When you are thinking of a problem and the best possible solution, you have to take two factors into account: complexity and scale.

In terms of the problem:

• Complexity: the number of parts of the problem that you are dealing with for an individual or a group of people

• Scale: the number of people who are affected by the problem that you are dealing with.

  In terms of the solution:

• Complexity: the number of parts of the solution you are offering to deal with a problem

• Scale: the number of people who would benefit from the solution you are offering.

  If you wish to be persuasive, then what you want to do is to tackle a problem that is low in complexity but high in scale; by the same token, you want a solution that is simple in complexity but high in scale, meaning you solve one specific problem, and you do it well for as many people as possible.

  Example: The problem is that there is a lack of food delivery service on campus.

  Let's evaluate this problem:

• Complexity: there are only two specific groups of people who are affected: (1) students who live on campus and (2) staff members who work on campus. (i.e. 2 parts)

• Scale: there are over 8,700 students who live on campus, and thousands of staff members who work full time on campus.

  This would be a good problem to tackle because of its low complexity, yet a good solution would be scalable to affect many people.

  Now, we can think of a possible solution for this problem:

  Example:

  To solve the problem of the lack of food delivery services on campus, we should set up more restaurants around campus and require restaurants to operate for longer hours.

  Let's evaluate this particular solution:

• Complexity: if we are opening for longer hours, then we are in fact requiring too many other people to contribute, including the university, restaurant owners, restaurant workers, students and staff members (since they still need to walk to the restaurants). There is also many different kinds of resources involved. There are too many parts in this solution.

• Scale: how many new restaurants can a university open realistically? Given the scarcity of land as well as strict zoning requirements and business interests, the university will not be able to open more than a handful of restaurants. This solution, therefore, is not scalable.

  On the other hand, how about this example:

  Example:

  To solve the problem of the lack of food delivery services on campus, we should coordinate students to deliver food around the campus.

  In this case:

• Complexity: while a one-off method will need to be developed to coordinate the students, there is no other new resource involve. Students are already all around campus, and they can use the existing campus shuttle bus system to deliver food. Therefore, the complexity is low. There is only one new part to the solution, a method of coordination.

• Scale: the act of a student delivering food from a campus canteen or restaurant to another part of the campus is a simple act that can be repeated not only by the same student, but by many other students on campus. Hence, the scale is high.

  Since the solution is low in complexity and high in scale, this would be considered as a good solution.