Anti-patterns: what can go wrong

Over years of practice, we've identified recurring failure patterns in Problem Phase. Knowing them doesn't guarantee avoiding them, but it significantly increases the probability of detecting them in time.

1

Organized Bias

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2

Express Discovery

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3

Problem Statement by Committee

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4

The Invisible Stakeholder

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5

The Solution Disguised as a Problem

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6

Undefined Success

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7

Phantom Constraints

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Quick reference

Anti-pattern	Symptom	Root cause	Prevention
Organized Bias	Problem Statement identical to starting hypothesis	Interviews designed to confirm, not challenge	Document hypotheses before discovery; "devil's advocate" role
Express Discovery	Fewer than 5 interviews, no tensions	Pressure to move forward	Minimum 5 interviews as non-negotiable rule
Problem Statement by Committee	Generic statement valid for any company	Optimizing for political consensus	One person drafts, team reviews; specificity test
Invisible Stakeholder	Single-perspective Problem Statement	Key actors excluded from interviews	Verify Actor Map coverage before closing
Solution Disguised as Problem	Statement describes absence of a tool	Skipping from symptom to solution	Multiple-solution test: at least 3 solutions possible
Undefined Success	Each stakeholder assumes different definition	No explicit success criteria	Ask each stakeholder "how will you know it's solved?"
Phantom Constraints	Unverified constraints limiting solution space	Assumptions not checked with source	Every constraint needs a verified source