How to tackle difficult problems in order to create change

Recently I was involved in a simulation – creating a campaign/advertisement/ focused on climate change.

That is a big problem with many aspects. In front of us there was the choice – to start something small and familiar, such as creating a campaign to promote turning off the lights when you don’t use them.

It’s a good campaign. The Earth Day is one of the most famous examples. Or we could tackle something that really resonates in us.

We decided on the latter. As a person who loves to live in the big city, it always annoys me how many cars are out there. And inside every car there is only 1 person.

This results in enormous pollution, and we all have to breathe those gases. This costs us our health and triggers diseases.

The first step to tackle a big problem is to actually care about it.

The first step to tackle a big problem is to actually care about it.

When we don’t care we won’t do the work, we won’t try to really go in dept of the issue and find a suitable solution.

After we decided that this will be the problem we were working on, we discussed why people aren’t doing it even now. There are even some apps that promote such behavior.

Having a group with a diverse background really helped to see the problem from different perspectives.

Second step we identified the current behavior. We realized that many drivers perceive their car as “their castle”, their fortress of solitude. They wouldn’t just allow strangers to enter inside.

Second step we identified the current behavior. We realized that many drivers perceive their car as “their castle”, their fortress of solitude. They wouldn’t just allow strangers to enter inside.

Third step narrow down the solution.

Third step narrow down the solution. After that we created a persona who would help us narrow our solutions, since there isn’t an universal solution for any problem.

Is our solution for everyone, definitely not, but the effort we invested and the result we received increases are great.

And that’s how you tackle a tough problem.

Aleks Vladimriov is a Senior Software Developer, recognized Project Manager and Soft-skilled trainer and a coach.

Aleks Vladimirov

Solution Engineering Manager at Thales | Senior IT Professional | Startup Mentor and Product Manager

Bio

Aleks is experienced Product Manager with an engineer background and over 10 years of experience as a software developer. He works with different governments and is responsible for negotiation features and requirements, understanding the customers’ needs and supporting the senior management with regular reports and analysis. He held various positions starting as a software developer, moving to a team leader and software architect.

He strives in waterfall and agile environment alike. He is certified Scrum Master and Prince2 Practitioner and he knows how to design business processes and help teams optimize their work.
During his tenure, he had to wear many hats, prioritizing business requirements, delegating work and mentoring team members, creating mockups with Balsamiq, providing MS Project plan to the senior management.

He had worked in many international teams, located in the same city or distributed in different countries and continents. He had been a team leader of cross functional international team of 8 people.

In his current position, he is very much client focused. He has excellent presentation skills.
He delivers training sessions on presentation skills and leadership and he had helped hundred of people to improve their presentation skills.

He is also interested in creating more positive changes in the workplace by using entrepreneurship skills.
He had won startup competition where his team had validated and develop a business idea from scratch.

In his free time, he writes in his blog about effective product development.