The reframing matrix was first described by author Michael Morgan in his book Creating Workforce Innovation: Turning Individual Creativity into Organizational Innovation. A reframing matrix allows businesses to creatively assess problems from a variety of perspectives.
Indeed, while the same thing might happen to more people, how those people frame that event can change how they react and evolve based on it.
This also applies to organizations.
Indeed, if you create a culture for your organization where people can frame problems and obstacles into challenges to overcome, this kicks in their problem-solving ability.
fixed mindset believes their intelligence and talents are fixed traits that cannot be developed. The two mindsets were developed by American psychologist Carol Dweck while studying human motivation.
Both mindsets are comprised of conscious and subconscious thought patterns established at a very young age. In adult life, they have profound implications for personal and professional success.
Individuals with a growth mindset devote more time and effort to achieving difficult goals and by extension, are less concerned with the opinions or abilities of others. Individuals with a fixed mindset are sensitive to criticism and may be preoccupied with proving their talents to others.
When you create the proper context to translate obstacles into challenges to overcome for your team, that is when the reframing matrix can become a powerful tool.
Understanding a reframing matrix
Morgan’s approach to problem-solving recognizes that people are likely to approach problem-solving based on their unique skills and life experience.
As a result, the approach encourages individuals to imagine themselves as other people and consider multiple perspectives or solutions.
Creating a reframing matrix
To help clarify the process of considering alternative perspectives, a matrix with four squares should be created.
In the middle of the matrix, place a problem (or question) that needs to be answered or solved.
Then, examine the problem from four key perspectives. Each perspective occupies one of the four boxes.
Product/program perspective
Are there issues with the product or service being delivered?
Is the product technically sound? Has it been delivered elsewhere?
For example, a new product experiencing poor sales may have issues with price, attractiveness, or utility.
Planning perspective
Are plans relating to business operations or communication satisfactory? Has the correct marketingstrategy been chosen?
Has the sales strategy been used in the right market?
What issues may impede progress or compromise deadlines and sales targets?
Potential perspective
Is the problem or solution scalable or replicable?
How could sales be increased to address a problem?
Is there a capacity for current production volume to be increased to meet production targets?
People perspective
What do key stakeholders and staff think about the problem?
Alternatively, why are customers leaving bad reviews or choosing not to buy a product? What are their perceptions?
Strengths of the reframing matrix
There is inherent strength in considering a range of perspectives – particularly when those perspectives are well-informed.
For example, a consumer who has had reliability issues with their new car is well-informed from the perspective of people.
On the other hand, a lawyer with detailed knowledge of consumer law may see the problem as one relating to warranty disputes and protracted court battles.
In any case, broad consultation is effective in avoiding cognitive biases that restrict creativity and innovation.
This biased form of decision making is often based on emotion and has no basis in fact or logic.
The reframing matrix also facilities buy-in from key stakeholders because each feels that their opinions are heard and respected.
In the long run, creative and holistic decision making has positive implications for business growth and success.
Key takeaways
A reframing matrix helps businesses identify effective solutions by considering a range of perspectives.
A reframing matrix places the core problem or question at the center of a matrix consisting of four boxes. Each box represents one of four key perspectives: product, planning, potential, and people.
A reframing matrix facilitates collaborative and informed decision making because all relevant, informed stakeholders take part. This helps avoid cognitive biases in decision making that have the potential to negatively impact a business.
Key Highlights of Reframing Matrix:
Origin and Application: The reframing matrix was introduced by Michael Morgan in his book “Creating Workforce Innovation.” It enables businesses to creatively assess problems from different perspectives to foster effective problem-solving and decision-making.
Power of Framing: Framing, a psychological concept, holds great influence over how individuals and organizations perceive and react to events. Creating a culture where challenges are seen as opportunities can shift individuals from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.
Growth vs. Fixed Mindset: People with a growth mindset believe their abilities can be developed through effort, while those with a fixed mindset see their traits as unchangeable. Creating a context that transforms obstacles into challenges can empower teams and drive the use of the reframing matrix.
Understanding the Matrix: The reframing matrix recognizes that different individuals approach problem-solving based on their experiences. It encourages considering multiple perspectives by imagining oneself as others and viewing issues from various angles.
Creating the Matrix: A reframing matrix consists of four squares. The central box holds the problem or question that needs addressing. The other four boxes represent different perspectives: product/program, planning, potential, and people.
Product/Program Perspective: This perspective examines issues with the product or service, its technical soundness, and its delivery success.
Planning Perspective: Focuses on whether business operations and communication plans are effective, and if marketing and sales strategies are aligned with the target market.
Potential Perspective: Evaluates scalability and replicability of solutions, explores ways to increase sales, and assesses capacity for production volume.
People Perspective: Considers the opinions of stakeholders, staff, customers, and perceptions that influence decisions.
Strengths of the Matrix:
It encourages a diverse range of perspectives, avoiding cognitive biases and promoting creativity.
It facilitates buy-in from key stakeholders, fostering collaborative and holistic decision-making.
Creative and holistic decision-making positively impacts business growth and success.
Related Frameworks
Definition
Focus
Application
Reframing Matrix
A problem-solving tool that involves systematically reframing the problem statement or situation from different perspectives, such as changing the scope, assumptions, stakeholders, or context. The Reframing Matrix helps individuals or teams explore alternative viewpoints and generate creative solutions by challenging existing assumptions and biases.
Focuses on shifting perspectives and exploring alternative viewpoints to generate new insights and creative solutions to complex problems. By reframing the problem from different angles, individuals can uncover hidden opportunities, overcome cognitive biases, and break through mental barriers hindering innovative thinking.
A creative problem-solving technique developed by Edward de Bono that involves using six metaphorical hats, each representing a different thinking mode or perspective: White (Facts), Red (Emotions), Black (Critical Judgment), Yellow (Optimism), Green (Creativity), and Blue (Control). The Six Thinking Hats help individuals or teams explore various viewpoints and consider different aspects of a problem systematically.
Focuses on promoting parallel thinking and facilitating structured discussions by directing attention to specific perspectives or modes of thinking. By wearing different metaphorical hats, participants can approach problems from multiple angles, leading to more comprehensive analysis and innovative solutions.
A creativity technique used to generate innovative ideas and solutions by prompting individuals to ask questions and make changes to existing products, processes, or services. SCAMPER stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse/Rearrange. The SCAMPER Technique encourages lateral thinking and exploration of alternative possibilities.
Focuses on stimulating creative thinking and problem-solving by encouraging individuals to explore different ways to modify or improve existing ideas, products, or processes, fostering innovation and generating novel solutions.
Innovation, Creativity, Problem-solving, Product Development
Design Thinking
A human-centered approach to innovation that focuses on understanding user needs, generating creative solutions, and iteratively prototyping and testing ideas. Design Thinking involves a structured process consisting of five stages: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Design Thinking emphasizes empathy, collaboration, and iteration to address complex problems effectively.
Focuses on understanding user needs and preferences, generating innovative solutions, and iteratively refining ideas through prototyping and testing. By adopting a user-centric approach and embracing ambiguity, Design Thinking enables organizations to tackle complex challenges and create meaningful solutions that resonate with users.
Innovation, Product Development, User Experience Design, Problem-solving
TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving)
A problem-solving methodology that identifies common patterns and principles in successful innovations and applies them to solve complex problems systematically. TRIZ provides a systematic approach to problem-solving by analyzing contradictions, identifying inventive principles, and generating innovative solutions based on proven techniques and principles.
Focuses on analyzing problems and contradictions systematically to uncover innovative solutions based on established principles and patterns in successful inventions. By applying TRIZ methodology, individuals can overcome obstacles and generate breakthrough solutions that address complex challenges effectively.
Problem-solving, Innovation, Creative Thinking, Product Development
5 Whys
A root cause analysis technique used to explore the underlying causes of a problem by repeatedly asking “Why?” The 5 Whys technique helps individuals or teams uncover deeper layers of causality beyond the initial symptoms, enabling them to address the root causes and implement effective solutions.
Focuses on identifying the root causes of a problem by asking iterative “Why?” questions to uncover underlying issues or systemic failures. By digging deeper into the root causes, individuals can develop targeted solutions that address the underlying issues and prevent recurrence.
Root Cause Analysis, Problem-solving, Continuous Improvement
Force Field Analysis
A decision-making tool used to analyze the driving and restraining forces affecting the implementation of a change or decision. Force Field Analysis involves identifying and evaluating the factors that support or hinder the desired change, enabling individuals or teams to develop strategies to strengthen supporting factors and mitigate restraining forces effectively.
Focuses on assessing the forces driving change and those resisting it to understand the dynamics of change and develop strategies to overcome resistance and facilitate successful implementation. By balancing driving and restraining forces, individuals can increase the likelihood of successful change initiatives and mitigate risks.
A cognitive process of actively analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information to make reasoned judgments or decisions. Critical thinking involves questioning assumptions, interpreting evidence, considering multiple viewpoints, and applying logical reasoning to assess arguments and solve problems effectively.
Focuses on developing analytical and reasoning skills to evaluate information, assess arguments, and make informed decisions. By applying critical thinking skills, individuals can identify logical fallacies, detect biases, and evaluate the validity and reliability of information effectively.
Begin by clearly defining the problem or challenge that you want to address. Ensure that the problem statement is specific and well-understood by the team.
– Problem: Decreasing sales in a retail store. – Problem: High employee turnover in a company.
2. Select Reframing Perspectives
Choose different perspectives or lenses through which you will reframe the problem. These perspectives should be diverse and may involve considering various stakeholders or angles.
Examine the problem from each selected perspective and reframe it by considering how different stakeholders or factors may view or contribute to the issue.
– Customer perspective: Explore why customers are not attracted to the store. – Employee perspective: Investigate reasons for high turnover and its impact. – Supply chain perspective: Analyze inventory and logistics challenges affecting sales.
4. Generate Insights
Generate insights and potential solutions for each reframed problem statement. This step involves brainstorming and exploring creative ideas from each perspective.
– Customer perspective: Enhance store layout and customer experience. – Employee perspective: Improve workplace culture and training programs. – Supply chain perspective: Optimize inventory management and distribution.
5. Evaluate Solutions
Evaluate the generated insights and potential solutions for each reframed problem. Assess their feasibility, impact, and alignment with organizational goals and values.
– Customer perspective solution: Assess its feasibility and potential to attract more customers. – Employee perspective solution: Evaluate its impact on reducing turnover and improving employee satisfaction. – Supply chain perspective solution: Consider its feasibility and potential to enhance supply chain efficiency.
A failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a structured approach to identifying design failures in a product or process. Developed in the 1950s, the failure mode and effects analysis is one the earliest methodologies of its kind. It enables organizations to anticipate a range of potential failures during the design stage.
Agile Business Analysis (AgileBA) is certification in the form of guidance and training for business analysts seeking to work in agile environments. To support this shift, AgileBA also helps the business analyst relate Agile projects to a wider organizational mission or strategy. To ensure that analysts have the necessary skills and expertise, AgileBA certification was developed.
Business valuations involve a formal analysis of the key operational aspects of a business. A business valuation is an analysis used to determine the economic value of a business or company unit. It’s important to note that valuations are one part science and one part art. Analysts use professional judgment to consider the financial performance of a business with respect to local, national, or global economic conditions. They will also consider the total value of assets and liabilities, in addition to patented or proprietary technology.
A paired comparison analysis is used to rate or rank options where evaluation criteria are subjective by nature. The analysis is particularly useful when there is a lack of clear priorities or objective data to base decisions on. A paired comparison analysis evaluates a range of options by comparing them against each other.
The Monte Carlo analysis is a quantitative risk management technique. The Monte Carlo analysis was developed by nuclear scientist Stanislaw Ulam in 1940 as work progressed on the atom bomb. The analysis first considers the impact of certain risks on project management such as time or budgetary constraints. Then, a computerized mathematical output gives businesses a range of possible outcomes and their probability of occurrence.
A cost-benefit analysis is a process a business can use to analyze decisions according to the costs associated with making that decision. For a cost analysis to be effective it’s important to articulate the project in the simplest terms possible, identify the costs, determine the benefits of project implementation, assess the alternatives.
The CATWOE analysis is a problem-solving strategy that asks businesses to look at an issue from six different perspectives. The CATWOE analysis is an in-depth and holistic approach to problem-solving because it enables businesses to consider all perspectives. This often forces management out of habitual ways of thinking that would otherwise hinder growth and profitability. Most importantly, the CATWOE analysis allows businesses to combine multiple perspectives into a single, unifying solution.
It’s possible to identify the key players that overlap with a company’s business model with a competitor analysis. This overlapping can be analyzed in terms of key customers, technologies, distribution, and financial models. When all those elements are analyzed, it is possible to map all the facets of competition for a tech business model to understand better where a business stands in the marketplace and its possible future developments.
The Pareto Analysis is a statistical analysis used in business decision making that identifies a certain number of input factors that have the greatest impact on income. It is based on the similarly named Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of the effect of something can be attributed to just 20% of the drivers.
A comparable company analysis is a process that enables the identification of similar organizations to be used as a comparison to understand the business and financial performance of the target company. To find comparables you can look at two key profiles: the business and financial profile. From the comparable company analysis it is possible to understand the competitive landscape of the target organization.
A SWOT Analysis is a framework used for evaluating the business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It can aid in identifying the problematic areas of your business so that you can maximize your opportunities. It will also alert you to the challenges your organization might face in the future.
The PESTEL analysis is a framework that can help marketers assess whether macro-economic factors are affecting an organization. This is a critical step that helps organizations identify potential threats and weaknesses that can be used in other frameworks such as SWOT or to gain a broader and better understanding of the overall marketing environment.
Business analysis is a research discipline that helps driving change within an organization by identifying the key elements and processes that drive value. Business analysis can also be used in Identifying new business opportunities or how to take advantage of existing business opportunities to grow your business in the marketplace.
In corporate finance, the financial structure is how corporations finance their assets (usually either through debt or equity). For the sake of reverse engineering businesses, we want to look at three critical elements to determine the model used to sustain its assets: cost structure, profitability, and cash flow generation.
Financial modeling involves the analysis of accounting, finance, and business data to predict future financial performance. Financial modeling is often used in valuation, which consists of estimating the value in dollar terms of a company based on several parameters. Some of the most common financial models comprise discounted cash flows, the M&A model, and the CCA model.
Value investing is an investment philosophy that looks at companies’ fundamentals, to discover those companies whose intrinsic value is higher than what the market is currently pricing, in short value investing tries to evaluate a business by starting by its fundamentals.
The Buffet Indicator is a measure of the total value of all publicly-traded stocks in a country divided by that country’s GDP. It’s a measure and ratio to evaluate whether a market is undervalued or overvalued. It’s one of Warren Buffet’s favorite measures as a warning that financial markets might be overvalued and riskier.
Financial accounting is a subdiscipline within accounting that helps organizations provide reporting related to three critical areas of a business: its assets and liabilities (balance sheet), its revenues and expenses (income statement), and its cash flows (cash flow statement). Together those areas can be used for internal and external purposes.
Post-mortem analyses review projects from start to finish to determine process improvements and ensure that inefficiencies are not repeated in the future. In the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK), this process is referred to as “lessons learned”.
Retrospective analyses are held after a project to determine what worked well and what did not. They are also conducted at the end of an iteration in Agile project management. Agile practitioners call these meetings retrospectives or retros. They are an effective way to check the pulse of a project team, reflect on the work performed to date, and reach a consensus on how to tackle the next sprint cycle.
In essence, a root cause analysis involves the identification of problem root causes to devise the most effective solutions. Note that the root cause is an underlying factor that sets the problem in motion or causes a particular situation such as non-conformance.
A break-even analysis is commonly used to determine the point at which a new product or service will become profitable. The analysis is a financial calculation that tells the business how many products it must sell to cover its production costs. A break-even analysis is a small business accounting process that tells the business what it needs to do to break even or recoup its initial investment.
Stanford University Professor Ronald A. Howard first defined decision analysis as a profession in 1964. Over the ensuing decades, Howard has supervised many doctoral theses on the subject across topics including nuclear waste disposal, investment planning, hurricane seeding, and research strategy. Decision analysis (DA) is a systematic, visual, and quantitative decision-making approach where all aspects of a decision are evaluated before making an optimal choice.
A DESTEP analysis is a framework used by businesses to understand their external environment and the issues which may impact them. The DESTEP analysis is an extension of the popular PEST analysis created by Harvard Business School professor Francis J. Aguilar. The DESTEP analysis groups external factors into six categories: demographic, economic, socio-cultural, technological, ecological, and political.
The STEEP analysis is a tool used to map the external factors that impact an organization. STEEP stands for the five key areas on which the analysis focuses: socio-cultural, technological, economic, environmental/ecological, and political. Usually, the STEEP analysis is complementary or alternative to other methods such as SWOT or PESTEL analyses.
The STEEPLE analysis is a variation of the STEEP analysis. Where the step analysis comprises socio-cultural, technological, economic, environmental/ecological, and political factors as the base of the analysis. The STEEPLE analysis adds other two factors such as Legal and Ethical.
Activity-based management (ABM) is a framework for determining the profitability of every aspect of a business. The end goal is to maximize organizational strengths while minimizing or eliminating weaknesses. Activity-based management can be described in the following steps: identification and analysis, evaluation and identification of areas of improvement.
PMESII-PT is a tool that helps users organize large amounts of operations information. PMESII-PT is an environmental scanning and monitoring technique, like the SWOT, PESTLE, and QUEST analysis. Developed by the United States Army, used as a way to execute a more complex strategy in foreign countries with a complex and uncertain context to map.
The SPACE (Strategic Position and Action Evaluation) analysis was developed by strategy academics Alan Rowe, Richard Mason, Karl Dickel, Richard Mann, and Robert Mockler. The particular focus of this framework is strategy formation as it relates to the competitive position of an organization. The SPACE analysis is a technique used in strategic management and planning.
A lotus diagram is a creative tool for ideation and brainstorming. The diagram identifies the key concepts from a broad topic for simple analysis or prioritization.
Functional decomposition is an analysis method where complex processes are examined by dividing them into their constituent parts. According to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK), functional decomposition “helps manage complexity and reduce uncertainty by breaking down processes, systems, functional areas, or deliverables into their simpler constituent parts and allowing each part to be analyzed independently.”
The multi-criteria analysis provides a systematic approach for ranking adaptation options against multiple decision criteria. These criteria are weighted to reflect their importance relative to other criteria. A multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is a decision-making framework suited to solving problems with many alternative courses of action.
A stakeholder analysis is a process where the participation, interest, and influence level of key project stakeholders is identified. A stakeholder analysis is used to leverage the support of key personnel and purposefully align project teams with wider organizational goals. The analysis can also be used to resolve potential sources of conflict before project commencement.
Strategic analysis is a process to understand the organization’s environment and competitive landscape to formulate informed business decisions, to plan for the organizational structure and long-term direction. Strategic planning is also useful to experiment with business model design and assess the fit with the long-term vision of the business.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
