Defining Real-World Problems With the D.I.S. Method: Describe, Inquire, State

Step 3 Create Your Problem Statement

Step 3. Create Your Problem Statement

After creating a problem case, you can start working on drafting a complete problem statement.

Your problem statement should be short and concise and draw from the research and writing in your problem case. It will ensure your collaborators share an understanding of the problem, and it will assist you in the search for solutions.

To write your problem statement, summarize what you wrote for each of the five questions / “W”s, producing five summaries in total, and then summarize these ensuing summaries into a final problem statement.

Here is a breakdown of this process:

Write a short summary of each part of your problem case in 20–50 words each:

• Who? (PSG only)
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why?

Combine these five summaries into one concise final statement of 100–150 words.

State your problem in 100–150 words and simple language. Everyone involved in the problem should be able to understand your statement.

Examples of problem statements:

Example A

When working on projects with high creative potential, company engineers are negatively affected by reduced professional satisfaction and missed opportunities for increasing their professional expertise, reputation, and network. The problem occurs mainly at (a) workstations (at home and in-office), (b) virtual collaboration platforms, and (c) the company’s robotics lab. It occurs during both independent and interpersonal work time. The common underlying causes for all the negative effects mentioned above are over-bureaucratic reporting policies and challenges in communication between engineers & other roles in the company.

Example B

Low-income residents of urban villages in China are negatively affected by (a) adverse health effects, (b) high cost of air conditioning, (c) high cost of building maintenance, and (d) social isolation. These negative effects are caused by (a) the urban heat island effect, (b) the lack of community, (c) the lack of vegetation, (d) the high building density in urban villages, and (e) the large distance of urban villages from cooling centers in the city. The problem occurs mainly inside residents’ homes during July and August, and in particular during days with heat-carrying winds.

Once you’ve written your problem statement, you can assess it for problem structuring (how well the statement follows the D.I.S. method) and problem understanding (how correct the statement is), and improve it based on the results of these assessments. You can use a generative text tool like ChatGPT to assess problem structuring effectively, but not problem understanding, which requires an expert for assessment. See these detailed assessment guidelines and instructions on how to use generative text tools to do it.

Step 3x. Optional: Use a Generative Text Tool to Create Your Problem Statement

You can also use a generative text tool like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, or Microsoft’s Copilot to create your problem statement. For optimal results, use these tools to augment your initial summary.

Your first prompt will follow the following template:      

Create a description of a real-life problem, titled “Target Problem.” This description will have five parts, answering the five Ws: who, what, where, when, and why. Each part answers a question, as follows: Who are the stakeholder groups affected by the problem? What are the effects of the problem on the primary stakeholder group (PSG)? Where does the problem occur for the PSG? When does the problem occur for the PSG? Why does the problem occur for the PSG? I will now provide you with the information for answering each of the above five questions. I want you to provide a summary answer for each question in 20–50 words, based on the information I will provide you with: Information for answering “Who?,” answering only about the primary stakeholder group: “[copy-paste the information from the ‘Who’ section from your problem case]” Information for answering “What?”: “[copy-paste the information from the ‘What’ section from your problem case]” Information for answering “Where?”: “[copy-paste the information from the ‘Where’ section from your problem case]” Information for answering “When?”: “[copy-paste the information from the ‘When’ section from your problem case]” Information for answering “Why?”: “[copy-paste the information from the ‘Why’ section from your problem case]”

Once you have an AI-generated summary for each of the five Ws, construct the following prompt by inserting the AI-generated summaries from your previous prompts:

Provide a summary of the problem in 100–150 words, based on the following answers to Who, What, Where, When, and Why: Answer for “Who?”: “[copy-paste the answer for ‘Who’ from the response above]” Answer for “What?”: “[copy-paste the answer for ‘What"’ from the response above]” Answer for “Where?”: “[copy-paste the answer for ‘Where’ from the response above]” Answer for “When?”: “[copy-paste the answer for ‘When’ from the response above]” Answer for “Why?”: “[copy-paste the answer for ‘Why’ from the response above]”

The paragraph resulting from this prompt will be your AI-generated problem statement.