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Jon Ochenas

First Principles Problem Solving Playbook

Context

Origin:

Commissioned by the CDO/CIO as a response to challenges he saw throughout the organization.

Problem statement:

A growing regional bank faced unsustainable scaling challenges due to poor technology decisions and lack of structured problem-solving.

Key symptoms:

  • Over-reliance on manual workarounds for technology limitations
  • Recurring poor decisions leading to technology failures
  • Team burnout from constant firefighting
  • Inability to challenge assumptions or identify root causes

Business Impact: 

Operational inefficiencies preventing sustainable growth and creating risk of continued failures as the bank scales.

Root Cause: 

Absence of systematic decision-making frameworks and culture to break status quo thinking.

Approach

  • Primary method: First Principles Thinking
  • Service Blueprinting for journey management
  • Heavy emphasis on challenging assumptions
  • Deploy as part of a larger enterprise initiative called Elevate
  • Partner with Head of Product for input and feedback

Research

A significant amount of effort went into creating the workshops themselves, along with additional collateral for the CTO’s Elevate effort that they lived within. 

Pilot

We tested our ideas with internal pilots in the Technology team. This helped refine our approach and balance the activities.

Playbook

This is the playbook we had cued up for a 1Q2025 workshop with the head of small business lending.

Takeaways

  • Collaborate across the business when developing tools like this; buy-in is critical
  • It will take longer to contract a session with your business partner than the workshop itself
  • Find the goldilock’s-size problems you can take on and make progress against
  • Ensure that evaluation metrics are defined

Conclusion

Just as the program was about to be piloted with the business, the design and product teams were disbanded.

Due to the organizational restructuring, it is unclear whether the program has continued or if the playbook has been adopted by other teams.

Description

A regional bank's growth was hampered by poor technology decisions and excessive manual workarounds. The lack of structured problem-solving frameworks risked misdiagnosing core issues and perpetuating unsustainable, human-dependent processes that couldn't scale with continued expansion.

Technology