Oh yeah, these are basically my job. I have a few ways:
1. Set a time budget and be willing to walk away if I'm not making progress. Sometimes "yep, sucks, but is what it is" is the answer.
2. If it looks impossible, be more willing than usual to reframe it. If it's a detail problem, zoom out and see if the bigger picture offers you a way around. If it's a big picture problem, challenge the assumptions. If it's still impossible, see 1.
3. Involve other people with other points of view early in the process. There are a bunch of different teams that work in sync to get anything out the door at my company. Getting any difficult problem solved will usually involve understanding the work of at least two of them. The challenge with potentially unsolveable problems is knowing which two.
4. I cannot reiterate number 1 enough. Sometimes a problem might have a solution, but I just have to be ok with the fact that I'm not going to be the one to find it. Maybe the next problem I tackle will present me with a nicely reframed version of this problem for me to go back and take on.
1. Set a time budget and be willing to walk away if I'm not making progress. Sometimes "yep, sucks, but is what it is" is the answer.
2. If it looks impossible, be more willing than usual to reframe it. If it's a detail problem, zoom out and see if the bigger picture offers you a way around. If it's a big picture problem, challenge the assumptions. If it's still impossible, see 1.
3. Involve other people with other points of view early in the process. There are a bunch of different teams that work in sync to get anything out the door at my company. Getting any difficult problem solved will usually involve understanding the work of at least two of them. The challenge with potentially unsolveable problems is knowing which two.
4. I cannot reiterate number 1 enough. Sometimes a problem might have a solution, but I just have to be ok with the fact that I'm not going to be the one to find it. Maybe the next problem I tackle will present me with a nicely reframed version of this problem for me to go back and take on.