How to write problem statements that guide better decisions

Someone suggests a new feature. A colleague wants to redesign the process. Before long, your team is weighing solutions, but each person has a different idea of what needs fixing. It’s an easy place to end up when everyone is eager to make progress. Before you can weigh those ideas fairly, you need to agree on the problem they’re meant to solve.

A problem statement is a concise description of a challenge, who experiences it, and why it matters, written without prescribing a solution. Agreeing on that description gives your team a specific need to address before anyone commits to building something.

Start with what you’ve learned from research, customer conversations, or a discovery session. Then use the writing process and problem statement examples below to turn that context into a challenge your team can act on.

Why problem statements guide better decisions

A problem statement guides better decisions by giving teams a shared, evidence-based description of a challenge before they evaluate solutions or decide what to prioritize.

Consider a team debating whether to add a chatbot or hire more support agents. If customers are contacting support because they can’t understand their invoices, either proposal might miss an opportunity to resolve the confusion earlier.

Defining the challenge directs attention to the confusion behind those calls. The team can investigate what prevents customers from understanding their charges before deciding where to invest.

That shared understanding makes it easier to prioritize what matters most. Knowing how invoice confusion affects customers lets you weigh it against other opportunities. It also gives brainstorming a focus: Which ideas would make those charges easier to understand?

What makes an effective problem statement?

An effective problem statement identifies the affected people, describes a specific challenge in context, explains its impact, and leaves room for multiple solutions. Its claims should reflect what your team can support with evidence.

It identifies who is affected

Name the people experiencing the problem. “Customers” may be too broad if only first-time buyers struggle to return an online order. Specifying that audience keeps their needs central to the work.

It describes the problem clearly

Explain the gap between what happens now and what people need to accomplish. “Reporting is inefficient” leaves plenty to interpretation. “Account managers manually reconcile conflicting sales reports before each client review” describes an observable difficulty.

It provides meaningful context

Include where, when, or under what conditions the issue occurs. A scheduling difficulty on overnight warehouse shifts calls for a different investigation than one involving office meetings across time zones.

It explains why the problem matters

Describe the consequence for customers, employees, or the business. A delayed purchase or repeated task gives readers a reason to care. Include a relevant measure and time period when available.

It leaves room for multiple solutions

A useful problem definition is specific about the outcome people need while allowing different approaches. Readers should understand what must improve without being directed toward a particular tool or feature.

Use the five Ws to check whether you’ve included enough context:

• Who is experiencing the problem?
• What is happening?
• Where does it occur?
• When does it occur?
• Why does it matter?

You don’t need five separate sentences. Include the details that make the challenge understandable and actionable.

Problem statement examples

The following problem statement examples cover customer needs, product development, workplace processes, and business decisions. All scenarios and figures are hypothetical.

Customer experience problem statement example

First-time online shoppers cannot find the return eligibility requirements before purchasing, leaving them uncertain about whether they can return an item and prompting them to contact support before ordering.

This customer problem statement makes purchase uncertainty the focus. It names first-time shoppers, locates the friction before ordering, and shows the extra effort involved. The team can explore content, navigation, or other ways to explain return requirements.

Product problem statement example

Project managers using the reporting dashboard can’t tell which tasks have missed their deadlines without opening each project individually, delaying their weekly review of work that needs attention.

Here, the desired outcome is clear: Project managers need to identify overdue work without inspecting every project. Product teams can explore how to support that workflow without committing to a feature such as a red overdue badge.

Team or workplace problem statement example

Campaign designers receive conflicting feedback across email and chat during final review, making it difficult to identify approved changes and leading to unneeded rework before launch.

Conflicting approvals give this workplace challenge a manageable scope. The team can prioritize final-review improvements and judge proposals by whether designers can identify approved changes with less rework.

Business problem statement example

Annual employee turnover in Company X’s customer support department reached 35% last year, leaving shifts unfilled and requiring experienced agents to spend additional time training replacements.

The annual rate establishes a baseline for evaluating retention efforts, while the staffing consequences explain the business stakes. Exit interviews and staffing records can inform the next investigation into why support employees leave.

Weak and improved problem statement examples

Weak: “Our onboarding is bad.”

Improved: “New account administrators cannot determine which setup steps are required before inviting their teams, leading them to contact support to complete account setup.”

Now the team knows where to investigate: the instructions administrators use to complete setup.

Weak: “We need to build an app for shift scheduling.”

Improved: “Hourly employees cannot reliably access schedule changes before their next shift, resulting in missed updates and last-minute coverage gaps.”

Reliable access to schedule changes becomes the requirement. An app remains one option to evaluate.

How to write a problem statement

To write a problem statement, gather evidence, identify who is affected, describe the gap between their current and desired experience, and draft a concise explanation of the challenge and its impact. Review the wording before using it to guide project decisions.

Gather information about the problem

Use interviews, observations, support records, stakeholder input, and existing data to identify the problem. Group findings by the task people are trying to complete.

Consider a hypothetical onboarding study. Interviews reveal that new administrators are unsure when to invite colleagues. In usability sessions, they pause at that step; support tickets ask whether account setup is complete. Together, these research insights suggest a specific unmet need: knowing which steps are required before inviting a team.

A useful statement can describe that observed barrier before its root cause is confirmed. Mark suspected explanations as assumptions, and keep claims about causes or business impact tied to supporting evidence.

Identify the affected person or group

In the onboarding study, the findings concern new account administrators preparing to invite colleagues. Name that group rather than extending the conclusion to all users.

This customer-centered approach connects problem statements to design thinking: Use what you learn about people’s experiences to define whose needs the project should address.

Describe the gap between the current and desired state

For those administrators, the current state is uncertainty about required setup steps. The desired state is being able to recognize when the account is ready for colleagues to join. Write down both before drafting; the gap between them defines what needs to change.

Draft the statement without proposing a solution

Combine the affected group, context, difficulty, and impact into one or two clear sentences. Try this structure:

[Person or group] experiences [specific difficulty] when [relevant context], resulting in [impact].

Applying that structure to the study produces:

New account administrators cannot determine which setup steps are required before inviting their teams, leading them to contact support to complete account setup.

The wording captures the research pattern without prescribing a checklist, tutorial, or redesigned setup flow.

Review and refine the wording

Read the draft as though you’re encountering the issue for the first time. Ask:

• Is the problem easy to understand?
• Does it identify who is affected?
• Does it describe the impact?
• Does it focus on one meaningful challenge?
• Does it leave room for multiple solutions?

For the onboarding draft, confirm that the research supports both the uncertainty about setup and the resulting support contacts. Remove any detail that doesn’t clarify the task or its consequences.

Common problem statement mistakes to avoid

Common problem statement mistakes include stopping at a symptom, prescribing an answer, defining the scope too broadly, combining unrelated issues, and using judgmental language. Use these checks to diagnose a draft that still feels hard to act on.

Describing a symptom instead of the problem

“Support requests are increasing” identifies a signal but gives the team little direction. Review request topics to find the recurring obstacle behind the volume, such as customers being unable to understand invoice charges.

Including a preferred solution

If your draft starts with “We need to build…,” set the proposed feature aside and ask what it would enable someone to do. Replace “We need a scheduling app” with the access barrier illustrated above.

Being too broad

“Employees struggle with communication” could encompass an entire organization. Narrow it to a moment the project can address, such as campaign designers resolving conflicting feedback during final review.

Combining multiple problems

A draft covering onboarding, invoice accuracy, and renewal terms needs to be split. Give each challenge its own statement so the team can compare priorities and assign research to the right people.

Using vague or judgmental language

“Users don’t care about training” assumes a motivation. “New users leave the training flow before completing the required setup steps” describes behavior you can investigate. Replace labels such as “bad” or “inefficient” with evidence of what happens and why it matters.

How to refine a problem statement with your team

Refine a problem statement with your team by comparing interpretations of the challenge, resolving disagreements through research, and agreeing on a scope that reflects user needs.

Share the draft with people who experience the issue and those responsible for addressing it. Ask each reviewer what they would investigate based on the wording. Different answers can expose ambiguity or assumptions that a solo review missed.

Suppose support colleagues recognize the onboarding barrier, but product colleagues point to high setup-completion rates. Record both interpretations and check what the metric includes. Accounts may be counted as complete even when administrators needed support to finish.

Use the Problem Statement Workshop template to collect those perspectives and supporting findings on a shared Mural canvas. Group related observations, mark unresolved questions, and revise language that participants interpret differently. Check the revision with users or customer-facing colleagues before moving into ideation. Revisit it when new findings change the agreed scope.

Templates for writing problem statements

Problem statement templates give teams a structured place to organize evidence and draft the challenge. Choose one based on the work you need to do next:

• Problem Statement Workshop template: Bring research and stakeholder perspectives together to draft a customer-centered description of the challenge.
• Five Whys template: Investigate possible root causes before deciding how to describe the issue.
• Problem Framing template: Explore and narrow a complex challenge before writing. The companion guide to problem framing covers that broader process.

Use problem statements to guide better decisions

Use a problem statement to generate possible solutions, compare their relevance, and decide what to prioritize or research next. It gives the problem-solving process a shared reference point as proposals become more specific.

Start ideation by turning the statement into an open question. For the dashboard example, that might be: “How might we make it easier for project managers to identify overdue work during weekly reviews?” The How Might We questions template provides a structured way to develop prompts from a defined challenge.

Compare proposals by how well they address that workflow. An overdue-task summary may deserve investigation before a broad visual redesign because it targets the information gap directly. Then weigh effort, feasibility, and likely impact to prioritize what to test.

If you don’t know whether managers need a summary across all projects or within a specific portfolio, research that question before choosing a design. The statement keeps the decision grounded in the task managers need to complete.

With Mural’s online whiteboard, your team can keep the statement, supporting input, and possible solutions together on a shared canvas as you work toward a decision.

Define the right problem, explore better options, and make more focused decisions with Mural. Sign up today.