Problem Framing Skills

In this interactive, digital course, you’ll learn and get experience using the lean practices and tools that help you define work problems and lean techniques for framing issues so others can quickly understand and collaborate on resolving them.

Problem Framing Skills (formerly known as Problem Definition Practice) self-paced course takes you beyond theory, offering opportunities to practice, self-assess, learn from others, and enhance your problem-solving capabilities. It challenges you to gain an in-depth understanding of your problem-definition skills, then immerses you in a real-world scenario that requires you to effectively assess, break down, frame a problem, and communicate it to others to enlist their help.

You’ll learn by doing: Throughout the scenario — a real-world problem faced by a fast-food restaurant — you’ll learn by doing, putting lessons to immediate use. You’ll also watch explanatory videos of the problem-solving astronauts did to complete the near-fatal Apollo 13 space mission, which crystallizes the importance of problem definition and collaboration. Throughout, downloadable handouts will help you apply your learnings to issues you face at work currently.

Problems large and small are an inevitable part of work, keeping people and teams from achieving their goals. The better you are at defining and framing problems, the more effective you will be at rallying others to help implement sustainable change.

Who Will Benefit?

• Individuals, team leaders, and frontline and mid-level managers who face and must resolve problems that hinder their — and their teams’ — ability to achieve performance goals
• People at any level of an organization, from the front line to the executive suite, who are new to lean thinking and practice, generally, and/or lean problem-solving specifically
• Lean practitioners in any industry who need or want to fill gaps in or refresh their lean problem-solving skills

What Will I Learn?

Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Break down problems to the point where you can address them.
• Critically self-assess your problem definitions.
• More effectively draw others into the problem-solving process.

What Else Should I Know?

Though no prerequisite training or reading is required before taking this course, having familiarity with lean thinking would be helpful. We recommend the course, Intro to Lean Thinking and Practice.