Problem solving is an essential life skill.

This skill is really one of key differentiators between what makes one person very successful and the other not that successful or even not at all successful.

So what kind of situations typically come up in the life for any person.

Broadly speaking, there are five types of situations.

And based on what level of problem solving ability a person demonstrates in these situations, people can be broadly classified into five categories.

Genius - a person can be considered genius provided she, in a given situation, is able to:

• First of all, figure out and define what the exact problem is
• Then, think of the approach to solve that problem
• And then, solve the problem using that approach
• And finally, arrive at the correct and the exact solution

Intelligent - a person can be considered intelligent provided she, in a given situation, is able to:

• First of all, receive the problem statement in a clearly articulated manner but be in a position to correctly understand what the problem exactly is
• Then, be able to think of the approach to solve that clearly articulated problem
• And then, solve the problem using that approach
• And finally, arrive at the correct and the exact solution

Average - a person can be considered average provided she, in a given situation, is able to:

• First of all, receive the problem statement in a clearly articulated manner but be in a position to correctly understand what the problem exactly is
• Then, also receive the approach that needs to be used to solve that problem but be in a position to understand what the approach to be used exactly is
• And then, solve the problem using that approach
• And finally, arrive at the correct and the exact solution

Idiot - a person can be considered idiot provided she, in a given situation, is able to:

• First of all, receive the problem statement in a clearly articulated manner but be in a position to correctly understand what the problem exactly is
• Then, also receive the approach that needs to be used to solve that problem but be in a position to understand what the approach to be used exactly is
• And then, also receive the solution to the problem derived using that approach but be in a position to understand what the solution exactly is
• And finally, understand why that solution is the correct and the exact solution for the given problem

Hopeless - a person can be considered hopeless provided she, in a given situation, is able to:

• First of all, receive the problem statement in a clearly articulated manner
• Then, also receive the approach that needs to be used to solve that problem
• And then, also receive the solution to the problem derived using that approach
• But finally, still not understand why that solution is the correct and the exact solution for the given problem and at times, at the end of it, not even be sure of what the exact problem was!

The above five categories are, as stated earlier, very broad-based.

Most of the people would generally fall between the above categories.

The above categorization, however, provides a neat framework to understand how people solve problem in response to a given situation.

Knowing which one you are may provide you deep insight into your own capabilities.

That way this would be quite useful.

So which one are you?