Designing Environmental Solutions
Assignment, Part 2: Write a Problem Brief
Building on the insights from your user research, you’ll condense the complexity of your challenge into a 500-word problem brief.
Write a 500-word brief on your chosen conservation challenge. Alternatively, you are also welcome to submit your project as a multi-media case that may use video, audio, graphics, animation, and other mediums. Your submission should achieve the following four goals:
1. Define the problem. Clearly state its importance and why it matters to conservation. Discuss the scope of the problem and where there might be opportunity.
What issue do you want to tackle? Why is it important, e.g., why should we care? How big is the problem? Is there an opportunity if you could create a breakthrough, and how many people could you reach?
2. Identify the main constraints. Think about all the different factors that influence your issue, and the key barriers to overcoming this problem.
What is currently causing the problem? What is currently being done, and why isn’t it working? What are the limiting factors preventing solutions from scaling? Are some barriers more important than others?
Types of barriers to consider include technological; market pricing, distribution, or demand; financing; policy; capacity or know-how; and social or behavioral. You might explore how the barrier works (how it prevents solutions from addressing the problem), who’s involved in addressing it, and the incentives that are perpetuating the barrier.
Be sure to specify: Which constraint(s) will you focus on? What is your hypothesis about how overcoming this constraint could help solve the problem and generate a transformational impact?
3. Identify the [current] assumptions.
What assumptions do [people] make that could be rethought? (List at least two). An assumption is an unwritten statement that connects the facts with the conclusions. For example, the assumption that a hospital is a necessary precondition for world class healthcare.
4. Re-think the assumptions. Which assumptions can be challenged? What could happen if these assumptions were re-thought?
Identify major failings or criticisms of current approaches that could be rethought and disrupted through novel approaches to the problem. For example, re-thinking the assumption that a hospital is necessary for world class healthcare could look at solutions that would provide the equivalent care that you would find in a hospital… but in a rural home.
This content has been adapted from Alex Deghan’s Hacking for Conservation course, and inspired by the US Global Development Lab’s Tools for Innovation Programming.