The CIA’s Problem Solving Checklist

Checklists are a useful tool when dealing with complex problems.

They help you not to overlook things that may seem trivial but are, in fact, quite significant.

The stakes are particularly high when you’re working for the CIA and responsible for safeguarding US national security.

In such a scenario, simple errors when solving a problem could have enormous repercussions.

For this reason, the CIA have created their own set of questions for their agents known as ‘The Phoenix Checklist’.

What’s clever about this list is that it’s ‘context-free.’ This means that you can use it to solve any type of challenge that comes your way.

So whether it’s solving a personal or professional problem, be sure to reach for the following questions:

1. Why is it necessary to solve the problem?

2. What benefits will you receive by solving the problem?

3. What is the unknown?

4. What is it you don’t yet understand?

5. What is the information you have?

6. What isn’t the problem?

7. Is the information sufficient? Or is it insufficient? Or redundant? Or contradictory?

8. Should you draw a diagram of the problem? A figure?

9. What are the boundaries of the problem?

10. Have you seen this problem before?

11. Have you seen this problem in a slightly different form? Do you know a related problem?

12. Try to think of a familiar problem having the same or a similar unknown.

13. Suppose you find a problem related to yours that has already been solved? Can you use its method?

14. Can you restate your problem? How many different ways can you restate it? Can the rules be changed?

15. What are the best, worst and most probably cases you can imagine?

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What are some other handy problem solving tools you’ve come across? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.