How to spot if your team is solving the wrong problem

In large organizations, stakeholders don’t show up with problems. They show up with ideas.

"Let’s activate our passive users."

"We should add a social feed like LinkedIn."

"This quarter, we’re focusing on a new loyalty program."

These aren’t problems. They’re pre-baked solutions. And they often come from the top.

And here’s the challenge: you can’t just say “no.” You can’t walk into a strategic meeting and announce, “We’re solving the wrong thing.”

You need to influence. You need to reverse-engineer. And you need a process.

This article is about how to spot — early and clearly — when your team is solving the wrong problem. And what you can do to shift the conversation without losing trust.

🚩 9 Red Flags You’re Solving the Wrong Problem

Here’s how you know your team might be heading full-speed into build mode — without solving the right thing:

1. Everyone defines the problem differently

‍You ask six stakeholders what the team is solving, and you get six different answers. There's no shared language, no crisp articulation, and no alignment. That’s not a complex problem — that’s a misaligned one.

2. The "user need" sounds like a business request

‍There’s no journey map, no JTBD, no research-backed persona — just a goal that came from the top: “We need to improve adoption.” When insights are missing and user language is replaced by stakeholder speak, you're not building for people. You’re chasing internal priorities.

3. You're hitting your metrics — but don’t know what you are solving

‍You achieve what you measure. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the team is tracking progress against a set of metrics — but those metrics aren’t clearly tied to a well-defined problem — you might be optimizing for the wrong outcome. Everything looks green, but nothing actually improves. Success, in this case, is a mirage.

4. The hypothesis is treated like a fact‍

There’s a hypothesis behind the idea gaining traction — but no one’s treating it like a hypothesis. It’s being handled as truth.

• In academia, you’d test it.
• In a medical lab, you’d run controlled experiments.
• In the military, you’d prepare fallback plans in case it fails.

But here? No one’s second-guessing it. That’s a clear sign you’re not in discovery — you’re in belief-based execution.

5. There’s no regular feedback loop from users

‍No recent interviews. No signal from support or behavior data. No prototype testing. If the team hasn't talked to a real user lately, you're not validating — you're guessing.

6. Experts work in silos, not in sync

‍Research sits in one department. Engineering isn’t part of early discovery. Learnings aren’t carried from one project to the next. When deep expertise doesn’t move across functions, lessons stay stuck — and rework gets baked in.

7. No competition… really?

‍Every real problem has alternatives — even if it's just a spreadsheet. If no one can name what users are doing instead, either the problem isn’t real, or you're not seeing the full picture.

8. Solution mode comes first

‍You hear: “We already know what we need to build.” But when you ask what problem it solves, the room gets quiet. If the solution is easier to explain than the problem — you're probably solving the wrong one.

9. The whistleblower gets ignored

Someone on the team raises a red flag — “Are we sure this is the right problem?” — and nothing happens. No conversation. No curiosity. No course correction. Just awkward silence and business as usual.

If that sounds familiar, it’s not a one-off. It’s a pattern. Teams often stay committed to the wrong thing because they fear appearing indecisive or slow. Calling attention to it can feel risky — so even valid concerns get swept under the rug. When the project fails, the postmortem rarely says “we picked the wrong problem.” It blames execution.

If no one feels safe to challenge assumptions, you’re not just at risk of solving the wrong problem — you’re almost guaranteed to.

So what can you do?

You can’t just reject top-down ideas. That would really hurt your career. But you can reframe them.

You need to create space to ask better questions, surface blind spots, and steer the team back to what matters.

And no — I’m not going to give you the usual design thinking playbook (the 5 Whys, the Fishbone Diagram), or walk you through another Solution Opportunity Tree.

I want to talk about something more foundational: Problem Framing.

Problem Framing is a structured, repeatable way to shift from “we already know the solution” to “let’s align on the right problem first.” It’s not a brainstorm. It’s not a research report.

It’s a process that helps teams step back and collaboratively define the problem worth solving — before diving into solutions.

It typically starts with a short discovery phase — collecting insights, reviewing user pain points, talking to stakeholders. But the magic happens in the workshop itself: one focused session where decision-makers and team leads map out the challenge, expose assumptions, and align around what’s really at stake.

It’s how you reverse-engineer top-down mandates into bottom-up clarity. You don’t reject the idea — you pressure-test it. You ask:

• What problem is this solving?
• Who actually has that problem?
• What evidence do we have the problem matters?

Problem Framing helps you do the hardest thing in a large org: create clarity, fast — with everyone in the room.

And when you frame the right problem, everything that follows — from Design Sprints to MVPs to delivery — actually stands a chance of working.

‍

Spotting the wrong problem is a leadership skill — and it takes courage to use it.

It takes real leadership to stop momentum. To hit pause when everyone else is pushing forward. To say, “Hold on — are we solving the right thing?”

This isn’t weakness. It’s strength.

The kind that protects your team from wasted work, your product from irrelevance, and your roadmap from noise.

So if something feels off — trust that instinct.

Ask the harder question. Create the space. Reframe the challenge.

Because solving the wrong problem isn’t just bad luck. It’s a choice.