Defining Real-World Problems With the D.I.S. Method: Describe, Inquire, State
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this short course on the D.I.S. method, a three-step framework for turning messy, ill-structured real-world problems into workable definitions. The steps are Describe, where you lay out the situation and stakeholders; Inquire, where you question assumptions and gather missing information; and State, where you write a clear problem statement that can guide further work. The method is domain-agnostic, meant to apply equally to engineering, policy, or business problems. Materials include readings, examples, and exercises that walk through applying each step to sample scenarios, released under MIT's open license for self-paced study. There is no instructor interaction or certificate, but all course materials are free to access and reuse.