It wasn’t long ago I was sitting in a meeting with some folks from a large North American university. The team was discussing an emerging challenge: declining student engagement.
They debated everything—from increasing funding for student clubs to redesigning campus events. Some suggested expanding wellness initiatives. Others thought the solution was better online platforms to keep students connected. Everything they proposed made sense—on the surface.
But something felt off.
I asked, “Have you talked to students about this?” They hadn’t. (Well, they had but in the wrong ways.) So we did.
What we found was surprising. It wasn’t about social events. It wasn’t about technology. The real issue? Students felt disconnected from faculty and decision-making. They struggled to see how their voices mattered in shaping their academic experience.
No amount of campus programming was going to fix that.
That experience changed the way I think about problem-solving. Most challenges don’t exist at just one level. If you only look at obvious pain points, you miss the bigger picture. And if you only look at the big picture, you miss what’s actually happening on the ground.
That’s why I now approach challenges through three interconnected scales of focus
- Macro → The larger environment shaping the issue. These are external forces—things like funding policies, cultural shifts, or societal trends that influence student engagement but aren’t immediately visible.
- Meso → The problem itself. This is where engagement (or lack of it) actually plays out—within courses, student services, faculty interactions, and institutional structures.
- Micro → The underlying details and interactions. This is where we see the root causes—student behaviors, faculty-student interactions, hidden obstacles in the academic experience.
By seeing the whole picture, we get better solutions—not just surface fixes.
Challenges tend to exist at multiple scales of focus; though symptoms may be felt strongly in one.
Why Some Problems Never Seem to Get Solved
Most organizations default to solving problems at one scale of focus because it's the most obvious. But without insight from the macro-level, they might miss external forces reshaping the problem. And without micro insights, they might overlook key behavioural patternsthat drive the challenge.
Example:
A hospital trying to reduce patient wait times might:
- Macro: Look at broader healthcare trends (staffing shortages, policy changes).
- Meso: Map internal workflows (inefficient triage process, resource constraints).
- Micro: Observe specific interactions (patients struggling with confusing check-in steps).
Without all three scales of focus, they might focus on the wrong level of intervention, leading to partial solutions that don’t last.
How to Use "Three Scales" to Address Challenges in Your Organization
- Start by defining the problem: What challenge are you trying to solve?
- Zoom out (Macro):What external forces could be shaping this issue?
- Examine the organization (Meso): How do services, processes, or structures reinforce the problem?
- Zoom in (Micro): What small details or interactions expose deeper issues?
- Connect the dots: How do insights from all three levels shape the right solution?
We appreciate the framework. It's helped us to not just thinking bigger... but think smarter, across all three levels.
In the next post, we’ll explore how these levels apply to North Star Prototypes and why designing the future requires looking at problems from multiple perspectives.
Remember, big problems don’t have simple answers. They live at different levels, influenced by forces we see, and some we don’t. The key isn’t just solving problems, but seeing them fully.
Are you looking at challenges from all three levels—or just one?
Jordan Julien
Jordan (he/him) is passionate about making products better for people, especially those who are often overlooked or underserved. He believes great design should be accessible, inclusive, and built with real people in mind.