Visual tools for problem framing and problem solving

Problem solving is important in everyday situations, and it is understood to be of critical importance when attempting to confront the major challenges facing the world today. Problem framing and problem solving have received much attention over many decades, from people facing personal and professional challenges, as well as from confronting difficult workplace issues at strategic, tactical and operational levels. This chapter summarises the case for using visual tools and visual representations to gain better understanding of current situations from multiple perspectives, to generate and explore new possibilities and to systematically explore potential solutions. Creative solutions often benefit from an initial deep understanding of the problem space, gaining insights from multiple perspectives rather than moving too fast to attempting to identify possible solutions. Furthermore, the information and understanding that emerge during the exploration of the problem space with thorough investigation of multiple possibilities, including testing of emerging ideas, leads to better, more appropriate co-created solutions. We present a learning approach to problem framing and problem solving informed by multiple experiments. Visual tools and visualisation capture multiple perspectives, generate new ideas and new combinations of ideas to find new opportunities and multiple solutions. They also build creative confidence in creative thinking abilities and imagining new possibilities. Brief examples of the application of visual tools in a problem framing and problem solving framework used in real world problem solving, and suggested resources are provided