Coaching practices for Viable Solutions Filter
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Viable Solutions Filter, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’ve laid out thousands of possible combinations and now I’m drowning in them
- Even after all this work I notice I’m gravitating right back to the safe, familiar combinations and skipping the strange ones
- I’ve worked through every viable option and they’re all just flavors of mediocre
- My kid and I agree on a fix and it sounds great in the moment, but a few days later it’s fallen apart again
- I keep cycling through the same handful of obvious options and dismissing the weird ones in my head before I even write them down
Practices that may help
- Filter the matrix with cross-consistency assessment
Identify which value combinations are impossible or contradictory to reduce the space to viable solutions.
Morphological Analysis, Made Practical - Deliberately explore the most unlikely combinations
The combinations intuition skips are precisely the ones the method is designed to find.
Morphological Analysis, Made Practical - Iterate the matrix when solutions appear insufficient
If all combinations seem mediocre, the dimensions may be wrong — reframe them before generating more.
Morphological Analysis, Made Practical - Evaluate solutions for durability: realistic, mutually satisfying, safe
A collaborative solution that fails one of three tests — realistic, mutually satisfying, safe — will not hold.
Collaborative Problem Solving (Ross Greene) - Build the morphological box (Zwicky box)
Map all possible values for each dimension to create the complete solution landscape.
Morphological Analysis, Made Practical - Define what success looks like together, before proposing solutions
Agree on the criteria a good solution must meet before either side proposes anything.
The Third Alternative, Made Practical - Satisfice: set a good-enough threshold and stop searching when you hit it
Optimize for "good enough" rather than "best possible" — the search cost often exceeds the gain.
Simple Heuristics: Gerd Gigerenzer’s Case for Fast and Frugal Thinking - Define the ideal final result first
Describe the perfect outcome as if the solution already exists and costs nothing, then work backward to what could enable it.
TRIZ: Systematic Invention and the Logic of Contradictions - Evaluate solutions against costs, benefits, and fit
Rate each solution on likelihood of success, personal costs, and fit with your values.
Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical - Model synergy: ask "what would a solution have to look like to address both?"
Use the agreed criteria as a design brief and generate solutions that meet all of them.
The Third Alternative, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Choosing Best Solution
Rate each solution on likelihood of success, personal costs, and fit with your values.
Evaluate solutions against costs, benefits, and fit
- Collaborative Morphological Analysis
Morphological analysis, developed by astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, is a structured method for exploring all possible combinations of a problem’s key dimensions. By decomposing a problem into independent parameters and exhaustively combining them in a matrix, it reveals solution combinations that intuition and brainstorming reliably miss. Evidence for the method is primarily from engineering and design fields with strong applied history.
- Morphological Analysis At Work
Morphological analysis, developed by astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, is a structured method for exploring all possible combinations of a problem’s key dimensions. By decomposing a problem into independent parameters and exhaustively combining them in a matrix, it reveals solution combinations that intuition and brainstorming reliably miss. Evidence for the method is primarily from engineering and design fields with strong applied history.
- Morphological Analysis On A Budget
Morphological analysis, developed by astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, is a structured method for exploring all possible combinations of a problem’s key dimensions. By decomposing a problem into independent parameters and exhaustively combining them in a matrix, it reveals solution combinations that intuition and brainstorming reliably miss. Evidence for the method is primarily from engineering and design fields with strong applied history.
- Morphological Analysis When Overwhelmed
Morphological analysis, developed by astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, is a structured method for exploring all possible combinations of a problem’s key dimensions. By decomposing a problem into independent parameters and exhaustively combining them in a matrix, it reveals solution combinations that intuition and brainstorming reliably miss. Evidence for the method is primarily from engineering and design fields with strong applied history.
- Morphological Analysis When Starting Out
Morphological analysis, developed by astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, is a structured method for exploring all possible combinations of a problem’s key dimensions. By decomposing a problem into independent parameters and exhaustively combining them in a matrix, it reveals solution combinations that intuition and brainstorming reliably miss. Evidence for the method is primarily from engineering and design fields with strong applied history.
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.