---
id: "worksheets:exercise/reframe-problem"
type: "Solving Public Problems worksheet"
title: "Reframe the Problem"
url: "https://worksheets.solvingpublicproblems.org/exercise/reframe-problem"
date: "2024-07-11"
summary: "This worksheet asks you and your team to answer four questions about your problem definition. These questions are also helpful to ask of stakeholders and..."
source: "Solving Public Problems worksheets (worksheets.solvingpublicproblems.org), The GovLab and the Burnes Center for Social Change"
licence: "none stated"
---

# Reframe the Problem

Exercise group: Defining a Public Problem · Recommended exercise

## About this worksheet

This worksheet asks you and your team to answer four questions about your problem definition. These questions are also helpful to ask of stakeholders and the public.

## Tips

In a problem definition exercise I did with public officials from Kampala, Uganda, in 2020, participants started by defining the problem as loss of revenue to the city due to unregistered, black-market businesses. Upon reframing, however, low literacy levels proved to be a more actionable root cause driving the failure to comply with regulations. The change in framing also allowed for the definition of a more compelling and hospitable problem to which citizens could contribute solutions.

## Questions

1. Are there other ways of looking at the issue from different perspectives to yield new insights?
2. Is it possible to think about the problem from a different angle?
3. 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. 92

## PDF version

https://directus.theburnescenter.org/assets/08d925d4-f423-473f-9268-2f25a1787286

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