What is the problem we’re trying to solve?

I believe success lies in knowing the right questions to ask from the start.

As a corporate consultant, I developed strong listening skills that are critical to working collaboratively with clients and internal project teams. Ironically, effective listening starts with asking effective questions — the kind that lead to clearly uncovering the real problem itself.

For example when it comes to design projects, plenty of clients think the creative problem they need help with is just a lack of appealing visuals. Jumping into tactics and sketches may meet their expectations, but there’s usually something underlying that need — maybe a sales or engagement issue. Or my favorite: a client is sure they just need to refresh their brand identity to reach their audience, when they really need to first identify their “why” and build from there.

Discussion brings the biggest problems to light pretty quickly. And successful creative requires a solid foundation — clear rails, objectives and a defined purpose are essential. Without them, you risk spinning your creative wheels and throwing ideas at the wall hoping they stick.

I’ve annoyed plenty of my overworked, deadline-driven colleagues by asking my favorite question: What is the problem we’re trying to solve? The conversation that follows usually leads to thoughtful insights, better scopes and clearer creative briefs. When brainstorming starts going off the rails, or concepts just aren’t hitting the mark I step back and ask the same question again. That really annoys people, but it tends to make it easier to identify which ideas are nearing the mark and which to give up on. It also tends to curb scope creep which makes pretty much everyone happy.

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