Developed by Allen Newell, J. C. Shaw, and Herbert A. Simon for the General Problem Solver (1959), and set out in full by Newell and Simon (Human Problem Solving, 1972).
A solving loop that compares where things stand with where they should be, picks the biggest difference, applies an action that shrinks it, and repeats.
When to reach for it
When the goal is clear and the route to it is not, such as working a plan backward from a target or debugging a process.
How it runs
- Describe the current state precisely.
- Describe the goal state precisely.
- List the differences and pick the most important.
- Choose an action that reduces that difference.
- Apply it, check the new state, and repeat.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- Report on a General Problem-Solving Program, RAND paper P-1584 (1958); UNESCO International Conference on Information Processing, Paris, 1959, 1959
- Human Problem Solving, Prentice-Hall, 1972