Ignite

You are in a meeting. Someone checks their Generative AI of choice mid-discussion and announces: “The AI says we just need to do X.” Everyone nods and moves on. Congratulations, you have just solved the wrong problem.

Generative AI has amplified our worst problem-solving habit: jumping to solutions before understanding the problem. It is System 1 thinking on steroids, magnified by the Dunning-Kruger effect: confident, fast, and increasingly wrong. We are racing toward solutions faster than ever, but they are brittle, disconnected, and often miss the point entirely.

This talk will teach you one question that changes everything: “What problem are we actually solving?” It sounds simple. It is not.

You will learn to distinguish symptoms from root causes, map consequences before committing, and slow down long enough to understand what you are actually solving for. This is not theory, it is a practice you can use in your next team meeting.

The best AI prompts, the smartest automation, and the fastest deployments are worthless if we are solving the wrong problem. It is time to stop optimizing for speed and start optimizing for understanding.

Marcelo S. Ancelmo has 23 years (and counting) of IT experience and has done a bit (or would it be a byte) of everything. A good old-fashioned troublemaker, he started his professional career as a