Why Smart Teams Solve the Wrong Problems

If your team keeps moving but nothing changes, you may be solving the wrong problem.

By Hans Sandkuhl, eolas – 6 minutes read

It is common to face roadblocks during a project. Teams meet, brainstorm forth and back, align at some point, and despite the energy and time invested, still move nowhere. Progress feels a bit like a mirage, the agreed deadlines close in, your resources run low, and everyone seems busy. But nothing real moves, right?

What if the issue is not your energy or your effort? What if, just what if, your direction is simply off?

Solving the wrong problem is one of the most common and expensive mistakes a team can make. It drains time, kills morale, and hides behind good intentions. The more capable and driven you are, the deeper you dig yourself into solutions that just do not matter.

The signs are subtle: A team debates features but not the original need (assuming you have ever been given one), feedback loops shrink, success becomes defined by output instead of impact. And over time, energy turns into friction.

You Are Solving What is Visible, Not What is True

Most people think they are being strategic when they refine a product, service, or message. But strategy that ignores user perspective becomes little more than educated guessing. It certainly looks sharp on slides, and it wins in boardrooms, but it breaks in reality.

Real progress starts by pausing the race to fix and asking better questions: what exactly are we fixing? Who said this is the problem? Which key individuals or stakeholders have the power to affect our success? When was the last time we asked them?

This powerful shift is essential, and is what makes meaningful progress possible. Businesses that validate early do not just build better. They waste less and grow stronger, and they build with the user, not just for them.

What Feels Like Friction is Often Misalignment

Frustration on a team is not necessarily a sign of failure, and could be a clue showing that the intuitive understanding of the problem is missing. You are pulling in different directions, even when everybody is aiming for the same goal.

Tension emerges when team members interpret the goal through their own lens. Designers think in screens, marketers in stories, engineers in systems. Without a shared picture of the problem, even talented people end up talking past each other.

What looks like inefficiency is often a lack of alignment on what truly matters. The result? Endless meetings, insufficiently motivated strategic changes, and solutions that feel disconnected from reality.

To move forward, you will need clarity before consensus. Clarity emerges when teams return to the problem together, guided by shared understanding rather than louder voices or longer slide decks. That means surfacing hidden assumptions. Mapping what you know, and more importantly, what you do not. Users deserve a seat at the table from the beginning, shaping direction as co-pilots instead of arriving late as validators.

This is how smart teams break through the fog. They do not start by pushing forward. They pause, reframe, and make sure they are solving something real. The smartest teams choose the right path first, then they move.

Turn Complexity Into Clarity

I believe there is no magic formula here, but there are definitely better ways to work. Ways that include people instead of guessing their needs. Ways that replace endless debate with small, smart experiments. And ways that reconnect strategy with empathy.

This is what the best teams do differently. They think better to solve smarter. They do not settle for what seems obvious, and they challenge what is assumed. At the end they make progress by learning, not defending.

If any part of this feels familiar, you may not need more time or tools. You may need a different approach to thinking, and it begins with how you frame the problem.

Explore the Full Method

If you are leading a startup, scaling your operations, or guiding teams through complexity, you need more than abstract advice. You need a system that links strategy with action, grounded in real challenges. 

Some of you may be shaping something new, others shifting direction or aiming for impact that truly resonates. I created a set of tools to meet you in that messy middle, where things feel urgent but unclear. They are designed to help you stop spinning in circles and start designing with intent.

The course Introduction to Design Thinking to Solve Complex Problems gives you structured ways to reframe challenges and shape decisions. It sets the foundation for building with intention and clarity.

From there, courses like The Power of Key Players and Stakeholders in Business help you activate the right support, map influence, and align teams behind the problems that matter. 

Sometimes a simple spark, like this short read on how Creativity Begins Before You Feel Ready, can shift your mindset and help you take that first meaningful step.

Most resources are available at no cost, and each one builds upon the other, offering you a complete, practical strategy to turn insight into momentum. Access the full set of tools at https://eolasinnovation.com/profile/hanssandkuhl.