It’s easier to generate ideas these days. Thanks to the wealth of information on the internet. Yet, most ideas are delaying the problems they ought to be solving. Sooner or later, the problems we thought we’ve solved are back, staring at us.

This often happens when we prematurely jump into the solution space. It’s invaluable to spend quality time in the problem space. It’s not a new concept but I’ve seen it quite a lot these days.

The Space Pen story in The Lean Product Playbook explains it well. When NASA was preparing to send a man to space in the 1960s, they realized that ballpoint pens won’t work. Due to zero gravity, the ink in ballpoint pens won’t flow in space.

To solve this problem, Paul Fisher of Fisher Pen Company ended up inventing the Space Pen in 1965. He invested $1 million into this endeavor. The pen had a pressurized ink cartridge. It worked in a weightless environment, underwater, in other liquids, and extreme temperatures.

On the other side of the globe, the Soviet Union (now Russia) space agency faced a similar problem. They gave their cosmonauts pencils as a solution to the same problem.

How are you framing problems / writing your job stories?

You’ve heard the proverb “look before you leap”. It’s like the phrase, think before you speak. The same applies to building a product that meets a user’s needs. To solve a problem, we must spend quality time in the problem space (devoid of any solution idea). While in the problem space, we shouldn’t constrain our thinking when framing the problem.

Let’s walk back to imagine how the two space agencies might have phrased the problem. The problem stories were likely framed like the post-it cards below.

job stories

Thanks to Intercom, who have expanded on the Jobs-to-be-Done framework. You can use job stories to avoid this common pitfall. Read more about it here.