WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY
Developing Your Problem-Solving Skills
Problem-Solving Skills
Problem-solving skills enhance your ability to identify a difficult or unforeseen situation and determine an appropriate solution.
Using the right problem-solving approach will empower you to offer practical solutions in your professional and personal life anytime you’re faced with a problem.
This page covers different types of problem-solving skills, why they matter, and how to acquire them.
Why Are Problem-Solving Skills Important?
Problem-solving skills are crucial in empowering individuals to handle large or small obstacles throughout various aspects of life. Here are just a few ways that these skills can help you:
- Overcoming challenges: Life will always present you with problems that may hinder your personal or professional progress. Problem-solving skills empower you to identify solutions, giving you control over your future.
- Enhancing decision-making: Problem-solving skills help you assess problems as they come, gauge all the possible solutions, and make the best decision.
- Promoting innovation: Practical problem-solving skills encourage creative thinking, enabling you to develop innovative ideas. You can then evaluate these ideas to identify effective solutions to tackle obstacles.
- Increasing efficiency: Problem-solving skills help individuals and organizations improve efficiency and save time and resources. You are assured of increased productivity if you can identify the root cause of a problem, get the appropriate solution, and implement it promptly.
- Building resilience: Since problems are part of everyone’s day-to-day life, being equipped with problem-solving skills will enable you to respond quickly and rationally to unforeseen situations and not succumb to setbacks.
What Are the Benefits of Having Problem-Solving Skills?
When you frequently apply your problem-solving skills, you become more proficient at analyzing, resolving, and adapting to challenges.
In the workplace, people with strong problem-solving skills apply a combination of creative thinking and analytical skills to help them become more confident when making decisions in the face of challenges.
They’re better equipped to handle the challenges their job brings Problem solvers can observe, judge, and act quickly when faced with adversity.
Problem-solving skills enable you to prioritize, plan, and execute your strategies. You also learn how to think outside the box and identify opportunities in problems.
Examples of Problem-Solving Skills
Problem-solving skills are effective in helping you identify the source of a problem and how to solve it with a structured approach.
Here are some skills associated with problem-solving:
- Analyzing data: When addressing a number of problems, it’s important to gather relevant for a thorough understanding of the issue and its underlying causes.
- Brainstorming creative solutions: Brainstorming allows you to find the right information from the different causes of the problem and develop innovative solutions.
- Researching to gather relevant information: Having clarity on your research goals and digging into reliable resources to get relevant information.
- Use critical thinking to evaluate options: This involves objective questioning, analyzing, and systematically assessing available options. You should be able to differentiate facts from opinions.
- Implementing logical and systematic approaches: Exploring the key components of each option to understand their practicality and relevance to the problem. Use predefined criteria to evaluate the options and then conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to determine their viability.
- Collaborating with others to find solutions: Team members gather to offer their input, giving potential solutions and collectively analyzing them to solve the problem.
- Creative thinking: This may include generating new ideas to solve problems. It involves brainstorming, mind mapping, lateral thinking, and analogical reasoning.
- Decision-making: This is the capability to evaluate options, weigh pros and cons, and make informed decisions based on available information.
- Problem identification: The ability to recognize and define problems accurately and clearly.
- Problem structuring: The skill involves taking complicated or vague problems and dissecting them into smaller subproblems that are easier to understand and solve.
How Can I Use Problem-Solving Skills?
Problem-solving skills will have a lasting impact on your life. In your personal and professional life, you will encounter many challenges requiring you to use problem-solving skills.
Here are some instances where you’ll use problem-solving skills:
Career Success
Problem-solving skills will help you tackle challenges at any workplace, make informed decisions, and help the organizations you work with to succeed.
Personal Growth
These skills equip you to overcome everyday life obstacles, like managing personal finances, resolving conflicts in relationships, and more.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
By solving problems, you can generate creative ideas, develop innovative solutions, and even solve societal problems.
Decision-Making
Making big and small decisions by gathering alternatives, evaluating outcomes, and deciding on the best course of action.
How Can I Learn Problem-Solving Skills?
At WGU, we offer several programs and courses that focus on teaching and enhancing problem-solving skills.
Here are ways you can learn problem-solving skills at WGU.
School of Business
You’ll learn how to apply problem-solving skills in the world of entrepreneurship and business. For example, our Bachelor of Science in Business Administration–Human Resource Management, offers problem-solving skills as a key component.
With business degree programs, you will learn to:
- Generate a solution to a problem.
- Conduct research to find solutions to a problem.
- Articulate findings and resolutions to a problem.
- Apply contextual reasoning to understand problems.
- Analyze data for the nature and extent of a problem.
School of Technology
You’ll learn how to apply problem-solving skills within the ever-evolving world of IT. We have different bachelor of science degrees in Cloud Computing, such as Muilticloud Track, Amazon Web Services Track, and BS in Cloud Computing - Azure Track.
With IT-related degree programs, you will learn to:
- Select appropriate problem-solving techniques.
- Resolve a challenge using a problem-solving process.
- Recommend multiple solutions for a variety of problems.
- Implement approaches to address complex problems.
- Identify problems using various common frameworks.
School of Education
You’ll learn how problem-solving skills are crucial in the education sector. For example, our Master of Science in Educational Leadership covers problem-solving in the School of Education courses.
With education degree programs, you will learn to:
- Implement problem-solving skills for issue resolution.
- Solve complex problems.
- Identify the cause of a problem.
- Solve problems in the manner most appropriate for each problem.
Frequently Asked Questions
The problem-solving process involves the following steps:
- Problem identification: Clearly state the problem, what makes you view it as a problem, and how you discovered it.
- Problem analysis: Gather data to help you fully understand the problem and its root causes.
- Generating potential solutions: Look for all the possible ideas from different angles to solve the problem.
- Evaluating alternatives: Scrutinize the available options to identify the best idea.
- Implementing the chosen solution: Follow through on the necessary steps to resolve the problem.
- Reviewing the results: Gather feedback to test the results against your expectations.
You can improve your critical thinking skills through the following:
- Logical reasoning: Embrace creative hobbies, learn new skills, and socialize with others.
- Evaluating evidence: Determine the relevance and quality of the evidence available to challenge or support claims.
- Considering multiple perspectives: Being open to learning from your peers and adjusting your views accordingly.
Creative problem solving (CPS) is about innovatively solving problems. The techniques below will aid you in the CPS process:
- Brainstorming: Gather relevant parties and spontaneously contribute ideas to offer the solution.
- Mind mapping: Capture and organize any form of information and ideas in a structured way to enhance your logical and creative thinking.
- Analogical reasoning: Use analogies to simplify complex scenarios to makes them easy to comprehend.
Picture this: your car breaks down while running errands. It’s important to identify the problem with your car and analyze the symptoms and potential root causes of the breakdown, such as mechanical issues or battery failure. You decide that a faulty batter is the issue so you start to identify potential solutions.
The solutions may include calling for roadside assistance, finding a mechanic nearby, or seeking help from friends or family. You then evaluate the potential solutions by weighing in factors such as cost, time, and convenience. The best solution you find may be to call a nearby friend to help you jump-start the car and get back on the road to complete your errands.
This is an everyday occurrence in which problem-solving skills are applicable. Other situations may vary with the degree of difficulty, urgency, and solutions required.
Yes. With effective communication, effective conflict resolution strategies, active listening, and consensus building, team members can build healthy working relationships and succeed in their daily decision-making processes.
