1. Based on Warren Berger’s chapter from A More Beautiful Question.

Fuzzy Situation: Wandering Residents

assume the position of the executive director of the facility asked to define the problem as accurately as possible.

“In an intermediate and skilled care nursing facility housing about 100 residents, the staff are concerned about senior residents who wander into rooms of other residents and cause a disturbance. At any one time there seem to be several residents who have difficulty finding their rooms. One of the facility administrators has suggested that the residents be escorted back to their rooms. However, this will require some time to be freed up from an already overworked staff.”

Your assignment is not to solve the problem, but to define it: All problem definition statements must be in challenge form beginning with “How might we…?”

“How might we…?” is a solution-finding question. The value in it is that it prevents stagnation and demotivation that occurs when faced with difficult, negative facts.

The process to use:

1. brainstorm a long list of tentative problem definitions (each starting with How might we…?”)

2. select the one “How might we…?” from your list that you most prefer as the definition

3. Present your final problem definition, with your rationale supporting for selecting it. What fact(s) in the brief description of the situation most impacted your thinking about the situation? What facts, or ideas that were not in the fuzzy situation description – if any – impacted your thinking and therefore your “How might we…” challenge statement?

4. use a minimum of 2 references