Problem Assessment Quotes

You cannot solve a problem unless you diagnose the problem.

The first step to problem solving is figuring out who's got the problem.

Ideas are things that happen at any time because you're constantly thinking and evaluating life as if it were an eternally unsolvable math problem, which it is.

Often in life, the most important question we can ask ourselves is: do we really have the problem we think we have?

I am very seldom interested in applications. I am more interested in the elegance of a problem. Is it a good problem, an interesting problem?

Never underestimate your problem or your ability to deal with it.

You always have to decide whether an international problem is like a skinned knee or an abscessed tooth. If it’s a skinned knew with a scab and you start messing with the scab you can make it worse. But if you let it alone, it will heal itself. If it is an abscessed tooth, and you leave it alone, it will only fester more and become a bigger problem.

We cannot solve a problem until we understand the full extent of the problem.

Problems are rarely as bad as we think-or rather, they are precisely as bad as we think.

Remember how quickly our field [computer science] changes. That's why you want to focus on learning things that don't change: how to work well with other people, how to carefully assess a client's real - as opposed to perceived - needs, and things like that.

Habits of thought lead us to brush aside descriptions of cruelty to animals as emotional, for "animal-lovers only"; or if not that, then anyway the problem is so trivial in comparison to the problems of human beings that no sensible person could give it time and attention. This too is a prejudice - for how can one know that a problem is trivial until one has taken the time to examine its extent?

The search for scapegoats is essentially an abnegation of responsibility: it indicates an inability to assess honestly and intelligently the true nature of the problems which lie at the root of social and economic difficulties and a lack of resolve in grappling with them.

A natural way that an economist approaches a problem is to say, here's where I think the economy is going; this is what we need to deal with the problem.

I always think that it's important to step back and look at the facts, figure out what is big, what is small, and always target the solution and the policy issue correctly. Don't try to solve the wrong problem with unemployment insurance.