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Introduction: when a complex problem is split, a large number of subdivided problem groups will be formed. If it is not carried out strictly in accordance with the principle of "layer by layer, no leakage and no weight", the subdivided problems will be difficult to form a joint force to completely and effectively support and solve the original problem. This paper takes planning a meeting as an example to understand the application of structured thinking.

This article is selected from "data Source thinking: business-oriented data thinking Secrets".

What kind of logic or structure should be used to split the problem?

Of course, the most direct way is to adopt the previous problem thinking framework, such as the classic SWOT framework, BCG matrix or GE matrix in the field of strategic analysis (figure 1).

Fig. 1 GE matrix

In the external environment analysis, there are Porter's five forces model (figure 2), PEST framework and so on.

Fig. 2 Porter's five-force model

In the research market, users have Masno demand level (figure 3), marketing 4p and so on.

Figure 3 Maslow's level of requirements

It should be said that in almost all fields, the problem of versatility has the analytical framework given by previous studies to guide us to split and analyze the problem.

But on the one hand, the sub-problems split according to the above framework may still be too big to start immediately, and need to be further subdivided; on the other hand, in most of the specific personalized issues, we still need to find the framework of the split problem. In this process, we should follow the principle of "layer by layer, no leakage, no weight".

"layer by layer" means that the problem should be split step by step, with only sub-problems at the same level at each step. For example, the user is divided into male and female, male and female is the same level of concept. If the user is divided into male and female, it will be the wrong floor. The maiden is a subcategory separated from the female, at the next level of male and female. To ensure that the same layer is split, only one dimension or one standard can be used in a layer (figure 4).

Fig. 4 layer-by-layer division of users

"No omission, no weight" is the MECE (Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive, mutually independent, completely exhaustive) principle mentioned in McKinsey's pyramid theory (figure 5).

Fig. 5 McKinsey pyramid theory

From the concept of set, this principle is that all the child problems must be a partition of the parent problem, which is mutually exclusive and merged into a complete set. For example, there are omissions in dividing people into old, middle-aged and young people, while dividing beauties into long legs and slapping the waist may have both omissions and overlap. In the multi-step, multi-layer split, each layer should follow "no leakage, no weight". For example, to solve the problem of "how to hold a good meeting" (figure 6).

The first layer can be cut from the product point of view, that is, from the meeting workflow point of view to divide the problem. The five sub-questions on the first floor are: how to plan the theme of the meeting, how to confirm the time, place, venue and guest invitation, how to arrange the meeting site and facilities, how to organize and manage the meeting, and how to evaluate the effect after the meeting. These five sub-questions basically cover the whole process of the work of a conference, of course, some business meetings may also have investment promotion, advertising and other work.

The second level, the first level sub-question, how to plan the theme of the meeting, can be divided into the following four sub-questions: what are the recent hot spots and future trends in this field, who are the target guests and audience of this meeting, what are their current concerns in this field, and what are their advantages as conference organizers.

The third level, the first second-level sub-question, what are the recent hot spots and future trends in this field can be roughly divided into the following four sub-questions: what are the hot spots reported by the media and what are the hot spots concerned by research institutions? what are the judgments of research institutions and experts on future trends, and what are the future trends analyzed by themselves? If there is no ready-made analysis of the results of this last problem, it is also a relatively big topic, and it will be no problem to further divide it into three or four layers.

Fig. 6 split diagram of a meeting question

Note: the structure diagram formed by the split is now often referred to as the mind map. There are many software tools that can help us to make such a picture, and some common problem structures are often built into the software for users to use directly. But the tool itself is not the focus of learning thinking.

From this, it is not difficult to see that when a complex problem is split, a large number of subdivided problem groups will be formed. If it is not carried out strictly in accordance with the principle of "layer by layer, no leakage and no weight", the subdivided problems will be difficult to form a joint force to completely and effectively support and solve the original problem.

With the principle of personalized split, what are the operational methods that can be split? In fact, the method we talked about in the previous "question" session is a decomposed framework that can be used as a first-level split of the problem. In the layer-by-layer split, each step is actually a new definition of the question, which can be repeatedly deepened by the method of "asking", asking-dismantling, dismantling-asking. In addition, the product thinking and user thinking mentioned above is also another way to cut into and decompose the problem, just like the above meeting example is a broad idea of product split, which is subdivided according to the process of organizing the meeting. Let's talk about the examples of users' ideas separately.

The last question is at what level the question should be completed, or to what extent it is considered to be completed. The number of layers of the split is not certain, the complex level of the problem will be more, and vice versa. In terms of degree, the sub-problem itself can determine which indicators to use, what data to collect, and what methods to operate. Like, "what am I going to eat tonight?" This problem obviously has no indicators, no data, no method, so it needs to be split. Divided into "what do I like to eat?"what is my budget?"what is the waiting time?" the choice is to find the intersection of the above conditions, and draw lots if there is more than one result. The first three questions are all indexed and can be expressed directly by data, and the latter method is directly operable (press: as for the method of operation, the more complex problems need to be put to the next step-the solution. Only one direction needs to be pointed out in the "ask" session. So "what am I going to eat tonight?" The problem can be solved by dividing it into the second tier.

This article is selected from "data Source thinking: the Secret Book of Business-oriented data thinking". This link can be found on the official website of the blog.

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