A problem statement is a concise description of the issues that need to be addressed by a problem solving team and should be presented to them (or created by them) before they try to solve the problem. When bringing together a team to achieve a particular purpose provide them with a problem statement. A good problem statement should answer these questions:
- What is the problem? This should explain why the team is needed.
- Who has the problem or who is the client/customer? This should explain who needs the solution and who will decide the problem has been solved.
- What form can the resolution be? What is the scope and limitations (in time, money, resources, technologies) that can be used to solve the problem? Does the client want a white paper? A web-tool? A new feature for a product? A brainstorming on a topic?
The primary purpose of a problem statement is to focus the attention of the problem solving team. However, if the focus of the problem is too narrow or the scope of the solution too limited the creativity and innovation of the solution can be stifling.
In project management, the problem statement is part of the project charter. It lists what's essential about the project and enables the project manager to identify the project scope as well as the project stakeholders.
A research-worthy problem statement is the description of an active challenge (i.e. problem) faced by researchers and/or practitioners that does not have adequate solutions available including the argumentation for its viability based on solid peer-reviewed sources as well as theoretical foundation. The research-worthy problem statement should address all six questions: what, how, where, when, why, and who. On the other hand, a statement of the problem is one or two sentences claim that outlines the problem that the study addresses. The statement of the problem should briefly address the question: What is the problem that the research will address?
Famous quotes containing the words problem and/or statement:
“The problem is simply this: no one can feel like CEO of his or her life in the presence of the people who toilet trained her and spanked him when he was naughty. We may have become Masters of the Universe, accustomed to giving life and taking it away, casually ordering people into battle or out of their jobs . . . and yet we may still dirty our diapers at the sound of our mommy’s whimper or our daddy’s growl.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)