What is a Problem?

Easily misunderstood as “something to solve or overcome”. Well stated problems already include all possible answers.

A further misunderstanding is that innovation is focused on how one solves problems. This is wrong. Innovation is at its most creative when it invents new problems.

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Additional Glossary Terms Related to Problem

Solution, Problem-Solution Coupling, Solution Thinking, Matter of Concern, Innovation

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For More On Problem

• Vol 85: How Using Creativity Can Be Anti-Creative
• Vol 84: What's the Problem with Problems?
• Vol 83: Games Creativity Life (Part Two)
• Vol 72: Problems, Emergence, Worlds, Chat GPT, and Creativity
• Vol 37: Problems Solve Nothing - They Make Worlds
• Vol 36: Why Reinventing Problems Matters to Innovation
• Vol 35: Articulating Novel Worlds
• Vol 34: Inventing Problems
• Vol 26: Innovation Practices - Problems Without Methods
• Vol 86: For Creativity's Sake – Let's Leave Our Problems Behind?
• Vol 12: Introducing Creative Processes
• Vol 207: A Thousand Creativities
• Vol 134: It's Not About the “Innovator's DNA” or an “Innovation Culture”
• Vol 215: On Creativity’s Strange Journeys
• Innovation — It’s About Problems
• How to Invent Problems
• How to Leave Problems

For more, navigate to our complete list of articles on problems for innovation.