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Module 2 of 6 - Stage 1

Study and Clarify the Problem

You can't solve the right problem if you don't know whose problem it is. Stage 1 is about understanding stakeholders and needs before generating a single solution. What people say they want and what they actually need are often different things.

THREE TYPES OF NEEDS LATENT undiscovered EXPRESSED what they say THRESHOLD unstated but assumed Missing threshold needs = disappointment. Addressing latent needs = delight.

By the end of this module you will be able to

Explain who stakeholders are and why they matter
Distinguish between threshold, expressed, and latent needs
Explain why asking stakeholders isn't enough on its own
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Who is a stakeholder?

A stakeholder is anyone who is influenced by the project, or who can influence the project. On any engineering project, this list gets long quickly.

Take a new road bridge as an example. Stakeholders include the commuters who use it, the people transporting goods, the construction teams, the government authority who commissioned it, the maintenance organisations, nearby communities whose traffic patterns change, environmental groups, and broader society. That's an incomplete list and it's already large.

Two things to remember about stakeholders: different stakeholders have very different degrees of influence, and the same person can play multiple stakeholder roles at once.

Degree of influence matters. If the bridge doesn't meet government standards, it never gets built. If a community opposes it strongly enough, legal action can kill a project. The stakeholders with the most influence don't always speak the loudest - you have to seek them out.

What are needs?

Needs are what stakeholders want or expect the design to be or do. They express what makes stakeholders satisfied or dissatisfied. For a smartphone, user needs include things like camera quality, battery alerts, price, and water resistance. For the regulator, needs include compliance with wireless communication and consumer safety standards.

Even from two stakeholder groups, there are already contradictions. Some users want a small phone. Others want the largest screen available. Some want physical buttons. Others want a folding design. Stage 1 requires you to understand all of these tensions before you can make informed decisions about which needs your solution will address - and which it won't.

The three types of needs

Not all needs are equally visible. Stakeholders don't always know what to ask for, and they don't always tell you what they truly need even when they do.

  • Threshold needs are so obvious that nobody mentions them - but their absence causes serious dissatisfaction. A phone without a low-battery indicator would be a disaster. No user would think to ask for one when surveyed, because they assume it exists. Missing a threshold need is a significant failure.
  • Expressed needs are what stakeholders say when you ask them. These are the most accessible, but they're not sufficient on their own. People can only tell you what they know they want.
  • Latent needs are needs stakeholders haven't considered or didn't think possible. Addressing them can genuinely delight users. They require creative inquiry, deep observation, and going beyond what people say.
The takeaway: relying only on what stakeholders say mostly surfaces expressed needs. Threshold and latent needs require deeper work - observation, creative questioning, research beyond the interview.

Stage 1 sets up everything that follows

Stage 1 is critical because its output - a thorough understanding of stakeholders and their needs - drives every decision in Stages 2, 3, and 4. If you misunderstand the problem in Stage 1, you'll generate solutions to the wrong problem in Stage 2, select the best solution to the wrong problem in Stage 3, and develop it in Stage 4.

You may encounter incomplete and sometimes contradictory information in Stage 1. That's normal. The goal is not to resolve all contradictions - it's to understand them well enough to make informed decisions.