straight but my house requires a constant gas-burning furnace to maintain humane temperatures. One trend I’m convinced of is that we’ll realize the biggest “source” of new energy is increasing the efficiency of our energy-burning stuff.

12. A solution to food waste. Farmers, wholesalers, and consumers waste a ridiculous amount of food. About a third of food is lost or wasted by some estimates, which equates to more than $1 trillion a year. That’s some low-hanging fruit (I’m sorry). Just like energy, making better use of what we have can be more valuable than finding new ways to make new stuff.

More from the blog…

• Artificial Intelligence
• Generative AI
• Business Operations
• Cloud Computing
• Data Center
• Data Management
• Emerging Technology
• Enterprise Applications
• IT Leadership
• Digital Transformation
• IT Strategy
• IT Management
• Diversity and Inclusion
• IT Operations
• Project Management
• Software Development
• Vendors and Providers
• Enterprise Buyer’s Guides
• United States
• Middle East
• España (Spain)
• Italia (Italy)
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom
• New Zealand
• Data Analytics & AI
• Newsletters
• Foundry Careers
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Member Preferences
• About AdChoices
• Your California Privacy Rights

Our Network

• Computerworld
• Network World

10 Experts on the Biggest Problems Tech Needs to Solve

U201cwhat is one problem you would use technology to fixu201d with technology playing a key role in advancing our world today, here are 10 experts’ responses on the biggest problems tech needs to solve..

By Milan Shetti, CEO Rocket Software

In the past year, we have experienced a global pandemic, social justice trials, political reforms and much more. As business leaders, we are usually concerned with finding solutions to answer our companies’ specific problems. We often don’t take a minute to look at the bigger picture of how we can aid today’s biggest global challenges through digital technology. At Rocket Software, we are led by our core values of empathy, humanity, trust, and love. These values guide us in trying to make the world a better place through technology.

On our podcast, Digital: Disrupted , we host a wide range of tech professionals every week. A question we like to ask each guest is, “What is one problem you would use technology to fix?” With technology playing a key role in advancing our world today, here are 10 experts’ responses on the biggest problems tech needs to solve.

Andrew Winston, Winston Eco-Strategies

Problem: Misinformation

Andrew is the co-author of Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take and the founder of Winston Eco-Strategies where he advises companies on managing today’s mega-trends. Winston says a problem he wishes tech could solve is the misinformation caused by technology.

“Misinformation is making all of today’s problems worse and we are at a time in history where we need to come together like never before.”

Bob Friday, Mist

Problem: Connectivity

Bob is an entrepreneur focused on developing wireless technologies and is currently the VP and CTO of Mist, a Juniper Company. Friday says a problem he wishes tech could change is connectivity.

“The more people that know about each other, the better off they are.”

Shirish Nadkarni, Serial Entrepreneur and Author

Problem: Climate change

Shirish started his career at Microsoft where he engineered the acquisition of Hotmail and launched MSN.com and has since created and sold multiple consumer businesses that have scaled to tens of millions of users worldwide. Most recently, he wrote the book, Startup to Exit – An Insider’s Guide to Launching and Scaling Your Tech Business . Nadkarni says a problem he wishes tech could solve is climate change.

“I did not think that climate change would happen in my lifetime, but it already is, and I believe with technology we can make advancements before it’s too late.”

Gary Chan, Alfizo

Problem: Healthcare

Gary runs Alfizo, a consultancy company helping businesses build and transform their information security programs. Chan says a problem he wishes tech could solve is healthcare. “I wish technology would be able to scan someone to find and fix their problem. I think that would be pretty cool.”

Dr. David  A. Bishop, Agile Worx

Problem: Hunger

David is a technology consultant and researcher who has worked with companies such as AT&T, Delta Airlines and Toshiba. He is also an author and the creator of agile vortex theory, the subject of his book Metagility: Managing Agile Development for Competitive Advantage . Bishop says a problem he wishes tech could solve is hunger.

“Hunger, while it seems like a very simple thing off the cuff…it has such a great impact long-term on communities.” 

Ed Skoudis, SANS Technology

Problem: Feelings of depression, loneliness, and isolation

Ed is the founder of Counter Hack, an information security consulting firm, and the president of the SANS Technology Institute where he developed their penetration testing curriculum. Skoudis says a problem he wishes tech could solve is the feelings of depression, loneliness, and isolation.

“I would love digital technology to be leveraged to limit the depression people are facing and turn it around.”

Josh Linkner, University of Michigan

Problem: Racial Injustice

Josh has founded and sold five tech companies and authored four bestselling books including his most recent, Big Little Breakthroughs . Linkner says a problem he wishes tech could solve is aiding in help of restoring the environment.

“I’d love to use technology to help solve issues like racial injustice and hunger. We have a long way to go, but I am an optimist and think that while technology will not solve all of these issues in one swoop, technology will certainly be able to aid in the solving of the most difficult and pesky problems.”

Camille Eddy, Open Tech Pledge

Problem: Misunderstanding of other cultures

Camille is the senior product engineer at the startup Sector and the co-founder of the Open Tech Pledge. Eddy says a problem she wishes tech could solve is misunderstanding other cultures.

“Not understanding other people gets in the way of innovation. I think if we could use technology to find a way to understand each other a little bit faster and easier that would be great.”

Tom Sweet, GM Financial

Problem: Privacy

Tom is the VP of Cloud Services at GM Financial, where he inspires colleagues to start a career in IT based on his own career journey. Sweet says a problem he wishes tech could solve is the lack of privacy.

“I think we are losing our privacy in a lot of different areas, and it is always at the top of my mind.”

Bill Miller, Beelinebill Enterprises

Problem: Cancer

Bill is an executive advisor and consultant, speaker, author, mentor, and coach who helps small and medium company CEOs and leaders who need a partner to guide them through overwhelming times and issues and get desired outcomes. Miller says an issue he wishes technology could fix is cancer.

“In the year of a pandemic and vaccines, I would love to see technology create a vaccine that cures cancer.”

Join us here to learn more about our innovative insights and solutions.

Related content

How to successfully integrate data in a hybrid environment, rethinking devops and automation with a layered approach, 6 lessons to learn from the 60-year history of the modern mainframe, fueling modernization in the marketplace, from our editors straight to your inbox, show me more, vmware licensing and pricing hikes: what options do you have.

Download the IT Modernization Enterprise Spotlight

4 essential lessons in AI governance

CIO Leadership Live Middle East with Kenan Begovic, Group Director of Information Security, beIN Media Group

Pacific Coast Companies CIO Marty Menard on leveraging vendor partners

CIO Leadership Live UK with Elizabeth Akorita, Group Deputy Director, Digital Delivery, Department for Science and Innovation and Technology

Sponsored Links

• Everyone’s moving to the cloud. Are they realizing expected value?
• Everybody's ready for AI except your data. Unlock the power of AI with Informatica
• The cloud shouldn’t be complicated. Unlock its potential with SAS.
• Visibility, monitoring, analytics. See Cisco SD-WAN in a live demo.

May 28, 2021

The Top Unsolved Questions in Mathematics Remain Mostly Mysterious

Just one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems named 21 years ago has been solved

By Rachel Crowell

Getty Images

Twenty-one years ago this week, mathematicians released a list of the top seven unsolved problems in the field. Answering them would offer major new insights in fundamental mathematics and might even have real-world consequences for technologies such as cryptography.

But big questions in math have not often attracted the same level of outside interest that mysteries in other scientific areas have. When it comes to understanding what math research looks like or what the point of it is, many folks are still stumped, says Wei Ho, a mathematician at the University of Michigan. Although people often misunderstand the nature of her work, Ho says it does not have to be difficult to explain. “My cocktail party spiel is always about elliptic curves,” she adds. Ho often asks partygoers, “You know middle school parabolas and circles? Once you start making a cubic equation, things get really hard.... There are so many open questions about them.”

One famous open problem called the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture concerns the nature of solutions to equations of elliptic curves, and it is one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems that were selected by the founding scientific advisory board of the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) as what the institute describes as “some of the most difficult problems with which mathematicians were grappling at the turn of the second millennium.” At a special event held in Paris on May 24, 2000, the institute announced a prize of $1 million for each solution or counterexample that would effectively resolve one of these problems for the first time. Rules revised in 2018 stipulate that the result must achieve “general acceptance in the global mathematics community.”

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

The 2000 proclamation gave $7 million worth of reasons for people to work on the seven problems: the Riemann hypothesis, the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, the P versus NP problem, the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem, the Poincaré conjecture, the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem, and the Hodge conjecture. Yet despite the fanfare and monetary incentive, after 21 years, only the Poincaré conjecture has been solved.

An Unexpected Solution

In 2002 and 2003 Grigori Perelman, a Russian mathematician then at the St. Petersburg Department of the Steklov Mathematical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, shared work connected to his solution of the Poincaré conjecture online. In 2010 CMI announced that Perelman had proved the conjecture and, along the way, had also solved the late mathematician William Thurston’s related geometrization conjecture. (Perelman, who rarely engages with the public, famously turned down the prize money .)

According to CMI, the Poincaré conjecture focuses on a topological question about whether spheres with three-dimensional surfaces are “essentially characterized” by a property called “simple connectivity.” That property means that if you encase the surface of the sphere with a rubber band, you can compress that band—without tearing it or removing it from the surface—until it is just a single point. A two-dimensional sphere or doughnut hole is simply connected, but a doughnut (or another shape with a hole in it) is not.

Martin Bridson, a mathematician at the University of Oxford and president of CMI, describes Perelman’s proof as “one of the great events of, certainly, the last 20 years” and “a crowning achievement of many strands of thought and our understanding of what three dimensional spaces are like.” And the discovery could lead to even more insights in the future. “The proof required new tools, which are themselves giving far-reaching applications in mathematics and physics,” says Ken Ono, a mathematician at the University of Virginia.

Ono has been focused on another Millennium Problem: the Riemann hypothesis, which involves prime numbers and their distribution. In 2019 he and his colleagues published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that reexamined an old, formerly abandoned approach for working toward a solution. In an accompanying commentary, Enrico Bombieri, a mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and a 1974 winner of mathematics’ highest honor, the Fields Medal, described the research as a “major breakthrough.” Yet Ono says it would be unfounded to describe his work as “anything that suggests that we’re about to prove the Riemann hypothesis.” Others have also chipped away at this problem over the years. For instance, mathematician “Terry Tao wrote a nice paper a couple years ago on [mathematician Charles] Newman’s program for the Riemann hypothesis,” Ono says.

Progress on What Won’t Work

The fact that just one of the listed problems has been solved so far is not surprising to the experts—the puzzles are, after all, long-standing and staggeringly difficult. “The number of problems that have been solved is one more than I would expect” to see by now, says Manjul Bhargava, a mathematician at Princeton University and a 2014 Fields medalist. Bhargava himself has reported multiple recent results connected to the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, including one in which he says he and his colleagues “prove that more than 66 percent of elliptic curves satisfy the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture.”

None of the problems will be easy to solve, but some may prove especially intractable. The P versus NP problem appears so difficult to solve that Scott Aaronson, a theoretical computer scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, calls it “a marker of our ignorance.” This problem concerns the issue of whether questions that are easy to verify (a class of queries called NP) also have solutions that are easy to find (a class called P).* Aaronson has written extensively about the P versus NP problem. In a paper published in 2009 he and Avi Wigderson, a mathematician and computer scientist at the Institute for Advanced Study and one of the winners of the 2021 Abel Prize, showed a new barrier to proving that the P class is not the same as the NP class. The barrier that Aaronson and Wigderson found is the third one discovered so far.

“There’s a lot of progress on showing what approaches will not work,” says Virginia Vassilevska Williams, a theoretical computer scientist and mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Proving that P [is] not equal to NP would be an important stepping-stone toward showing that cryptography is well founded,” she adds. “Right now cryptography is based on unproved assumptions,” one of which is the idea that P is not equal to NP. “In order to show that you cannot break the cryptographic protocols that people need in modern computers,” including ones that keep our financial and other online personal information secure, “you need to at least prove that P is not equal to NP,” Vassilevska Williams notes. “When people have tried to pin me down to a number,” Aaronson says, “I’ll give a 97 percent or 98 percent chance that P is not equal to NP.”

Climbing Mount Everest

Searching for solutions to the prize problems is similar to trying to climb Mount Everest for the first time, Ono says. “There are various steps along the way that represent progress,” he adds. “The real question is: Can you make it to base camp? And if you can, you still know you’re very far.”

For problems such as the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture and the Riemann hypothesis, Ono says, “surely we’re at Nepal”—one of the countries of departure for climbing the mountain—“but have we made it to base camp?” Mathematicians might still need additional “gear” to trek to the peak. “We’re now trying to figure out what the mathematical analogues are for the high-tech tools, the bottles of oxygen, that will be required to help us get to the top,” Ono says. Who knows how many obstacles could be sitting between current research and possible solutions to these problems? “Maybe there are 20. Maybe we’re closer than we think,” Ono says.

Despite the difficulty of the problems, mathematicians are optimistic about the long term. “I hope very much that while I’m president of the Clay institute, one of them will be solved,” says Bridson, who notes that CMI is in the process of strategizing about how to best continue raising awareness about the problems. “But one has to accept that they’re profoundly difficult problems that may continue to shape mathematics for the rest of my life without being solved.”

* Editor’s Note (6/2/21): This sentence was revised after posting to correct the description of the P versus NP problem.

Unfortunately we don't fully support your browser. If you have the option to, please upgrade to a newer version or use Mozilla Firefox , Microsoft Edge , Google Chrome , or Safari 14 or newer. If you are unable to, and need support, please send us your feedback .

We'd appreciate your feedback. Tell us what you think! opens in new tab/window

10 major engineering challenges of the next decade

Challenges related to climate change continue to threaten the world's population. But solutions exist, and engineers will play a major role in solving them. Here are 10 major challenges and what engineers can do about them in 2023.

1. Upgrading the aging U.S. infrastructure

The American Society of Civil Engineers gives our  aging infrastructure opens in new tab/window  a C- grade and  estimates  that the U.S. is spending just over half of what is needed. Significant action is needed to bring our roads opens in new tab/window , bridges, opens in new tab/window   water opens in new tab/window ,  electrical opens in new tab/window  and  sewage systems opens in new tab/window  to proper safe working order.

2. Educating first world engineers to understand how to solve third world problems

The Renewable Resources Journal  reports  that the world’s population will grow by two billion over the next two decades, 95% of this in developing or underdeveloped countries. Engineers must learn new ways to  solve problems opens in new tab/window in these countries.

3. Promoting  green engineering opens in new tab/window  to improve sustainability and reduce the carbon footprint in manufacturing opens in new tab/window

According to the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, manufacturing in the U.S. produced 19,237 trillion BTUs and 1,071 million metric tons of  carbon dioxide opens in new tab/window .

4. Identifying viable  and renewable energy opens in new tab/window  sources

The contributions to our energy production from renewables opens in new tab/window and other  new fuel opens in new tab/window  sources are growing at 6% per year according to BP  and will contribute 45% of the increment in  energy production opens in new tab/window  by 2035.

5. Rethinking how the  city opens in new tab/window  looks and works

54% of the world’s population lives in cities. Europe leads the way in sustainability opens in new tab/window , with seven out of the world’s top 10 most sustainable cities, according to the  ARCADIS Sustainable Cities Index.

6. Making  STEM more appealing opens in new tab/window  to young students

By 2018, the United States  will have  more than 1.2 million unfilled STEM jobs. Meanwhile, according to  a UCLA study, 40% of students enrolled as STEM majors switched subjects or failed to get a degree.

7. Safeguarding our personal data and wealth from cyberattacks opens in new tab/window

34% of data breaches happen at financial institutions; 11% target retail companies; while 13% target government institutions opens in new tab/window , according to the  2014 Data Breach Investigation Report.

8. Addressing  climate change opens in new tab/window through engineering innovation

Six of the 10 cities with the largest annual flood opens in new tab/window costs by 2050  are in India and China.  Three are in the U.S.: New York, Miami and New Orleans.

9. Feeding our growing population through cutting-edge bio-engineering and  agricultural innovations opens in new tab/window

The  U.N. warns  that we must produce 60% more food by 2050 to keep up with demand, but how do we do this sustainably? Food opens in new tab/window and  water opens in new tab/window  access will be major issues in the future, and research must begin now.

10. Improving our health and well-being through life sciences, nanotechnology opens in new tab/window  &  bio-engineering opens in new tab/window

Administration on Aging,  by 2060 the population of Americans aged 65 and older will have more than doubled in size from 2011. This puts a lot of pressure on new drug creation and also on innovative engineering techniques to deliver drugs opens in new tab/window .

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

Inflation, Health Costs, Partisan Cooperation Among the Nation’s Top Problems

Democrats hold edge on many issues, but more americans agree with republicans on economy, crime, immigration, table of contents.

• More Americans agree with GOP on economic policy, crime and immigration policy, but Democrats have edge on several other issues
• Top problems facing the country
• Job ratings for Joe Biden, Kevin McCarthy, Chuck Schumer
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand Americans’ views of the problems facing the country, Joe Biden’s job performance and more. For this analysis, we surveyed 5,115 adults from June 5-11, 2023. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for the report and its methodology .

The public’s list of the top problems facing the nation includes inflation, health care affordability, drug addiction and gun violence.

Yet the ability of Republicans and Democrats to work together rates about as high on the problems list as these other concerns. And it is one of the few, among 16 problems included, on which there is no partisan divide.

The Pew Research Center survey, conducted June 5-11 among 5,115 members of the Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel, finds wide differences in perceptions of most national problems.

Inflation remains the top concern for Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, with 77% saying it is a very big problem. The state of moral values, illegal immigration and the budget deficit also are seen as top problems by at least two-thirds of Republicans.

For Democrats and Democratic leaners, gun violence is the top concern, with about eight-in-ten (81%) saying it is a very big problem. The affordability of health care ranks second (73% say this).

Democrats are more than four times as likely as Republicans to say that climate change is a very big problem in the country (64% vs. 14%). Democrats are also much more likely to say gun violence and racism are very big problems.

By contrast, Republicans are more than twice as likely as Democrats to say that illegal immigration is a very big problem (70% vs. 25%). They are also about 30 percentage points more likely than Democrats to say that the state of moral values and the budget deficit are very big problems.

Among the other findings from the new survey:

Most Americans expect the budget deficit to grow larger. The share of Americans who rate the budget deficit as a very big national problem has risen modestly since last year, from 51% to 56%.

Relatively few Americans expect the deficit to be lower in coming years: 70% say that, in about five years, it will be larger than it is today; 18% expect it to be about the same size as it is today, while just 11% say it will be smaller.

Democrats have sizable advantages on climate, health care policy; Republicans lead on economy, crime, immigration. The public is more likely to say they agree with the Democratic Party on a number of issues, including abortion policy, health care policy and climate change policy.

However, the Republican Party holds a 12-point advantage on economic policy: 42% say they agree with the GOP, 30% say they agree with the Democratic Party. The GOP holds similar leads on crime and immigration.

Biden job approval little changed. Currently, 35% of Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s job performance, while 62% disapprove. Biden’s job approval has changed little in the past year. The survey also finds low job ratings for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (34% approve) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (32%).

Please visit detailed tables for a current view of Biden’s approval rating among subgroups.

About four-in-ten Americans (41%) say they agree with the Democratic Party on climate change policy, while substantially fewer (27%) agree with the GOP; nearly a third (31%) say they agree with neither party.

The Democrats’ advantage is similar on abortion policy and health care policy (12 points each).

Republicans hold advantages on policies addressing the economy (12 points), crime (10 points), immigration (10 points) and the budget deficit (8 points).

Neither party has a significant edge on education policy, gun policy or foreign policy.

For the most part, the shares agreeing with each party on issues has not changed much over the past year.

However, the GOP’s 10-point advantage on immigration policy represents a shift since last July, when roughly equal shares of Americans say they agreed with each party (38% agree with GOP, 37% agree with Democrats).

In addition, while Democrats hold an 8-point advantage on policies affecting LGBT people (37% agree with the Democratic Party, 29% with the GOP and 33% with neither party), this is narrower than Democrats’ 20-point lead last July.

Majorities of Americans say 8 of the 16 issues included on the survey are “very big problems” facing the country. These range from economic concerns, such as inflation, affordability of health care and the budget deficit, to drug addiction, gun violence and violent crime.

Majorities also view the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together (62%) and the state of moral values (54%) as very big national problems.

The share saying health care affordability is a very big problem is up 9 percentage points since May 2022, when 55% said this. The shares saying that gun violence and violent crime are very big problems have also increased since last year (by 9 percentage points and 5 points respectively).

Racism, domestic and international terrorism, unemployment, and the condition of infrastructure rate lower on the public’s list of very big national problems. Still, for these and other issues asked about on the survey, majorities rate each as at least moderately big problems.

Older Americans remain more likely than younger Americans to say that a number of issues are very big problems in the country today. The starkest example of this is on illegal immigration: About two-thirds of adults ages 65 (65%) and over say that illegal immigration is a very big problem today. Around two-in-ten (22%) of adults under the age of 30 say the same.

However, this pattern is reversed on climate change. About half of adults ages 18-29 (48%) say that it is a very big problem, while 38% of adults ages 65 and over (and a similar share of adults 30-64) say this.

A majority of the public (62%) say they disapprove of Joe Biden’s job performance as president, with 41% who strongly disapprove. A much smaller share (35%) say they approve of Biden’s job performance, with only 17% who strongly approve.

Black adults are the only racial or ethnic group in which a majority says they approve of Biden’s job in office (57%). About half of Asian adults (51%) and six-in-ten Hispanic adults say they disapprove of Biden’s job performance.

Two-thirds of White adults (67%) say they disapprove of Biden’s job performance, including half who strongly disapprove.

While majorities across all age groups disapprove of Biden’s job performance, the share saying they strongly disapprove is much higher among adults ages 65 and over (47%) than those under 30 (34%).

Roughly two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (65%) approve of Biden’s job performance, with a third strongly approving. An overwhelming majority of Republicans and Republican leaners disapprove (92%); nearly three-quarters (73%) strongly disapprove.

Please visit detailed tables for Biden’s approval rating among additional subgroups.

The job ratings for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (34% approve) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (32% approve) are comparable to Biden’s. Both congressional leaders get fairly mixed ratings from members of their own party and largely negative ratings from the opposing party.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivery Saturday mornings

Sign up for The Briefing

Weekly updates on the world of news & information

• Economic Conditions
• Government Spending & the Deficit
• Health Care
• Health Policy
• Issue Priorities
• National Conditions
• Partisanship & Issues
• Presidential Approval
• Unauthorized Immigration

Americans are split over the state of the American dream

Biden, trump supporters both say the u.s. economic system unfairly favors powerful interests, economic ratings across 34 countries are more negative than positive, public’s positive economic ratings slip; inflation still widely viewed as major problem, is college worth it, most popular, report materials.

• June 2023 Biden Job Approval Detailed Tables

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

© 2024 Pew Research Center

Browse links

• © 2024 BuzzFeed, Inc
• Consent Preferences
• Accessibility Statement

People Are Sharing The Minor (But Frustrating) Everyday Struggles They're *Still* Encountering On The Daily, And I'm Floored That These Problems Still Exist

"Surely this is not necessary in the 21st century. Do better."

BuzzFeed Staff

You know those tiny inconveniences you run into daily (or at least very often) that you start to question a bit? And maybe start to wonder why they're even a thing in our modern world. Well, you're not the only one. Recently, I posted about common everyday problems that should've been solved by now, and over 200 of you had even more you wanted to tack on. So here are some more small inconveniences we should get rid of.

1. "the staticky, repetitive, tuneless music you are forced to listen to when you are on hold, which you must keep the volume on so you can hear when someone finally comes on the line. it has not improved since the 1980s.".

—Linda Marie, Georgia

2. "If you’re a plus size woman (at least in the US), you’re weirdly as likely to have very tiny pockets/no pockets as you are to have enormous pockets that stretch in towards the front zipper instead of down towards the knee. I HATE the giant pockets. Imagine putting your wallet, phone, chapstick, whatever into your pocket over by your right hip and then looking down to realize it's moving around and is stealthily creeping towards your fly. It is both bothersome AND embarrassing. I neither want nor need a tiny chapstick penis, oh maker of plus-sized pants!"

— moultonpatricia

3. "Isn't there a way to make nighttime scenes in TV and movies less dark and murky? Half the time all I see are shapes and I can't tell what's going on. Seriously, I know there has to be a way to light such scenes so we can still see the actors' faces, even if it's supposed to be extremely dark."

4. "why does windshield wiper fluid only come in a size that fits only 70–80% of the tank it seems that all vehicles have similar-sized wiper fluid tanks and that the bottles are always more than that, so why not just make the bottles smaller then i don't have to have 20% of liquid sloshing around in a big bottle in my backseat or trunk for months.".

5. "Shopping carts with what feels like square wheels or ones that won’t move in a straight line."

6. "the text on tv remotes and cookers being merely printed on so that over time and use they wear off, leaving every button and dial only identifiable from memory. c'mon, deboss those icons and numbers as well.".

— skirwingle

7. "As a true crime/Investigation Discovery fan, I cannot get over the poor quality of the CCTV cameras in this day and age!"

8. "why aren’t women’s jeans sized like men’s with a waist and inseam size i’m short (4’10”) and always have to hem pants, but men can buy pants based on waist and inseam. women are all different heights, too".

—Luisa, 39, Maryland

9. "A lot of websites, apps, etc. not properly recognizing UK English and telling me that my words are spelled wrong. I write a lot using Google Docs and, even after I tried changing my language to UK English, it still tries to autocorrect it or that ugly, red line under the word haunts me the entire time and keeps popping up if I spell another word the UK English way."

10. "having to change the clock on my car when it’s daylight savings. the thing can park itself and is hooked to every satellite and internet connection you can think of, yet it can’t update the time.".

11. "It’s 2024 and we have no better way to screen for breast cancer than to squeeze the breasts into pancakes. Meanwhile, these engineers are prioritizing building dancing robots."

— savannahg4e56476eb

12. "When I buy a multipack of socks (especially kid's socks or women’s athletic socks), they’re all held together by plastic fastener things at several different spots. Trying to cut the plastic is impossible because they’re pulled tightly together, but trying to pull them to tear the plastic usually pulls it all the way through most, if not all, of the socks, leaving a hole. It’s minor, but so frustrating."

13. "I should be able to enter my zip code, and the city and state populate automatically."

14. "those horrible screeching dental drills that double your anxiety. surely that is not necessary in the 21st century. do better.".

— julieapliska

15. "Washer tubs that are so deep and fill with so little water that I have to get a stool to reach the clothes once they're finished washing."

16. "this one is specifically for the us, but filing taxes. for those of you living outside the us, imagine filling up your cart with groceries, having the cashier enter the prices of all the items, and then they ask you how much you think you owe, even though they have the total right in front of them. and if you’re wrong you can go to jail. that’s what it’s like filing taxes in the us.".

17. "Can we please just get rid of autocorrect? If I typed it, it’s what I meant to type. Sure, go ahead and highlight it or give me some suggestions, but to automatically assume that I did it wrong and change it on me? It’s like having my mother-in-law living inside my cell phone."

18. "having to use a keyboard type thing on the tv screen to enter your email address and password by using arrows and selecting each letter.".

— joannedocherty2505

19. "Why can’t all power cords on everything that needs to be plugged in, from toasters to lamps to coffee makers to fans, ALL be retractable? I have a hair dryer and an iron with retractable cords, but most things don’t have one even though they could!"

—Anonymous, 65, Florida

20. "In a world of electronic devices now being used in TV shows and movies, why is it when the screen of these devices is shown, you can never read the message? Sometimes it's important to the story, but it's so small and/or faint you can't read it."

— da23v8id34

21. "Car horns in radio commercials. SO. STUPID."

— aimeeweyrauch

Are there any modern inconveniences you wish would disappear? Sound off in the comments or fill out this anonymous form !

Share this article.

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Share Podcast

How to Solve Your Company’s Toughest Problems

A conversation with Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei on how to solve any problem in five clear steps.

• Apple Podcasts

You’ve likely heard the phrase, “Move fast and break things.” But Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei says speed and experimentation are not enough on their own. Instead, she argues that you should move fast and fix things. (That’s also the topic and title of the book she coauthored with Anne Morriss .)

In this episode, Frei explains how you can solve any problem in five clear steps. First, she says, start by identifying the real problem holding you back. Then move on to building trust and relationships, followed by a narrative for your solution — before you begin implementing it.

Key episode topics include: leadership, strategy execution, managing people, collaboration and teams, trustworthiness, organizational culture.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Learn more about HBR’s “ Future of Business” virtual conference (November 2023)
• Find more Harvard Business Review live events
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR on Leadership , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you.

Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “move fast and break things.” It refers to a certain approach for rapid innovation that was popularized in Silicon Valley and invoked by many tech firms. But Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei says that speed and experimentation are not enough on their own. Instead, Frei argues that you should “move fast and fix things.” That’s the topic and title of the book she co-authored with Anne Morriss.

In this episode, Harvard Business Review’s editorial audience director Nicole Smith sits down with Frei to discuss how you can solve any problem in five quick steps. You’ll learn how to start by uncovering your true problem. Then, move on to build trust, relationships, and a narrative for your solution before you dive in on the actual work of implementing your fix.

This conversation was originally part of HBR’s “Future of Business” virtual conference in November 2023. Here it is.

FRANCES FREI: So, I would love to talk to you about how to move fast and fix things. And I’ll tell you the reason that Anne and I wrote this book – and it’s really a quest we’ve been on – is that Mark Zuckerberg, in his IPO for Facebook, famously said, “we’re going to move fast and break things.” And the problem with that is that it gave the world a false trade-off. It convinced so many of us that you could either move fast and break things or you could take care of people, one or the other. And we have found that there is a third, much better way. And that is, we can move even faster if we fix things along the way. And so, that’s what I’d love to talk to you about right now. And the way that we think about this is that if you want to move fast and fix things, we have to do it on a foundation of trust. And so, the first thing to do is to experience high trust. And we’re going to talk about how to build trust. But the way we see the world can be described in this grid. And in the presence of trust, we can move really fast. That’s how we move fast and fix things. We call it accelerating excellence. It’s only when we’re in the presence of low trust that we move fast and break things, or what we call being reckless disruption. And as I said, so many organizations are afraid of reckless disruption that they actually end up in this state of responsible stewardship, which is really just going slowly. And so, we wrote the book to get those that are in responsible stewardship to realize that we could go across the way to accelerating excellence. And we didn’t have to go down to reckless disruption. So, the way that we think about this, and it’s the way we wrote the book, is that there’s a five-step plan to do it. We organized the book for days of the week. We think that the metabolic rate of organizations can be improved significantly and that many, many hard problems can be solved in just one week. So, we wrote the book in the structure of a week. Step one is we have to find our real problem, that if we’re… for far too many of us, we’re addressing the symptom and not the cause. At any problem, there’s going to be trust broken at the bottom of it. And we’re going to solve for trust. We’re then going to learn how to get more perspectives to make our plans even better. Learn how to tell a narrative that works. And then, and only then, on Friday, do we get to go as fast as we can. And what typically happens in the move fast and break things is that we move Friday too forward in the week. So, our goal is to put ourselves in a position to move fast. And you have to wait till Friday to do that. So, what do I mean by finding the real problem? Most of us, a problem gets presented as a symptom. So, I’ll give you a recent example that got presented to me and Anne. We got called by a company. And they said, we’re having a gender problem. Will you come in and help us? And we’ve been able to help many organizations solve gender problems. So, we go in there. And we just wanted to make sure that they really did have a gender problem. The symptoms were super clear. There were no women at the top of the organization. Not very many women were coming into the organization. And great women were leaving the organization. So, they had… it looked like a gender problem. But it took, I don’t know, an hour. It took 60 minutes, certainly not even all of Monday, to uncover that their actual problem was not a gender problem. Their actual problem was a communication problem. And if we did all of the things that we know exist in our gender tool kit on how to fix gender, that would have all been wasted effort. But instead, what we found out is that the founders of this organization, and they were two cofounders, and they were very similar to each other, and they’d worked together and known each other for decades. They had a really uncomfortably and aggressively direct communication style. That communication style repelled all women and most men. So yes, the symptoms were gender. But oh, my goodness, the cause was that the two founders were succumbing to a problem many of us succumb to, which is, we were treating others as we like to be treated. They loved to be treated with aggressively direct communication. But nobody else loved it. And when we simply confronted them with that and taught them that instead of treating others as you want to be treated, now it’s a puzzle. Find out how they want to be treated, and treat them that way. Gets fixed. And all of a sudden, women and lots of other men are flowing to the organization. So, Monday… and we take a whole day for this. Let’s make sure we’re solving the real problem. And symptoms are rarely the cause. So, we just want to do some due diligence, some due diligence there. Once we know we’re solving for the real problem, there’s going to be trust broken down somewhere in the… amidst the problem. Well, very fortunately, we now understand trust super well. If I’m going to earn your trust, you will have an involuntary reaction of trusting me if you experience my authenticity, logic, and empathy all at the same time. When these three things are present, you will trust me. But if any one of these three is missing, you will not trust me. And here’s the catch. If trust is broken, and we know it’s only ever broken for one of these three reasons, we need to know which of the three, because the prescriptions to solve a broken authenticity pillar versus logic pillar versus empathy pillar, they’re entirely different from one another. So, you can think about rebuilding trust. It’s just a matching game. Know which one is at stake. And then bring in the curated prescription for that. There is a myth about trust that it takes a lifetime to build and a moment to destroy. And then you can never rebuild it. None of those things are true, that we can actually build trust very quickly when we understand the architecture of it. We can rebuild it quickly and just as strong as it was before. So, this notion that trust is a Faberge egg, it’s catchy and not true. Trust is being rebuilt all the time. But we want to do it with a deep understanding of the stable architecture. So, Tuesday takes all day. We solve for trust. On Wednesday, we call Wednesday making new friends. And what we mean by that is whichever collection of people you bring to the table who are the people that maybe are on your senior team or the people that you bring to the table to solve problems. And here, I’ve represented a table. And there’s eight check marks for eight seats. I encourage you to bring four extra chairs to that table. If you have eight seats, bring four extra chairs. Point to the extra chairs and ask yourself, who’s not here? Who has a stake in our problem who’s not represented at the table? I was recently in a conversation with our senior colleagues at the Harvard Business School. And we were talking about how to do junior faculty development. And we came up with what we thought were great ideas. And then we looked around and we were like, Oh, my goodness, there’s no junior faculty here. How on Earth do we know if these are good ideas? So, we got the empty seats. We invited people in. And sure enough, the junior faculty helped improve our plans dramatically. The equivalent of that always happens. So, on Wednesday, we want to make new friends. So, one is inviting them into the room. But then the second part is, how do you make sure that their voices are heard? And what we need to do is that when someone comes to the room, they’re going to be awfully tempted to say things that they think we want to hear. They’re going to be awfully tempted to conform to what we’re already saying. So, what we need to do is learn how to be inclusive of their unique voices. And the way we do that is by going through this four-step progressive process, which is, first, we have to make sure they feel safe and that they feel… they’re going to feel physically and emotionally safe, I’m sure, but that they feel psychologically safe. And that’s a shout-out to Amy Edmondson and all of her beautiful work there. But we have to make sure that we feel safe. Once we feel safe, then it’s our job to make sure that the new voices feel welcome. You can think of that as table stakes. Then when we’re doing is we’re really trying to move people up the inclusion dial. And here, this is when it really starts to make a big difference. And now what we want to do is make sure that they feel celebrated for their unique contribution. And so, what we’re doing is moving them up the inclusion dial. Now, here’s why that’s kind of hard. Most of us tend to celebrate sameness. And here, I’m asking you to celebrate uniqueness. And what I mean by celebrating sameness is that for the most part, like, when I watch my students in class, if one student says something, and then another student was going to say that, after class, they go and seek out the first person. And they’re like, you’re awesome. You said what I was going to say. They didn’t realize this. They’re celebrating sameness. They’re encouraging sameness. So, what I do is I advise my students to not share that verbal treat, that what we playfully refer to as a Scooby snack. Don’t share that Scooby snack for when somebody says something you were going to say. Share it for when somebody says something you could never have said on your own, and that it comes from their lived experience and learned experience, and how they metabolize successes and failures, and their ambition, if they’re lucky enough to have neurodiversity, their worldview, all of that. It’s a beautiful cocktail. Wait till they say something that comes uniquely from all of that. Celebrate that. When we celebrate uniqueness, that’s when we get the blossoming of the perspectives. And what we want to do to make somebody really feel included is we celebrate them when they are in our presence. But if you really want somebody to feel included, and we bring folks into the room for this, make sure that you champion them when they’re in the absence. So, let’s not just ask the junior faculty to come along. Or if it’s a senior team, and it’s mostly men, and the board of directors is coming in, and we’re like, oh, goodness. Let’s make sure we can show some women too. So, we bring some women along. We celebrate them in our presence. Let’s make sure that we champion them in our absence as well, which is celebrate their uniqueness in our presence and champion them in rooms that they’re not yet allowed into in their absence. So that’s Wednesday. Let’s make new friends. Let’s include their voices. Let’s champion those new voices in their absence. Thursday, we tell a good story. And stories have three parts to it: past, present, and future. It is really important – if you’re going to change something, if you’re going to fix something, it is critical to honor the past. People that were here before us, if they don’t feel like we see the past, we see them, we’re honoring the past, I promise you, they’re going to hold us back. And they’re going to be like The Godfather movie and keep pulling us back. So, we have to honor the past with clear eyes, both the good part of the past and the bad part of the past. Then we have to answer the question, why should we change now? Like, why shouldn’t we change maybe next week, maybe the week after, maybe the month after, maybe next year? So, it’s really important that we give a clear and compelling change mandate that answers the question, why now? Why not in a little while? I find that if you’re a retailer, and you have the metaphor of Walmart just opened up next door, clear, compelling. We have to… that should be our metaphor. How can we be, with as crisp of a language, clear and compelling about why now? And then we’ve honored the past. We have a clear and compelling change mandate. You want people to follow us in the improved future, we have to have a super rigorous and a super optimistic way forward. We have seen so many people be optimistic without rigor. Nobody’s going to follow. And similarly, rigor without optimism, also, nobody’s going to follow. So, it’s our job to keep refining and refining and refining until we can be both rigorous and optimistic. Now, how do we know when our plan is working? Well, here are the four parts of storytelling that we know. Our job is to understand this plan so deeply that we can describe it simply. When we describe it, we want to make sure if I describe it to you, and you describe it to the next person, that the next person understands it as if I described it to them. So, our job is to understand so deeply that we can describe simply that it’s understood in our absence. And the ultimate test is it’s understood when they go home and share it with their family. They have the same understanding we want. We find this to be the four-stage litmus test to make sure we have been effective in our communication. And when people understand it this well, then they can act on it in our absence. And that’s when we’re now in the position to go as fast as we can. And when all of that infrastructure is in place, well, then we can go super fast. And there are all kinds of clever ways that we can do that. So, I look forward to opening this up and having a conversation with you.

NICOLE SMITH: That was excellent. Professor, we got several questions. I want to just dive right into it. Tessa asked, what tools, practices, and skills do you use to uncover the underlying superficial problems? It sounded like you talked a lot about questions and asking questions.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah, it’s right. So, the Toyota production system would famously refer to the five whys. And they had… and that was root cause analysis, which we all know. But essentially, what they found is that it’s about five… why does this exist? Well, why does that exist? Well, why does that exist? Like, if you ask why five times, they found that that’s how you got to the root cause. We find, in practice, the answer is closer to three. It’s rarely one. So, it would be, the symptom and the cause are usually a few layers. And you want to keep asking why. So, that’s the first thing I would say, is that we want to have… make sure that you’re doing root cause analysis. But the second thing on a specific tool, the tool that we like the most, we call the indignities list. And what you do is that… and the way we found out the symptom is we went to women in this company, because that’s what… they said they were having a gender problem. And we asked the women, is there anything that’s going on at work that just… it feels like it’s just nicking your dignity? And it occurs for… is it happening to you, or you observe it happening to other women? So, you go in search of the indignities list. Every time we do this, you’ll get a list of issues. Often, they will sound trivial. When you start to get convergence on those indignities, we then ask you to convert those indignities to the dignity list. And in this case, it was the communication style. And you know what the awesome thing about that was? It was free.

NICOLE SMITH: Wow.

FRANCES FREI: You can’t beat free.

NICOLE SMITH: Monique asks, can you speak more about how to amplify others’ ideas and perspectives, especially when they’re from underrepresented stakeholders?

FRANCES FREI: Oh, I love that question. Thank you very much. And so, I’m going to go to… here is my favorite visual on the amplification part, which is the team I’ve drawn in the middle, it’s a three-person team. And each circle represents a person on the team. And I’m showing that there’s three circles in the middle, that those folks are very similar to one another. And then on either side, we have a team where there’s difference among us. And this is where the underrepresented might come in. If we’re not careful, when we have underrepresented voices, we’re only going to be seeking from them the parts that overlap with us. So, this is when we’ve invited them to the table, but we’re not inclusive of their voices. What we want to do is make sure that everybody feels comfortable bringing all of their richness to the table, not just the part that overlaps. And so, what we find we need to do is be very solicitous about… and same with questions. From your perspective, how does this sound to you? What else are we missing? What I’m trying to do is get you off the scent of saying what you think I want to say or even asking you to say what I want to say because it makes me feel better. But I want to be inclusive of all of the gorgeous uniqueness. And this, of course, ties to diversity, equity, and inclusion, which I know has gotten a rocky go of things in the press. But what I’ll tell you is, if I got to rewrite diversity, equity, and inclusion, I would have written it as inclusion, equity, and diversity, because I have seen teams bring… I have seen organizations bring in diverse and underrepresented talent and not get the benefit from it.

NICOLE SMITH: Yeah.

FRANCES FREI: So, diversity may or may not beget inclusion. But I have never, ever seen an organization that was inclusive that didn’t beget gorgeous diversity.

NICOLE SMITH: Right.

FRANCES FREI: So, be inclusive first.

NICOLE SMITH: I appreciate you saying that, not just sitting at the table, but actually including and giving lift to people’s voices. I also want to talk about this friends thing you keep talking about, making new friends. First of all, how do I identify who’s a friend?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. So, in this case, I want the friend to be someone who is as different from you as possible. So, the new friends. Like, who’s worthy of friendship? Not someone who you’re already attracted to, not somebody who you’re already hanging out with. So, here’s the thing about humans. We really like people who are really like us. It doesn’t make us bad people. But it just makes us human. And so, what I want you to do is seek difference. Find people from different perspectives. And that will be demographic difference, different lived experience, different learned experience. And so, if we’re senior faculty, let’s invite in junior faculty. If we’re all women, let’s invite in a man. If we’re all engineers, let’s make sure we’re bringing in the perspective of marketing. So, what I would say is my guiding principle is seek difference. Those are your potential new friends.

NICOLE SMITH: OK, so Steve wants to hone in on Friday, right? And Steve asks, can you paint a quick sketch of what’s going fast after this being slower – a slower, more thoughtful process?

FRANCES FREI: I sure can. Thank you, Steve. And so, here’s how I would think about Friday. We need ruthless prioritization. And what I mean by that is that for the most part, organizations have… that we work equally on everything. We think everything is equally important. But what we know is that organizations that win, they have ruthless prioritization. And they know, this is what I’m designed to be great at. And this is what I’m designed to be bad at. Not bad for sport, bad in the service of great. And if an organization can’t discern between these two, they’re going to end up with exhausted mediocrity. And so, what we have to do for our employees and the rest of the organization is, here’s what we’re going to optimize on. That’s half the story. And here’s what we’re not. So, I’ll give you an example of this. And the example is from Steve Jobs. And if those of you that are a bit techie, and you remember 20 years ago, when Steve Jobs walked out on that Worldwide Developer Conference stage with a manila envelope, and it had a MacBook Air in it. And he slid out that MacBook Air. And the crowd and the world went crazy, because it was the lightest-weight laptop in the world. Well, he very, very openly said, we are best in class at weight because we are worst in class at physical features. We could have been best in class at physical features. But then we would have been worst in class at weight. Or we could have chosen to be average at both. But then we would have had to rename our company. And then he made fun of another company that I won’t say here. So, we will end up… if we aren’t deliberate, we’re going to end up with exhausted mediocrity, constantly getting better at the things we’re bad at, which, without realizing it, means we’re getting worse at the things we’re good at. So, the most important thing we can do on Friday is to articulate, this is what we want to be disproportionately good at. And thus, this is what we want to be disproportionately bad at. And there’s a whole other series of things. But that’s the most important one.

NICOLE SMITH: Mm-hmm. Speaking of Steve Jobs, we have a question where they ask, do you think that the culture in Silicon Valley is changing from break things to fix things, particularly as it pertains to not only their own companies, but broader societal problems?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah, so I – not in all of Silicon Valley. So, I think we can famously see, it’s not clear to me that Twitter is moving fast and fixing things. But what I will say is that, look at Uber today. And I had the pleasure of going and working with Uber back in 2017, when they were going to move fast and break things. They are moving fast and fixing things now, and going at a catapulting speed. Or ServiceNow didn’t ever even go through move fast and break things. It’s just moving fast and fixing things. Stripe is doing the same thing. Airbnb is now moving fast and fixing things. So, what I would say is that Silicon Valley can now choose to move fast and fix things, whereas, in the past, I think they only thought they had the choice of going slow or moving fast and breaking things. Today, we have the choice. And more and more companies are making that choice.

NICOLE SMITH: Mm-hmm. And so, Bill asked, which one of these steps do you find the most commonly in need of… that companies need the most help with? So, you laid out Monday through Friday. Is there something that sticks out often?

FRANCES FREI: Well, I’ll tell you that if companies are really pressed for time, they skip Thursday. And that’s to their peril, because if we skip Thursday, that means we have to be present. And we’re a bottleneck for everything. That means people need us to translate why this is important. So, I would say that Thursday is the one that’s most often skipped. And I encourage you not to. And then I would say that Tuesday is the one that’s most often misunderstood because of all of the myths I mentioned that we have about trust. And we just think, oh, if trust is broken, we have to work around it, as opposed to going right through it and rebuilding trust.

NICOLE SMITH: So, Thursday, that’s the storytelling, honoring the past, describing it simply, right? So why do we struggle to describe things simply?

FRANCES FREI: Oh, I don’t know what your inbox looks like on your email. But you tell me how many long emails you have.

NICOLE SMITH: I refuse to deal with my inbox. I’ll deal with it later.

FRANCES FREI: So, Mark Twain was right. I apologize for sending you a long letter. I didn’t have the time to send you a short letter. It’s the metaphor for all of this, that when we understand something in a complicated way, we want to benefit people from the entirety of our knowledge. And we just throw up all of it on people, as opposed to realizing the beautiful curation and skill that’s required to go from understanding it deeply to understanding it elegantly in its simplicity. So, I think it takes time. It’s also… it takes skill. Like, this is… there are professional communicators for a reason. They’re really good at it. But if you’re on your second draft of something, you have no chance of describing it simply. So, I would say, unless you’re on your 10th draft, you’re probably describing it in too complicated of a way.

NICOLE SMITH: Yeah. So, can I ask you a little bit more of a personal question, Professor?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah, anything.

NICOLE SMITH: So, Abby asks, how do you apply the essential steps to moving fast and fixing things in your own consulting role? So, Uber and all the places that you go.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. Yeah, so I’ll tell you, when we’ve been successful, it’s when organizations come to us, and they say, here’s our problem. Will you help us? When we’ve been unsuccessful is when we go to the organizations, and we’re like, we think you’re having a problem. So, pull works. Push doesn’t. So, the only thing we can’t provide is the desire to change. And so, I would say personally, make sure there’s an opening. And then you can be super helpful in fixing a problem. And I also would say that all of this applies to yourself. I mean, that ruthless prioritization – so many of us are trying to be good at as many things as possible – at work, at home, daughter, sister, cousin, parent, friend – as opposed to, I’m going to kill it at work, kill it at home. And I am not going to be good… not now. I’m not going to be as good at all of these other things. So, you can either choose exhausted mediocrity, or you can have the nobility of excellence. These things are choices. So, I think all of this applies to ourselves.

NICOLE SMITH: So, let’s go back to Tuesday, where you drew that triangle with logic, and empathy, and authenticity. So, Hung asks, between logic and empathy, which one would you say an individual should develop first? And Hung really describes just having a left foot and right foot and not knowing which one to go forward.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. So, here’s what I would say, Hung, is, ask yourself… I bet you’re trusted most of the time, which means people are experiencing your authenticity, logic, and empathy most of the time. But ask yourself, the last time, or the most recent times you had a skeptic, you had someone who was doubting you, who they were wobbling on your trust, ask yourself, what is it that they doubted about you? And if it’s that they doubted your logic, double click there. If they doubted your empathy, double click there. And that is, each of us has what we call a wobble. Each one of us has a pattern where the distribution of these is higher for one or the other. That’s the sequence I would go in. There’s not some generic sequence that is better. All three of these pillars are equally important. But I bet, for each one of us, one tends to be more shaky than the other. And that’s what I would go after. Now, I will just tell you the distribution in the world. The vast majority of us have empathy wobbles, then logic wobbles, then authenticity wobbles. But that doesn’t help any of us specifically. It just tells us we have lots of company.

NICOLE SMITH: OK. So, we got a lot more questions and a little time. I want to get as many as I can in, but…

FRANCES FREI: OK, I’ll go super quick. Yeah.

NICOLE SMITH: No, take your time. But I just want to let you know, you’re pretty popular in this conversation. Rock star, as Allison said. Tara asks, how can company leadership make sure that their messaging is actually heard and understood? I feel like you touched on this a bit with simplicity.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that the way to do it is, talk to people about your message that didn’t hear it directly from you. And see how well they understood. That tells you whether or not it’s reaching. So, don’t ask the people that were in the room. Ask the people that were spoken to by other people in the room. That will tell you how well it’s there. And if it took you a long time to describe it, I promise you, it’s not going to be heard.

NICOLE SMITH: Mm. Oh, wow. Yeah, thinking about it, probably need to shorten my own stories a little bit here. So, Karen asks you, how do you handle employees who are not willing to accept others’ points of view and be open minded? I mean, you described this uniqueness and diversity. But there are people who are holdouts that don’t see the advantage of that.

FRANCES FREI: So, I often find those folks are an education away, because if I can let you know that if I get to benefit from everyone’s point of view, and you only get to benefit from some people’s point of view, I will competitively thump you. So, let’s say you don’t have the moral imperative wanting to do it. Well, the performance imperative… we have found that organizations that are inclusive get a 200% to 500% boost on employee engagement and team performance with no new people, no new technology, simply the act of being inclusive. So, the person who doesn’t want to be inclusive, I’m going to ask them, can they afford… can their career afford performing so suboptimally?

NICOLE SMITH: Mm. And so, we have a question. The person didn’t leave their name, so I don’t have a name. But how much time do you spend on each stage? Some folks like to spend more time on stages than others. Does the team not move forward until everyone’s satisfied with the current step? What do you do when you hit a roadblock on each stage, and not everyone is in agreement?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. Well, I don’t like consensus, so I’ll just… I’ll say there. And so, what I try to do is work on momentum, which is that I want to make sure that everybody’s voices have been heard. But then you have to leave the decision to someone else. So, we want to do is make sure everybody’s voices are heard, and they had a chance to do it. But we don’t hold out until the very last person. We move forward. And then we can retrace and see if the momentum can bring people forward. So, not consensus. I would consider it not consensus, and we have to make sure that everybody gets to air out what their problems are.

NICOLE SMITH: OK. Well, Christopher asks our last question. How does transparency fit into this model, specifically this trust, authenticity, logic model? Does it have a place?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. It sure does. And I find that the most important part for transparency is on the logic side. So, if you’re going to say… if you’re going to inspect whether or not I have good rigor, and I have a good plan, I could say, oh, just have faith. I did all of this hard work. Or I could give you a glimpse inside so that you can see the inner workings. Now, I often call it a window of transparency, because there’s actually a cost of full transparency that I’m not always willing to take. But a window of transparency, I think we always need. So, to me, the transparency part is, let’s be transparent about our logic so people can see it for themselves, and they don’t have to do it in too much of a faith-based way.

NICOLE SMITH: Professor, that was all dynamic. And thank you for the illustrations. You made it simple with the illustrations.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah, all right. Awesome. Thanks so much.

NICOLE SMITH: Thank you for your time.

FRANCES FREI: OK.

HANNAH BATES: That was Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei in conversation with HBR’s editorial audience director Nicole Smith at the “Future of Business” virtual conference in November 2023.

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about leadership from Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review.

When you’re ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world’s top business and management experts, you’ll find it all at HBR.org.

This episode was produced by Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. Special thanks to Dave Di Iulio, Terry Cole, and Maureen Hoch, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.

• Subscribe On:

Latest in this series

This article is about leadership and managing people.

• Strategy execution
• Managing people
• Collaboration and teams
• Trustworthiness
• Organizational culture
• Change management

Partner Center

Finding a problem that needs to be solved

In Chapters 3-5, we will go through the journey from having an idea to creating a sustainable scalable business ready to have a global impact. We don’t mean that this is a recipe for guaranteed success. Every startup is unique and the right things to do are different. However, based on learnings from previously successful entrepreneurs, the presented ways of working and thinking can increase your chance of success.

A startup is a group of experiments – an iterative process trying to find a solution to a problem and a way to create a sustainable business around it. Here the process is described in chronological order, but in reality the phases often overlap and you can go back and forth.

Few successful startup stories are textbook examples. However, to find the best way of working for each unique situation, you need to understand the textbook examples first. That is what we want to provide here: the fundamental basics so that you can take them and be creative.

When you set out to create something new, you have to consider many different questions, such as who is your customer, how will you reach them, and how can you stand out from the competition. However the most fundamental question you should start with is this: what problem am I solving?

To build a sustainable business, you have to solve a repeatable problem that many people or businesses have – and that they are willing to pay for a solution for this problem.

Even though it’s possible to create hype and get people interested in a product that’s just a “cool thing”, if it doesn’t actually solve a real problem people will eventually stop using it. The same rule applies for intrapreneurs building a new product or venture inside a larger organization. An initiative is much more likely to succeed when it’s built around solving a problem.

Where to get started

But how can you find a real problem that someone has and validate that you have a problem worth solving?

One good way is to start with your own everyday life. You probably encounter problems or simply things that annoy you on any given day, whether at work, home, or school. For example, in a typical Nordic country this could be something like:

you have to wait a long time to get your food at lunch

taxis are expensive and never available when you need one

email is a slow and inefficient way to communicate at work

people are eating a lot of red meat even though it’s bad for the planet

you want to buy or sell an apartment, but real estate agent fees are high

In fact, some problems are so ingrained you probably don’t even think of them as problems any more. People might think this is just how things have to work.

There are also many problems that are not everyday things but can have a huge negative effect on someone’s life, like illnesses caused by rare diseases. Looking at the UN Sustainable Development Goals can also give a ready-made list of bigger problems in this world crying out for a solution. Things like:

Helping to educate people

Ensuring access to clean water

Making energy cleaner

Providing working sanitation

Cleaning up plastic waste from oceans

What are UN SDGs?

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals adopted by all United Nations Member States as a “universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.”

There are three key things you should keep in mind when trying to find a problem that needs solving:

1) Is it an important problem?

When you’re building a startup or a new product, it’s important that the business is built around a problem that you think is important . That’s why making money or becoming famous and respected shouldn’t be primarily motivators for an entrepreneur to start building a new business. Instead, you should spend time thinking about what gets you motivated and how you can build that around activities that you enjoy – regardless of financial success. Then at least you’ll be getting to work with something you like while (hopefully) also growing your business.

2) Is this something you like doing on a daily basis?

Another important point is to choose something that you enjoy doing on a daily basis. This is not to say that you will always get to do things that you like. On the contrary, while building a startup you will certainly face tasks that aren’t fun. But if the root problem you chose is important enough to you, it will help keep you motivated.

3) Do you have an understanding of the problem?

Most successful entrepreneurs have solved a problem that they encountered in their own life. When you have a personal relationship with the problem, it’s often easier for you to understand it, and you’re probably more motivated to solve it. How you are involved with the problem can of course vary and you don’t necessarily have to have in-depth experience. Having a personal relationship with the problem can also mean that a friend or family member has experienced it.

Insights from an Entrepreneur – Value Based Entrepreneurship

Johan Brand is a creative technology entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder of Kahoot!, one of the world’s fastest-growing learning brands with over 70 million unique monthly active users in 200+ countries. Johan shares us the story of Kahoot & how he sees entrepreneurship.

How did you become an entrepreneur?

I began studying in a business school, but quit after three months. It felt like I wasn’t learning practical skills, just theory. This took me to art school studying photography to learn more creative skills, how to ask questions from the world and originate my own ideas.

At art school, I learned to deal with uncertainty and understanding things that have no given answers. This was also where I could vocalize my own taste and values. Critiques force you to defend your choices and can also answer your own questions of why. This is a skill I am so fortunate to have learned and find so much more relevant. At the time, I didn’t know I would become an entrepreneur but discovered my interest & talent in starting new things.

Story of Kahoot

When working in London, I got more and more interested in play as human behavior. I see it as our first language. It is what we do with animals or with other humans if we don’t have a common language. This is the entry into developing relationships.

At the time, I was introduced to the other founders of Kahoot. They were working on other projects, but we were all in a similar field. We connected through aligned views of the world. Our drive was coming together and seeing problems that needed to be solved. We brainstormed, challenged each other and fell in love with different ideas. In the end, we chose the best bits and pieces that fit our collective vision.

However, none of our ideas were so exciting that we would be willing to give up our careers. We started to think, for what are we ready to sacrifice everything – and then we realized that the problem with education needs to be solved.

The problem & solution

We wanted to make learning awesome and as fun as hanging out with your friends after school. To do this, there needs to be engagement, play, and social interaction.

We started to think about what does it mean: how can we make people engage more? Technology plays a big part in how both students and adults connect outside of work or the classroom. Now we just had to find a way how technology can enable learning to be cool. In school classrooms, we saw students using clunky, dated clickers to give answers. Why couldn’t we turn everyone’s smartphone into a personal gaming controller you always have with you? Our vision emerged to turn the outdated, boring classrooms into a game show with everyone’s phone being the controller.

The first step was to help the teachers get behind our idea. They needed to be the ones to introduce the game as something cool and then have their students log on to the platform. It’s no fun to be a teacher in your 40s with technology native students trying to do something with technology and fail.

We invented the pin code engage model. This means when the participants sign up, they will see their names on a big screen. Everyone wants to see their name on a big screen and get their 2 minutes of fame. This was our first innovation, creating a fun way to connect to the game which is actually a game itself.

Our research led us to quizzes as very engaging types of games that also work pedagogically. This entry point is the hook to have people to engage with the platform.

Customers and users

I think it’s important to understand that your customer might not be the user: you might create value for someone using the product, but someone else is actually paying.

At first, we defined our two users as students and teachers. Both need to have equal value, but both have different objectives. Teachers need to be able to facilitate the game and gain learning value while the students need to be able to participate in the game and gain social value. Our goal was to take both user needs into account, but have them somehow meet in the middle.

Turning the product into a business

It was clear we needed teachers to use the product. If their students love it, the teachers would use it again. This we coined, product-led growth. Once we created a product that the teacher would adopt and students would use, we gave it out for free to the end-users. If both the users adapted well, we used that leverage to sell the school administration on the value of this becoming a paid service.

However, it was very clear from day one that schools were just a laboratory for business. This product works on a basic, humanistic level for all. We opened our target groups to workplaces or social gatherings and now have found commercial growth as well.

Value-based-entrepreneurship

At Kahoot, our goal is to ensure the product is always free for students and extract the value from businesses. I call it value-based entrepreneurship: you create solutions that add value before you extract value for yourself. Of course, I want people to have commercial success, but only as a consequence of having a positive impact. By giving, you also tend to get back – this is a fundamental attitude of a good entrepreneur.

A while ago I also founded a company called The EntrepreneurShipOne. I identified that the Ocean and its potential for a sustainable future was not part of the public agenda, neither at school or political level. I wanted to take action in solving that problem. We facilitate voyages and expeditions with entrepreneurs, politicians, and corporations to physically expose them to the problem and the solutions within technology and entrepreneurship that can provide solutions for the betterment of the world. At the moment, this is not a commercial business, but a community built on creating positive, societal impact. There could be a commercial element to draw from this venture at some point, but first, we should have a positive impact.

Sign up to solve exercises

More From Forbes

Stumped five ways to hone your problem-solving skills.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Respect the worth of other people's insights

Problems continuously arise in organizational life, making problem-solving an essential skill for leaders. Leaders who are good at tackling conundrums are likely to be more effective at overcoming obstacles and guiding their teams to achieve their goals. So, what’s the secret to better problem-solving skills?

1. Understand the root cause of the problem

“Too often, people fail because they haven’t correctly defined what the problem is,” says David Ross, an international strategist, founder of consultancy Phoenix Strategic Management and author of Confronting the Storm: Regenerating Leadership and Hope in the Age of Uncertainty .

Ross explains that as teams grapple with “wicked” problems – those where there can be several root causes for why a problem exists – there can often be disagreement on the initial assumptions made. As a result, their chances of successfully solving the problem are low.

“Before commencing the process of solving the problem, it is worthwhile identifying who your key stakeholders are and talking to them about the issue,” Ross recommends. “Who could be affected by the issue? What is the problem – and why? How are people affected?”

He argues that if leaders treat people with dignity, respecting the worth of their insights, they are more likely to successfully solve problems.

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, 2. unfocus the mind.

“To solve problems, we need to commit to making time to face a problem in its full complexity, which also requires that we take back control of our thinking,” says Chris Griffiths, an expert on creativity and innovative thinking skills, founder and CEO of software provider OpenGenius, and co-author of The Focus Fix: Finding Clarity, Creativity and Resilience in an Overwhelming World .

To do this, it’s necessary to harness the power of the unfocused mind, according to Griffiths. “It might sound oxymoronic, but just like our devices, our brain needs time to recharge,” he says. “ A plethora of research has shown that daydreaming allows us to make creative connections and see abstract solutions that are not obvious when we’re engaged in direct work.”

To make use of the unfocused mind in problem solving, you must begin by getting to know the problem from all angles. “At this stage, don’t worry about actually solving the problem,” says Griffiths. “You’re simply giving your subconscious mind the information it needs to get creative with when you zone out. From here, pick a monotonous or rhythmic activity that will help you to activate the daydreaming state – that might be a walk, some doodling, or even some chores.”

Do this regularly, argues Griffiths, and you’ll soon find that flashes of inspiration and novel solutions naturally present themselves while you’re ostensibly thinking of other things. He says: “By allowing you to access the fullest creative potential of your own brain, daydreaming acts as a skeleton key for a wide range of problems.”

3. Be comfortable making judgment calls

“Admitting to not knowing the future takes courage,” says Professor Stephen Wyatt, founder and lead consultant at consultancy Corporate Rebirth and author of Antidote to the Crisis of Leadership: Opportunity in Complexity . “Leaders are worried our teams won’t respect us and our boards will lose faith in us, but what doesn’t work is drawing up plans and forecasts and holding yourself or others rigidly to them.”

Wyatt advises leaders to heighten their situational awareness – to look broadly, integrate more perspectives and be able to connect the dots. “We need to be comfortable in making judgment calls as the future is unknown,” he says. “There is no data on it. But equally, very few initiatives cannot be adjusted, refined or reviewed while in motion.”

Leaders need to stay vigilant, according to Wyatt, create the capacity of the enterprise to adapt and maintain the support of stakeholders. “The concept of the infallible leader needs to be updated,” he concludes.

4. Be prepared to fail and learn

“Organisations, and arguably society more widely, are obsessed with problems and the notion of problems,” says Steve Hearsum, founder of organizational change consultancy Edge + Stretch and author of No Silver Bullet: Bursting the Bubble of the Organisational Quick Fix .

Hearsum argues that this tendency is complicated by the myth of fixability, namely the idea that all problems, however complex, have a solution. “Our need for certainty, to minimize and dampen the anxiety of ‘not knowing,’ leads us to oversimplify and ignore or filter out anything that challenges the idea that there is a solution,” he says.

Leaders need to shift their mindset to cultivate their comfort with not knowing and couple that with being OK with being wrong, sometimes, notes Hearsum. He adds: “That means developing reflexivity to understand your own beliefs and judgments, and what influences these, asking questions and experimenting.”

5. Unleash the power of empathy

Leaders must be able to communicate problems in order to find solutions to them. But they should avoid bombarding their teams with complex, technical details since these can overwhelm their people’s cognitive load, says Dr Jessica Barker MBE , author of Hacked: The Secrets Behind Cyber Attacks .

Instead, she recommends that leaders frame their messages in ways that cut through jargon and ensure that their advice is relevant, accessible and actionable. “An essential leadership skill for this is empathy,” Barker explains. “When you’re trying to build a positive culture, it is crucial to understand why people are not practicing the behaviors you want rather than trying to force that behavioral change with fear, uncertainty and doubt.”

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.

Effective Problem-Solving Techniques in Business

Problem solving is an increasingly important soft skill for those in business. The Future of Jobs Survey by the World Economic Forum drives this point home. According to this report, complex problem solving is identified as one of the top 15 skills that will be sought by employers in 2025, along with other soft skills such as analytical thinking, creativity and leadership.

Dr. Amy David , clinical associate professor of management for supply chain and operations management, spoke about business problem-solving methods and how the Purdue University Online MBA program prepares students to be business decision-makers.

Why Are Problem-Solving Skills Essential in Leadership Roles?

Every business will face challenges at some point. Those that are successful will have people in place who can identify and solve problems before the damage is done.

“The business world is constantly changing, and companies need to be able to adapt well in order to produce good results and meet the needs of their customers,” David says. “They also need to keep in mind the triple bottom line of ‘people, profit and planet.’ And these priorities are constantly evolving.”

To that end, David says people in management or leadership need to be able to handle new situations, something that may be outside the scope of their everyday work.

“The name of the game these days is change—and the speed of change—and that means solving new problems on a daily basis,” she says.

The pace of information and technology has also empowered the customer in a new way that provides challenges—or opportunities—for businesses to respond.

“Our customers have a lot more information and a lot more power,” she says. “If you think about somebody having an unhappy experience and tweeting about it, that’s very different from maybe 15 years ago. Back then, if you had a bad experience with a product, you might grumble about it to one or two people.”

David says that this reality changes how quickly organizations need to react and respond to their customers. And taking prompt and decisive action requires solid problem-solving skills.

What Are Some of the Most Effective Problem-Solving Methods?

David says there are a few things to consider when encountering a challenge in business.

“When faced with a problem, are we talking about something that is broad and affects a lot of people? Or is it something that affects a select few? Depending on the issue and situation, you’ll need to use different types of problem-solving strategies,” she says.

Using Techniques

There are a number of techniques that businesses use to problem solve. These can include:

• Five Whys : This approach is helpful when the problem at hand is clear but the underlying causes are less so. By asking “Why?” five times, the final answer should get at the potential root of the problem and perhaps yield a solution.
• Gap Analysis : Companies use gap analyses to compare current performance with expected or desired performance, which will help a company determine how to use its resources differently or adjust expectations.
• Gemba Walk : The name, which is derived from a Japanese word meaning “the real place,” refers to a commonly used technique that allows managers to see what works (and what doesn’t) from the ground up. This is an opportunity for managers to focus on the fundamental elements of the process, identify where the value stream is and determine areas that could use improvement.
• Porter’s Five Forces : Developed by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter, applying the Five Forces is a way for companies to identify competitors for their business or services, and determine how the organization can adjust to stay ahead of the game.
• Six Thinking Hats : In his book of the same name, Dr. Edward de Bono details this method that encourages parallel thinking and attempting to solve a problem by trying on different “thinking hats.” Each color hat signifies a different approach that can be utilized in the problem-solving process, ranging from logic to feelings to creativity and beyond. This method allows organizations to view problems from different angles and perspectives.
• SWOT Analysis : This common strategic planning and management tool helps businesses identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).

“We have a lot of these different tools,” David says. “Which one to use when is going to be dependent on the problem itself, the level of the stakeholders, the number of different stakeholder groups and so on.”

Each of the techniques outlined above uses the same core steps of problem solving:

• Identify and define the problem
• Consider possible solutions
• Evaluate options
• Choose the best solution
• Implement the solution
• Evaluate the outcome

Data drives a lot of daily decisions in business and beyond. Analytics have also been deployed to problem solve.

“We have specific classes around storytelling with data and how you convince your audience to understand what the data is,” David says. “Your audience has to trust the data, and only then can you use it for real decision-making.”

Data can be a powerful tool for identifying larger trends and making informed decisions when it’s clearly understood and communicated. It’s also vital for performance monitoring and optimization.

How Is Problem Solving Prioritized in Purdue’s Online MBA?

The courses in the Purdue Online MBA program teach problem-solving methods to students, keeping them up to date with the latest techniques and allowing them to apply their knowledge to business-related scenarios.

“I can give you a model or a tool, but most of the time, a real-world situation is going to be a lot messier and more valuable than what we’ve seen in a textbook,” David says. “Asking students to take what they know and apply it to a case where there’s not one single correct answer is a big part of the learning experience.”

Make Your Own Decision to Further Your Career

An online MBA from Purdue University can help advance your career by teaching you problem-solving skills, decision-making strategies and more. Reach out today to learn more about earning an online MBA with Purdue University .

If you would like to receive more information about pursuing a business master’s at the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, please fill out the form and a program specialist will be in touch!

Connect With Us

Anthropic CEO says we need to think bigger than a universal basic income if we want to solve the AI inequality problem

• Some fear that rapid advances in AI may concentrate power and wealth among a small elite.
• Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says a universal basic income may not sufficiently address such a shift.
• He says there needs to be a broader economic reorganization.

The rapid advances in AI could consolidate power and wealth in the hands of a small few , which is why many in the tech industry have called for a universal basic income.

But some AI leaders say even UBI, a recurring cash payment to those in a given population regardless of their wealth or employment status, wouldn't be enough.

"I certainly think that's better than nothing," Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told Time. "But I would much prefer a world in which everyone can contribute. It would be kind of dystopian if there are these few people that can make trillions of dollars, and then the government hands it all out to the unwashed masses."

Amodei, a former OpenAI employee, launched Anthropic in 2021 with his sister, Daniela, and five other OpenAI colleagues. They believed AI would have a dramatic impact on the world and wanted to build a company that would ensure it was aligned with human values. Amodei described the company to Time as one focused on "public benefit."

Many in the tech industry have expressed support for universal basic income to mitigate the economic impact of AI. The idea is that it would act as a safety net for people whose jobs have been threatened by the technology.

But Amodei suggests that AI will alter society in such a fundamental way that we need to design a more comprehensive solution. "I think in the long run, we're really going to need to think about how do we organize the economy and how humans think about their lives?" He doesn't have the answer, he said, in part because he believes it needs to be a "conversation among humanity."

Amodei isn't the only one thinking beyond universal basic income. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, while a vocal proponent of it, has also proposed the idea of a " universal basic compute ." The idea is that as large language models advance, owning a slice of one will be more valuable than money.

Watch: Why "deployment of AI is top of mind for everybody," according to IBM's Jonathan Adashek

• Main content

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

The Supreme Court says cities can punish people for sleeping in public places

Jennifer Ludden

U.S. Supreme Court says cities can punish people for sleeping in public places

A homeless person walks near an elementary school in Grants Pass, Ore., on March 23. The rural city became the unlikely face of the nation's homelessness crisis when it asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold its anti-camping laws. Jenny Kane/AP hide caption

In its biggest decision on homelessness in decades, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that cities can ban people from sleeping and camping in public places. The justices, in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, overturned lower court rulings that deemed it cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment to punish people for sleeping outside if they had nowhere else to go.

Writing for the majority, Justice Gorsuch said, “Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many.” But he said federal judges do not have any “special competence” to decide how cities should deal with this.

“The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges to wrest those rights and responsibilities from the American people and in their place dictate this Nation’s homelessness policy,” he wrote.

In a dissent, Justice Sotomayor said the decision focused only on the needs of cities but not the most vulnerable. She said sleep is a biological necessity, but this decision leaves a homeless person with “an impossible choice — either stay awake or be arrested.”

The court's decision is a win not only for the small Oregon city of Grants Pass, which brought the case, but also for dozens of Western localities that had urged the high court to grant them more enforcement powers as they grapple with record high rates of homelessness. They said the lower court rulings had tied their hands in trying to keep public spaces open and safe for everyone.

Supreme Court appears to side with an Oregon city's crackdown on homelessness

But advocates for the unhoused say the decision won’t solve the bigger problem, and could make life much harder for the quarter of a million people living on streets, in parks and in their cars. “Where do people experiencing homelessness go if every community decides to punish them for their homelessness?” says Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Today’s ruling only changes current law in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes California and eight other Western states where the bulk of America’s unhoused population lives. But it will also determine whether similar policies elsewhere are permissible; and it will almost certainly influence homelessness policy in cities around the country.

Cities complained they were hamstrung in managing a public safety crisis

Grants Pass and other cities argued that lower court rulings fueled the spread of homeless encampments, endangering public health and safety. Those decisions did allow cities to restrict when and where people could sleep and even to shut down encampments – but they said cities first had to offer people adequate shelter.

That’s a challenge in many places that don’t have nearly enough shelter beds. In briefs filed by local officials, cities and town also expressed frustration that many unhoused people reject shelter when it is available; they may not want to go if a facility bans pets, for example, or prohibits drugs and alcohol.

Critics also said lower court rulings were ambiguous, making them unworkable in practice. Localities have faced dozens of lawsuits over the details of what’s allowed. And they argued that homelessness is a complex problem that requires balancing competing interests, something local officials are better equipped to do than the courts.

"We are trying to show there's respect for the public areas that we all need to have," Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison told NPR earlier this year. She wrote a legal brief on behalf of more than a dozen other cities. "We care for people, and we're engaging and being involved in the long-term solution for them."

The decision will not solve the larger problem of rising homelessness

Attorneys for homeless people in Grants Pass argued that the city’s regulations were so sweeping, they effectively made it illegal for someone without a home to exist. To discourage sleeping in public spaces, the city banned the use of stoves and sleeping bags, pillows or other bedding. But Grants Pass has no public shelter, only a Christian mission that imposes various restrictions and requires people to attend religious service.

"It's sort of the bare minimum in what a just society should expect, is that you're not going to punish someone for something they have no ability to control," said Ed Johnson of the Oregon Law Center, which represents those who sued the city.

He also said saddling people with fines and a criminal record makes it even harder for them to eventually get into housing.

Johnson and other advocates say today’s decision won’t change the core problem behind rising homelessness: a severe housing shortage, and rents that have become unaffordable for a record half of all tenants. The only real solution, they say, is to create lots more housing people can afford – and that will take years.

• homelessness
• Supreme Court

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Most Men Will Experience Erectile Dysfunction. Here’s What to Do About It.

Today, there are more treatments than ever.

By David Dodge

Erectile dysfunction is more common than one might think. More than half of men over 40 will experience some kind of erectile problem, and the prevalence increases with age (though men in their 20s and 30s can be affected, too).

The experience can have a devastating effect on a man’s well-being. Yet a shocking number of men don’t seek help. One industry survey suggests that just 51 percent of men with erectile dysfunction had discussed the issue with their doctor, and even fewer had spoken to their own partners about it.

There is “not a medical condition that I’m aware of that affects more men’s lives,” said Dr. Mohit Khera, a urologist and the president of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America.

But there are effective treatments, he added, beyond well-known medications like Viagra. These can include vacuum pumps, injections, implants, lifestyle modifications, testosterone-replacement therapy and sex therapy. Some combination of these options, experts said, almost always improve erections, even in the most severe cases.

However, before men go anywhere near a pill or pump (or the “natural” male supplements commonly sold at gas stations), they should get a health exam to understand the causes of the dysfunction, which might point to a more serious health issue.

“The penis can be seen as a barometer for the whole health of the person,” said Dr. Rachel Rubin, a urologist and sex medicine specialist in Maryland.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .