Problem Solving

The problem solving steps
George Polya was a mathematician at Stanford University in the United States. He was famous for his writing about solving problems. He once wrote

Trying to solve problems, you have to observe and to imitate what other people do when solving problems and, finally, you learn to do problems by doing them.

In his well known book called How to Solve It, Polya described the steps to take when solving a problem:
1 Define the problem.
2 Plan the solution.
3 Implement the solution.
4 Look back.

I Define the problem
When required to solve a problem, the first thing to do is define the problem itself We must be absolutely certain that the correct problem is being solved. Otherwise the steps that follow may involve a lot of wasted effort.

For the database problems in the chapters to follow, problem definition consists of two steps:
• Identilfication a general problem description and a clarification of the benefits of an information s...