---
id: "worksheets:exercise/articulate-the-problem"
type: "Solving Public Problems worksheet"
title: "Articulate the Problem"
url: "https://worksheets.solvingpublicproblems.org/exercise/articulate-the-problem"
date: "2024-07-11"
summary: "Please provide answers to the questions below. Be sure to get input from your team and the public. Remember: a well-formulated challenge is already half..."
source: "Solving Public Problems worksheets (worksheets.solvingpublicproblems.org), The GovLab and the Burnes Center for Social Change"
licence: "none stated"
---

# Articulate the Problem

Exercise group: Defining a Public Problem · Recommended exercise

## About this worksheet

Please provide answers to the questions below. Be sure to get input from your team and the public. Remember: a well-formulated challenge is already half solved. Thus, taking time to explicitly address problem definition may begin to yield creative answers.

## Tips

- Take care that the problem is not a solution in disguise. For example, “we lack a good website” is not a problem.
- Avoid vague generalities as responses. The answer to who is affected should not be “the public.”
- Avoid complex jargon and technical terms.

## Questions

1. What is the problem?
2. When and where does it occur?
3. Who is impacted?
4. Formulate the problem definition as an “if . . . then” statement. The common format is: “If [cause]____________________________________________, then [effect]____________________________________________, because [rationale]____________________________________________.”
5. At Stanford’s d.school, students are taught to change the frame of reference by shifting the perspective to that of another person. Instead of looking at a problem from your own point of view, can you look at it from the point of view of the person experiencing the problem?

## Source

Solving Public Problems, Chapter 4, p. 89

## PDF version

https://directus.theburnescenter.org/assets/baf1cbef-2668-489f-b4d0-05f230e7679d

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Original page: https://worksheets.solvingpublicproblems.org/exercise/articulate-the-problem · Licence: none stated