Last weekend my husband and I decided to begin decorating our home for the holiday season. This year, unlike last, we wanted to add some decorations to the outside of our home. More specifically, we wanted to add faux evergreen garland and lights around the entryway of our front door. However, in our wanting to be festive, this created a set of problems that we had to overcome in order to properly hang the garland. To better explain and reflect on this week’s lesson, I decided to illustrate this garland journey using the Newell and Simon’s approach to problem solving.
Newell and Simon’s approach starts with the initial state, or “conditions at the beginning of the problem” and concludes with the goal state, or “the solution to the problem” (Goldstein, 2015). The initial state to my garland problem was how to hang it securely onto the door frame. The operator, or how we would achieve my goal state, was using some sort of fastener/s to attach the garland to the frame. However, the garland must be able to withstand inclement weather (primarily wind) and remain taught without sagging. The goal state to our problem was a beautifully hung evergreen garland with lights to frame the door.
Before trying to accomplish the goal state of the problem, we had to look at the entire problem space, or all the possible steps between the initial and goal state (Goldstein, 2015). These possible steps that are taken between the initial and goal states are known as intermediate states (Goldstein, 2015). In viewing the entire problem space and all possibilities it was easier to decide on the most efficient steps and subgoals to reach our goal state. Carefully strategizing the most direct route to our goal state is known as means-end analysis (Goldstein, 2015).
The first intermediate state was using either nails or 3M command hooks and attaching them to the wooden door frame. Thinking of my subgoal, to withstand inclement weather, we decided to use nails over the command strips for more stability. The second intermediate state was using an additional fastener to fulfill my second subgoal of keeping the garland taught. We decided to attach zip ties to the actual garland prior to hanging it on the nails. The third intermediate state was using an additional zip tie and wrapping it around the nail as well as through the zip tie on the garland, therefore avoiding any sagging.
After all the steps were completed, we finally arrived at the goal state to our problem. We achieved a stable, perfectly hung, festive evergreen garland around our front door. In having a means-end analysis strategy in place, we avoided additional intermediate states and met all our subgoals. It has been up for almost a week and still holding on strong even through the wind gusts we’ve been experiencing!
Works Cited
Goldstein, E. B. (2015). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience. Cengage Learning.
