Problem solving skills such as patterning facts, locating problems, separating problems and solutions, and presenting effective written products are essential to success in the business community. Facts can be patterned using a grid relating a problem's effect at the individual, group, situational, and organizational level. Such a grid tests each solution's ability to solve a problem, for if a solution is inapplicable to the grid or fails sufficiently to account for the key elements in the grid, it must drop out of the problem solving process. To develop an effective problem statement, the patterns of relationships developed from facts must suggest the cause of the problem, the nature of the problem, and the effect or function of the problem. In addition, the problem should be factored more systematically to describe the immediate, the contingent, and the central problem as well as alternate or contributing problems. To separate the problem from the solution, specific criteria for each objective, the problem facts it would be accounting for, and other problem facts that might be affected can be placed on another grid. The presentation of the facts, or the business analysis, should sequence strategy positioning material to develop progressively as a persuasive statement. In each instance, the issue should be related to the needs dictated by the problem to be solved and the use to which the report must be put. (HOD)