Chapter 3 · Practice 1 of 3
Write the problem statement as one tight paragraph
Why it matters
A strong problem statement answers four questions in a single paragraph:
- Who has the problem?
- What is the problem, concretely?
- Why does it matter: what does it cost them in time, money, safety or opportunity?
- What is missing in the current ways of solving it?
Compare:
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Healthcare in our country has many problems and technology can help. | Small independent pharmacies track medicine expiry dates on paper registers. Expired stock is noticed late and discarded, and the general inventory apps they could use do not support batch-level expiry tracking or Urdu. |
The strong version names the users, the problem, the cost and the gap. It also hints at the solution without describing the technology yet. Avoid sweeping claims about the whole country or industry that you cannot support with a source.
Do
- Answer who, what, why it matters and what is missing
- Support any figure with a source
Avoid
- Sweeping claims about an entire sector
- Describing your tech stack in the problem statement