The Problem Scoping Process

In this guide, we will walk you through the process of considering how to scope a problem for participants of your short-duration learning experience to work through. This process can be generated for students completing a case competition, for students completing a design thinking challenge, or for students completing the experiential learning component of a larger course. Typically, the idea behind this type of short-duration learning experience is to focus on presenting participants with a real-world problem that requires a variety of skills to either fix or improve. Many design-challenge focused short-duration learning experiences try to present students with “wicked” problems (read more about wicked problems here).

Choosing what problem students will focus on is truly an art form; if the problem is too specific, students will feel overly constrained. Many students turn to alternative education styles like short-duration learning experiences to experience more creativity in their learning, and an overly scoped problem can turn away potential participants. On the other hand, if a problem is too large, students will feel frustrated when they discover the problem is “unsolvable.” They will complete the program feeling somewhat defeated or they might question their skills. Picking the “sweet spot” of breadth may be challenging but it is well worth the effort.

To create a challenge that is interesting to participants, ensure that there is an interconnectedness between the chosen problem and your participants. Participants need to be able to comprehend and build on the chosen problem set. One way we accomplish this goal at MacChangers is by hiring individuals within our chosen target population and co-collaborating with them to develop topical and relevant problems. We then give our team a theme area relating to one of four topics: Health, Environmental Sustainability, City Planning and Infrastructure, and Supporting Small Businesses. Our team members are then encouraged to look into topics and ideas that have any kind of relationship to their theme area. They gather some data and current news topics and present them to the team. See appendix A for guiding questions our students base their inquiry off of. Based on what is gathered, a subset of topics is chosen through collaboration as a team. This process takes us around 2 weeks; we find it is important to ensure the inclusion of multiple points of view before going ahead with one final choice of challenge. After narrowing down potential challenge candidates, we then connect with key stakeholders and subject-matter experts to further inform our problem. See our guide on connecting with stakeholders for more information about our process.

When brainstorming with stakeholders, quantity over quality is preferred. Topics relevant in the press can be old news to the people engaging in the issue every day; however, they can spark ideas or lead our discussions down new avenues with our subject-matter experts. For this reason, we like to view sessions with stakeholders as brainstorming sessions. We rarely reach a consensus for our chosen problem focus in these meetings. Instead, we usually generate a new list of potential problems that are more expert-informed. We then pose three guiding principles developed by the Delta Lab from the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University to our improved list of potential problems: questions must be daring, feasible and applicable (Lewis et al., 2015).

Challenges that are daring should have some value within society as a whole and should not just relate to the person or team that are working on scoping a challenge. For example, questions that Lewis et al. pose to decide if their problem is daring include, “Does the problem appear in national news?” and “Are current solutions to the problem lacking in some way?” (2015).

Challenges that are feasible are those which have accessible domains. Questions posed by Lewis et al. to determine the feasibility of a problem include, “Can we access the expertise and tools needed to understand and solve the problem?” (2015).

Thirdly, challenges must also be applicable. One needs to consider not including challenges that are only valid in one context and are difficult to scale (Lewis et al., 2015). Questions to determine the applicability of a problem include “Does the problem affect a significant number of people?” and “Are there multiple places where the problem occurs?” (Lewis et al., 2015).

Questions which are able to pass all three of these guiding principles tend to be successful for finding a balance between being realistic and still intriguing to our participants.

Problem Scoping Timeline

For our longer and more intensive programs, scoping problems takes around four months. We generate 12 scoped problems in this timeframe. For our condensed program, we generate 4 well-scoped problems in a 2-month timeframe.

Example of Problem Scoping Timeframe:

2 weeks: Exploration of Potential problems. Your team will likely want to review a set of potential issues facing your target audience by reading the news, attending webinars or events hosted by institutions related to your chosen topic, and reviewing on-going events in your target community.

1 week: Once a few initial ideas are generated, our team begins to generate a list of potential stakeholders who could speak to our topics and begins to contact them.

6 weeks: We find that once identified, it can take up to three weeks to hear back from stakeholders. Typically, the first person we speak with at one organization will let us know of two to three other individuals who might be a more appropriate fit for our chosen topics. Alternatively, initial stakeholder meetings will lead us to entirely new topics which require research. The process in its entirety takes around a month. When just starting out, this process can take closer to 8 weeks if you do not have an established network. We usually meet with stakeholders at least twice, with the first meeting being broader with an emphasis on brainstorming, and the second being of narrower scope to evaluate the quality of ideas generated through reflecting on the brainstormed ideas.

2 weeks: Consolidate problems into scoped questions through the process listed in this document.

3 weeks: Generate well-researched write-ups regarding the problems, including information derived from research, stakeholder interviews, and defining new vocabulary associated with the topic.  We generate challenge guides to introduce topics to participants and we tend to circulate these guides to the stakeholders prior to the program commencement to ensure we’ve accurately articulated the concept. We also check-in with stakeholders to see if they would like to promote an organization they are affiliated with or if they would like to volunteer more personally. It is very important to know how they would like to be referenced, as often, subject-matter experts can bring many experiences to the table and they may require specific clearance to have their place of work referenced as a collaborator on the project. In those cases, our subject-matter experts prefer to be “free agents,” so to speak.

2 weeks: Typically, at least one to two questions require more refinement and processing, so having a buffer of two weeks to the deadline has been helpful to our organization. It is not required.

Creating a Challenge Guide

As an aside, it a good idea to consider how a scoped problem will be presented to participants who engage in your short-duration learning experience. At MacChangers, we create a document called the “Challenge Guide” which participants are invited to review before beginning the program. A link to one our most recent challenge guides can be found here. [Link opens to a new tab, ArcGIS Story Maps, on our Built Environment & Infrastructure 2021-2022 Challenge Guide].

We try to present students with an engaging and inspiring multimedia tool when showcasing the possible projects. Our guides are created using lots of information generated through consultation with stakeholders, current news articles, and any available academic literature. Recently, we’ve also added Ted Talks or other videos to provide participants with inspirational mechanisms for engaging with the topics. In the future, we hope to record stakeholder interviews to introduce our subject-matter experts earlier into the program.