"A problem well put is half solved"

Why asking the right question is the most important starting point

I was watching a Stanford University YouTube video the other day all about design thinking and one of the lecturers quoted the American writer and philosopher John Dewey, who in his book Logic: The Theory of Inquiry said:

"A problem well put is half solved"

It was used in the context of a discussion around the fact that often we might look at a piece of data and draw some conclusions that lead to action, however, what we might have done is not ask the right question in the first place and so our action might not result in what we intended.

It got me thinking. How do you know you’re asking the right question?