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Discover How to Tackle Business Problems with William & Mary
As a professional in the business world, being a problem solver is an invaluable skill. But when facing complex problems—wicked problems—with unknown solutions, it can be easy to fall into analysis paralysis, which is the inability to make a decision or move forward due to overthinking. In these instances, it is essential to fully understand the problem and know how to start breaking it down to come up with creative ideas to test and refine in order to find the best possible solution.
To help you take on your own business challenges, William & Mary’s Raymond A. Mason School of Business created a user-friendly guide, How to Tackle Big Business Problems: Solving Wicked Problems With Little Bets. Learn more about the discovery process to find innovative business solutions for seemingly insurmountable problems. From idea generation to experimentation to information gathering and idea refinement, we’ll walk you through the best practices for solving complex problems.
Business Problem-Solving Strategies
- An introduction to wicked problems—what they are, how to identify them and how they impact business
- A tool to determine just how wicked your business problem might be
- Steps to begin working through your wicked problem
- An introduction to little bets—learning how to test ideas using low-risk experiments
- Considerations to help you discover, test and more fully develop innovative business solutions
William & Mary Online MBA students choose a wicked problem to focus on throughout the program. Check out a sampling of wicked problems our students have tackled below.
Ensuring Digital Literacy for Older Adults
Parshva Bavishi, MBA ’20 applied his wicked problem to his professional work while in the program. His problem centered around ensuring older adults are digitally ready, digitally literate, have financial security and are socially engaged. His overall mission in his research for the wicked problem was to improve how all people connect to technology as they age.
Aligning on Company-wide KPIs
Ashley Laitano, MBA ’20 chose a wicked problem centered around organizational behavior. She identified a problem at her company around teams focusing on conflicting KPIs and metrics. Her aim in choosing this problem was to help teams better align around metrics and KPIs that seamlessly fed into the overall company goals.
Bringing Transparency to Healthcare
Dion Panther, MBA ’20 focused his wicked problem on the healthcare industry. As an assistant vice president at Cigna, he knows first hand that transparency related to healthcare costs is a big issue. His goal in working through his wicked problem was to find a way to make costs less cloudy and convoluted.
Elevate Your Problem Solving Power
The wicked problem is an integral part of the Online MBA program at William & Mary, which gives our students the opportunity to practice placing little bets in a safe and encouraging business education environment.
Download our guide to start tackling wicked problems in your everyday life. Then, learn more about our Online MBA for business challenges to see what furthering your education can do for your career.
