When you’re feeling stuck trying to solve a problem, it’s easier to get unstuck when you can get insights into why you’re stuck in the first place.
Get insights by investigating the sticking point:
- Where specifically do you find yourself getting stuck?
- Have you been stuck here before?
- What evidence suggests that you’re actually stuck?
- What assumptions and actions led to the sticking point?
- What are the circumstances surrounding the sticking point?
- What are the friction points?
- What kind of sticking point is it? (e.g. technical, political, cultural, mindset, individual, social,limiting belief, lack of trust, etc.)
- What are the tricky decisions that need to be made to move forward?
- In hindsight, was this an obvious sticking point? Could it have been avoided?
You can then leverage the insights from your investigation to explore what’s needed to get unstuck and move forward:
- Are there smaller decisions that you can make first that facilitate making the tricky ones?
- What info do you need that you don’t have? Who can you talk to gain additional insights? Is there an experiment you can run? Can you gain additional insights by looking at the sticking point from another perspective?
- Are there things you can let go of to reduce drag?
- Is there a small change you can make that might create traction?
- Can you move in a different direction?
