The first time I discovered this phrase was when I encountered Colin Eden's work on SODA - Strategic Options Decision Analysis in the book "''Rational Analysis for a Problematic World''", published by John Wiley in 1989. What it taught me was to "''dwell in the problem''" before jumping to solutions. A lesson later reinforced by my interactions over the years with JackRing and in the System Envisioning workshops held at OOPSLA. At one of these workshops, KalRuberg made the powerful statement "''You have to become the problem to become the solution''".

Messing about in problems is acknowledging we don't build solutions we build "Problem Suppression Systems", Jack Ring's phrase. Problems come back - solutions reveal or cause new problems. Understanding the nature of problems is key to postulating solution ideas. We need ProblemModeling as much as we need SolutionModeling.

-- RalphHodgson

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If we step back a bit, do we really know enough to distinguish "problems" from "solutions"? If a solution has a sense of permanence to it, would we have needed the NextBigThing?

In the case of OrganizationalDesign, we have seen even in a single company, the pendulum swing back and forth between Centralisation, and Decentralisation. Maybe the solution is dependent on the prevailing culture of the time as well.

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To complicate things further, "One Man's Problem", can be "Another Man's Solution" ThatsNotaBugItsaFeature.