center for collaborative problem solving

Collaborative Problem Solving: What It Is and How to Do It

What is collaborative problem solving, how to solve problems as a team, celebrating success as a team.

Problems arise. That's a well-known fact of life and business. When they do, it may seem more straightforward to take individual ownership of the problem and immediately run with trying to solve it. However, the most effective problem-solving solutions often come through collaborative problem solving.

As defined by Webster's Dictionary , the word collaborate is to work jointly with others or together, especially in an intellectual endeavor. Therefore, collaborative problem solving (CPS) is essentially solving problems by working together as a team. While problems can and are solved individually, CPS often brings about the best resolution to a problem while also developing a team atmosphere and encouraging creative thinking.

Because collaborative problem solving involves multiple people and ideas, there are some techniques that can help you stay on track, engage efficiently, and communicate effectively during collaboration.

• Set Expectations. From the very beginning, expectations for openness and respect must be established for CPS to be effective. Everyone participating should feel that their ideas will be heard and valued.
• Provide Variety. Another way of providing variety can be by eliciting individuals outside the organization but affected by the problem. This may mean involving various levels of leadership from the ground floor to the top of the organization. It may be that you involve someone from bookkeeping in a marketing problem-solving session. A perspective from someone not involved in the day-to-day of the problem can often provide valuable insight.
• Communicate Clearly.  If the problem is not well-defined, the solution can't be. By clearly defining the problem, the framework for collaborative problem solving is narrowed and more effective.
• Expand the Possibilities.  Think beyond what is offered. Take a discarded idea and expand upon it. Turn it upside down and inside out. What is good about it? What needs improvement? Sometimes the best ideas are those that have been discarded rather than reworked.
• Encourage Creativity.  Out-of-the-box thinking is one of the great benefits of collaborative problem-solving. This may mean that solutions are proposed that have no way of working, but a small nugget makes its way from that creative thought to evolution into the perfect solution.
• Provide Positive Feedback. There are many reasons participants may hold back in a collaborative problem-solving meeting. Fear of performance evaluation, lack of confidence, lack of clarity, and hierarchy concerns are just a few of the reasons people may not initially participate in a meeting. Positive public feedback early on in the meeting will eliminate some of these concerns and create more participation and more possible solutions.
• Consider Solutions. Once several possible ideas have been identified, discuss the advantages and drawbacks of each one until a consensus is made.
• Assign Tasks.  A problem identified and a solution selected is not a problem solved. Once a solution is determined, assign tasks to work towards a resolution. A team that has been invested in the creation of the solution will be invested in its resolution. The best time to act is now.
• Evaluate the Solution. Reconnect as a team once the solution is implemented and the problem is solved. What went well? What didn't? Why? Collaboration doesn't necessarily end when the problem is solved. The solution to the problem is often the next step towards a new collaboration.

The burden that is lifted when a problem is solved is enough victory for some. However, a team that plays together should celebrate together. It's not only collaboration that brings unity to a team. It's also the combined celebration of a unified victory—the moment you look around and realize the collectiveness of your success.

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Under the direction of Drs. Ross Greene and Stuart Ablon, the Center provides clinical services, training, and consultation to assist education, mental health, and medical professionals and parents in understanding and implementing the Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) approach.

Collaborative Problem Solving: Considerations for the National Assessment of Educational Progress NAEP CPS NCES PISA

• https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/researchcenter/collaborative_problem_solving.pdf

• Collaborative Problem Solving® »
• What Is Collaborative Problem Solving? »

What Is Collaborative Problem Solving?

Helping kids with challenging behavior requires understanding why they struggle in the first place. But what if everything we thought was true about challenging behavior was actually wrong? Our Collaborative Problem Solving ® approach recognizes what research has pointed to for years – that kids with challenging behavior are already trying hard. They don’t lack the  will  to behave well. They lack the  skills  to behave well.

Collaborative Problem Solving ® is different than most approaches to working with kids with behavioral challenges in that it has a guiding philosophy attached to it. And the philosophy is a simple one. Kids do well if they can. And what that means is if a kid could do well, they would do well. And if they're not doing well, let's figure out what's standing in their way so we can help. Unfortunately, most people tend to adhere more to the philosophy of kids do well if they want to, which means if a kid isn't doing well, it must be because they don't want to. Our job is to try to make them want to, to motivate them to do better. We use 50 years of research in the neurosciences to help us understand what's getting in a kid's way. Because what we've learned over the years is that kids who struggle with their behavior, they actually don't lack the will to behave well. What they lack are the skills to behave well. Skills like flexibility, and frustration tolerance, and problem solving.

In Collaborative Problem Solving, we think of it much in the way you might think of a learning disability, except instead of areas like reading and math and writing. This is in areas like flexibility, frustration, tolerance, problem-solving. These kids are delayed in the development of those skills. Now, a long time ago, we used to think kids with learning disabilities were simply "lazy" or "dumb." Thank goodness we've come to a very different place in understanding kids with learning disabilities. However, we haven't made as much progress when it comes to kids with behavioral challenges. We still assume that they aren't trying hard to behave well when the truth of the matter is they're trying harder than anybody else because it doesn't come naturally to them. We've yet to meet a child that prefers doing poorly to doing well.

We believe kids do well if they can. We teach adults a practical assessment process that helps identify the specific skills that these kids struggle with and the situations in which they happen. Then we provide adults with three basic options for handling any of those situations. We call those our three plans. We call it Plan A. When you try to impose your will to make the child do what you want them to do, we call it Plan B. When you do Collaborative Problem Solving, and we call it Plan C, when you decide strategically to drop your expectation for now or solve the problem the way the child wants it solved. So we teach adults that they really only have these three options when it comes to handling any problem with a kid. Which one they choose depends on what they're trying to accomplish. Not surprisingly, we spend most of our time teaching adults how to do Plan B, collaborate with kids to solve problems in mutually satisfactory ways, not just to solve the problem and reduce challenging behavior, but to actually practice and build the skills that these kids lack.

Plan B has three ingredients to it. It seems simple, but don't confuse simple with easy. Those three ingredients are first and foremost, trying to understand the kid's perspective. The kid's concern, the kid's point of view about the problem to be solved. And only once we understand the child's concern can we move to the second ingredient of Plan B, where we put the adult's concern on the table, not our adult solution, but the adult concern on the table. And only once we have two sets of concerns on the table, the child's concern and the adult's concern, do we move to the third and final ingredient of Plan B. And that's where you invite the child to brainstorm potential solutions to the problem, which the two of you are going to test out together, aiming for one that is mutually satisfactory, doable, and realistic. And we teach adults lots of guideposts along the way to help facilitate that process. And once again, the goal of Plan B, not just reducing challenging behavior and solving the problem, but also helping the child and the adult to practice a whole host of skills related to flexibility, frustration, tolerance, and problem-solving. So in summary, Collaborative Problem Solving provides a guiding philosophy and then a corresponding set of assessment tools, a planning process, and a robust intervention that builds relationship, reduces challenging behavior, and builds skill. But let's remember that it all starts with the underlying philosophy that kids do well if they can. And this is about skill, not will.

Related Content

Managing challenging behavior during traumatic times, collaborative problem solving, a talk with dr. stuart ablon, rethinking challenging kids: where there’s a skill there’s a way, privacy overview.

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• Published: 04 June 2018

Collaborative problem-solving education for the twenty-first-century workforce

• Stephen M. Fiore 1 ,
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The complex research, policy and industrial challenges of the twenty-first century require collaborative problem solving. Assessments suggest that, globally, many graduates lack necessary competencies. There is a pressing need, therefore, to improve and expand teaching of collaborative problem solving in our education systems.

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Fiore, S. M. et al. Collaborative Problem Solving: Considerations for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (National Center for Educational Statistics, United States Department of Education, Washington DC, 2017).

Graesser, A. C. et al. in Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills. Research and Applications (eds Care, E., Griffin, P. & Wilson, M.) Ch. 5 (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2018); https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65368-6_5 .

PISA 2015 Results (Volume V): Collaborative Problem Solving (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2017); https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264285521-en

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National Research Council Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science (National Academies Press, Washington DC, 2015); https://doi.org/10.17226/19007

The Royal Society Assessing Experimental Science in 11–18 Education: New Research Directions (Royal Society Press, 2016); https://royalsociety.org/~/media/events/2016/10/education-conference-report-12-october-2016.pdf

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