A product manager’s guide to breaking free from reactive problem solving

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TLDR

In my recent conversation with Doug Hall, master of turning chaos into clarity, we explored how product managers and innovation leaders can break free from reactive problem-solving and create more value through proactive innovation. Doug shared that the average manager wastes 3.5 hours daily fixing problems, with 75% of issues stemming from broken systems rather than employee mistakes. Even more concerning, products typically lose 50% of their innovative value during development as unique ideas get compromised to fit existing systems. Doug offered practical solutions through three powerful frameworks that can transform how teams approach innovation and problem-solving.

Key Topics:

• How to define problems effectively using the Yellow Card method, inspired by military Commander’s Intent principle
• Creating solutions through structured “Create Sessions” that leverage stimulus, diversity of thought, and fear reduction
• Six types of innovation stimulus, including patent mining and wisdom mining from academic sources
• Using the Deming Cycle (Plan-Do-Study-Act) to systematically reduce risks in product development
• Transforming organizational culture by focusing on system improvement rather than individual blame

Introduction

Ever feel like your organization is stuck in an endless cycle of putting out fires instead of truly innovating? You’re not alone in that frustration. Today, we’re diving into a well-practiced approach that will transform how you and your team solve problems and drive innovation. Our returning guest, Doug Hall, is a master of turning chaos into clarity – he’s not just the founder of Eureka! Ranch and co-founder of the Dexter Bourbon Distillery, but has spent decades helping companies break free from innovation roadblocks. Doug also has a new book hot off the press titled Proactive Problem Solving: How Everyone Can Fix Problems & Find Ideas for Working Smarter!

Doug joined us in episode 518 and is back to share battle-tested strategies that will help you fix problems faster and smarter.

Proactive Problem Solving

Doug was motivated to write Proactive Problem Solving by two pieces of data showing the impact of reactive problem solving:

• The average manager wastes 3.5 hours every day dealing with problems. Seventy-five percent of these issues stem from broken systems, bureaucracy, and inefficient processes, while only 25% come from employee mistakes.
• Products typically lose 50% of their innovative value during the development process. This happens because unique ideas get repeatedly compromised to fit existing systems, rather than adapting our systems to support innovation.

We discussed the book’s three main sections:

• Defining Problems
• Creating Solutions
• Driving out Risks

Defining Problems

Doug shared an approach for defining problems borrowed from military strategy – the Commander’s Intent framework. This methodology emerged from lessons learned during World War II and the Korean War, where military leaders discovered that simply telling teams what to do wasn’t enough. Instead, they needed to explain why it matters.

The Three Components of Commander’s Intent

• What needs to be done – The clear direction that points the organization toward a specific goal
• Why it matters – The deeper purpose that provides motivation and context for the work
• Boundaries and scope – Clear guidelines for what’s in and out of scope for the solution

The Yellow Card

The Yellow Card tool helps teams capture and communicate both problems and potential solutions effectively. Its first section focuses on problem definition, clearly stating what the problem is and why solving it matters. This why component is particularly important as it serves as the motivational energy source when teams face challenges or setbacks.

The second section of the Yellow Card focuses on communicating solutions, including how the solution works, its key benefits, and an easy next step for learning more. This last component – the easy next step – helps reduce resistance to change. When presenting new ideas, especially those that challenge existing systems, people naturally feel stress. By providing a simple, low-risk way to learn more about the solution, teams can build confidence gradually and increase buy-in for larger changes.

Structure of the Yellow Card Tool

The Yellow Card serves a dual purpose: it helps teams think through problems more clearly and provides a structured way to communicate solutions to stakeholders. Doug shared that this approach has proven so effective that when used in a Canadian TV show called “Backyard Inventor,” it helped inventors achieve a 100% success rate in pitching their ideas to CEOs. The clear structure helped them present their innovations in a way that made the value immediately apparent to decision-makers.

Creating Solutions

The Three Innovation Pillars

Successful solution creation rests on three innovation pillars, each backed by extensive research and quantitative data. These principles aren’t just theoretical – they’re practical tools that any product team can implement to enhance their innovation process.

Create Sessions

Doug uses Create Sessions to help teams stimulate ideas. These structured meetings come in different formats depending on the scope of the problem and the organization’s needs. He outlined two main approaches that product teams can implement.

Small-Scale Create Sessions

These one-hour sessions work well for immediate operational challenges that work teams face. These sessions can include the following elements:

• Problem Definition: Begin by identifying the what and why of the problem using the Yellow Card framework
• Stimulus Introduction: Present relevant stimulus materials to the team
• Mind Mapping: Create visual connections between different ideas and perspectives
• Solution Development: Move quickly to actionable solutions

Large-Scale Create Sessions

For company-wide challenges or significant product innovations, Doug recommended a two-level approach: Start with an initial small-scale create session, then go deeper to take your ideas to the next level.

The key to successful Create Sessions lies in proper preparation, particularly in developing effective stimulus materials. This two-level approach mirrors how successful entrepreneurs naturally work. While corporate environments often expect perfect planning and immediate success, true innovation requires multiple cycles of creation, testing, and refinement.

At Eureka Ranch, they often run sessions over several days, allowing teams to generate ideas, test them, blow them up, and start over again multiple times. This iterative approach, while sometimes uncomfortable for traditional corporate cultures, consistently produces stronger results because it eliminates the pressure of trying to plan everything perfectly from the start.

The Create Session framework also addresses a common challenge in innovation – the tendency to rely on what Doug called the “brain drain” or “suck” method of creativity, where teams try to extract ideas from people’s heads without providing fresh stimulus or perspectives. By contrast, Create Sessions provide a structured environment that makes innovation more reliable and enjoyable for participants while producing better results for the organization.

Six Sources of Innovation Stimulus

Stimulus should be disruptive, forcing you to stop and think. Doug shared six specific types of stimulus that teams can use to spark innovation:

• Patent Mining: Exploring public domain patents for solution frameworks. Doug noted that 75% of patents are in the public domain, providing free access to detailed solution recipes.
• Wisdom Mining: Leveraging academic articles and research. This approach helped Doug build and sell an entire company based on insights from academic publications.
• Insight Mining: Understanding customer thinking and needs
• Market Mining: Analyzing competitive approaches and market trends
• Future Mining: Exploring emerging trends and possibilities
• Unrelated Mining: Drawing inspiration from random, thought-provoking sources

To make these stimulus sources more actionable, Doug’s colleague Maggie Slovonic developed the Spark Deck approach. A Spark Deck combines disruptive images, videos, facts, or research with thought-provoking prompts that help teams make new connections. Each slide pairs a piece of stimulus with questions like “How might we use this?” or “How could we twist this concept?” This structured approach helps teams move beyond simple brainstorming to generate more innovative solutions.

Driving Out Risks

When discussing risk reduction in product development, Doug drew heavily from W. Edwards Deming’s work, particularly the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. While many organizations use the similar Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle for implementation, PDSA is specifically designed for discovering and validating new approaches.

The PDSA Cycle Components

The Study phase is particularly important yet often overlooked. He illustrated this with a story about developing their Woodcraft Finishing process for whiskey. The team conducted 72 tests in seven days, meticulously documenting each attempt. When test number 72 failed on a Friday night, they initially felt defeated. However, by returning to their documentation the next day and deeply studying why each attempt had worked or failed, they discovered that they had misinterpreted the results of test number 13. This insight led to test number 73, which became their breakthrough success and is now patented in 51 countries.

The PDSA cycle offers several key benefits for product development:

• Risk Reduction: Each iteration builds understanding and reduces uncertainty
• Learning Acceleration: Structured documentation captures insights that might otherwise be lost
• Fear Reduction: The expectation of multiple iterations removes the pressure for immediate perfection
• Culture Change: Teams develop comfort with experimentation and learning from failure

Doug noted that about 98% of the time, teams need multiple PDSA cycles to reach their desired outcome. This iterative approach might seem time-consuming, but it actually accelerates development by ensuring teams learn from each attempt rather than repeating the same mistakes. He also shared how they’ve adapted this approach for rapid testing, developing systems that can test product concepts in 24 hours at 5% of the normal cost.

The key to making PDSA work effectively is maintaining a clear connection to the original what and why from the Commander’s Intent and Yellow Card. This core purpose provides the motivation to persist through multiple iterations and keeps teams focused on their ultimate goal rather than getting discouraged by initial failures.

Conclusion

Throughout our conversation, Doug Hall shared how product managers and innovation leaders can break free from reactive problem-solving and create more value through proactive problem solving. His research showed that the combination of wasted management time (3.5 hours daily) and value loss during product development (50%) creates a massive opportunity for improvement. By implementing the frameworks he shared – the Yellow Card for problem definition, Create Sessions for solution generation, and the PDSA cycle for risk reduction – teams can transform how they approach innovation and problem-solving.

The key to success lies in shifting focus from individual blame to system improvement, supported by the right tools and motivation. As Doug emphasized, true culture change happens when we empower employees to identify and solve systemic problems that affect their daily work. By making this shift, organizations can not only recover wasted time and preserve innovative value but also create an environment where breakthrough products can thrive. For product managers and innovation leaders, this provides a clear path forward: Focus on the systems, empower your teams with the right tools, and create an environment where proactive problem-solving can flourish.

Useful links:

• Learn more about Eureka! Ranch
• Check out Doug’s book, Proactive Problem Solving on Amazon or at an independent bookseller near you
• Check out Doug’s other books

Innovation Quote

“Ninety-four percent of the problem is the system. Six percent is the worker.” – W. Edwards Deming

Application Questions

1. Looking at your last three product launches, how could you identify where systemic issues caused compromises to the original innovative vision? What patterns emerge about which systems (manufacturing, sales, marketing, etc.) most frequently force compromises in your organization?
2. How could you implement small-scale Create Sessions (1-hour) with your team to address immediate product development challenges? What types of stimulus (patents, academic articles, market research) would be most relevant for your current product challenges?
3. Thinking about a current product development challenge, how could you use the Yellow Card method to clearly articulate both the problem and its importance to stakeholders across your organization? How might this change the way your team approaches the challenge?
4. How could your team modify its current development process to incorporate more deliberate Study phases after each iteration? What specific changes to your documentation and review processes would make learning from failures more systematic?
5. How could you shift your team’s focus from fixing immediate problems to identifying and improving the underlying systems that cause those problems? What specific benefits would motivate your team members to embrace this change?

Bio

Doug Hall is on a relentless, never-ever ending quest to enable everyone to think smarter, faster and more creatively.  His learning laboratories over the past 50+ years have included 10 years at Procter & Gamble where he rose to the rank of Master Inventor shipping a record 9 innovations in a 9 months and 40+ years as an entrepreneur including as founder of the Eureka! Ranch in Cincinnati Ohio – where he and his team have invented and quantified over 20,000 innovations for organizations such as Nike, Walt Disney, USA Department of Commerce, American Express and hundreds more.  Doug’s newest book,  out in December, PROACTIVE Problem Solving, was inspired by his experiences founding and leading a fast-growing manufacturing company, the Brain Brew Bourbon Distillery. Despite the COVID pandemic, Brain Brew grew from shipping a few thousand cases to shipping over 100,000 cases a year by enabling employee engagement. 

Thanks!

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