A set of principles is the true foundation of high-impact problem solving.
In the years of teaching and training others in the art of structured problem-solving, we started noticing how often we would repeat certain phrases when we were explaining why a particular tool was the way it was, and why it worked so effectively.
At some point, we realized that there were reasons for the tools that were, in a sense, more important than the tools themselves. These recurring, underlying themes constitute a way of doing, an integrated approach that, when mastered, underlies our choices, even our unconscious ones.
We summarize them as nine guiding principles of SPS:
For expert problem solvers, these principles are mostly implicit: They are baked into their practice through years of experience and many repetitions that include both successes and failures. (This is probably why we ourselves didn’t notice them at first.)
In our book, we make these nine themes explicit, and we have given each one a short title to serve as a sort of mantra. When all else fails, we can turn to these powerful principles for guidance about how to proceed with a problem or project.