Dealing with Alternative Solutions

The third solution possibility in the first section of Exhibit Bel deals with alternatives. Remember that, as I said, strictly speaking there is no such thing as an alternative solution to a problem. Either what you recommend will get the reader from R1 to R2, or it won't, and in that sense there are no alternatives. So-called alternatives arise when the R2 is ambiguously stated, so that you cannot judge that you have a solution when you see it.

What tends to happen with a vaguely stated R2 is that people arbitrarily select three or four likely courses of action and begin to compare them to each other in terms of their strengths and weaknesses or pros and cons. It is of course irrelevant how the alternatives compare to each other; what matters is how they compare to the R2. But as there is no recognizable R2 given, what people are really doing is trying to back into defining what it should be.

You are much better off trying to define the R2 at the very beginning. (Indeed, step one of your problem-solving process is often to define the R2.) One can end up with a clear definition of R2 the other way, but it is very hard work, particularly as most people feel compelled to try to balance the lists of strengths and weaknesses under each alternative. And of course they feel it necessary to list all of these strengths and weaknesses in the text, without any effort to summarize the groupings and integrate them into a pyramid.

Strictly speaking, alternatives should be discussed in the document only when they are known in advance by the reader, which means he will have identified them himself as possible courses of action. In that case his question is "Which one?" Otherwise, if the alternatives are not known in advance, you place yourself in the awkward position of bringing them up to knock them down. Your reasoning on the Key Line would have to be something like this:

- There are three possible ways to solve this problem: A, B, and C

Way A is no good because …

Way B is no good because …

Therefore do way C.

The reason for doing C is not that A and B are no good; the reason for doing C is that it solves the problem. In which case, why were A and B brought up? "Because the reader asked for them," you might say. "He said, '"Tell me how to solve my problem and tell me what my alternatives are.' "He cannot logically, of course, have expressed the need to know his alternatives unless his problem is ill-defined-i.e., unless his R2 is ambiguous.

In that case, he is very likely not really asking for alternative solutions but for alternative R2s. These you can have. It is then perfectly permissible (in terms of being as clear as possible in communicating your thinking) to structure the document around the alternative R2s. This structure works if you find that no solution you generate will give the reader the entire R2 that he desires:

Do X if what you want is earnings stability

Do Y if what you want is fast growth

Do Z if what you want is labor peace.

If the reader is not asking for alternative R2s and still insists on having "alternatives"-even though you have a clear solution to a clearly stated R2-you have two choices. Either put them in the introduction, which can be unwieldy, or relegate them to an appendix. If you put them in an appendix, an effective approach is to show them in a chart, with the alternatives listed down the side, the criteria by which you made your judgment listed across the top, and check marks showing where the alternative did or did not match the criteria.