If your job ever involves helping people think through a set of challenges, here's a framework that might be useful. I came up with it in response to a colleague's request to help her make more effective use of technology--hence the focus on "tools," although I think it could easily be adapted to non-technical needs. I thought I'd be most helpful if I had a clearer understanding of the specific issues she wanted to address, so I asked her to draw up the following three lists:
Headaches
These are problems you encounter with tools you use on a regular basis. We can talk about how to use these tools more effectively by solving (or working around) the problem.
Opportunities
These are things you'd like to do using tools you're at least somewhat familiar with. You may know that a tool has this capability, but you're not sure how to make it do what you want, and we can talk about new ways of using the tools.
Dreams
These are things you'd like to do in a perfect world—when drawing up this list, don’t even think about the tools, just focus on what you’d like to do. We can talk about new ways of using existing tools and/or some new tools that might meet your needs.
Photos by Lazy Lightning, destinelee and Daquella manera. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
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