Other Case
There can hardly be a situation, where any problem would have one course of action leading to a solution. One must not jump to a conclusion that particular of action would be the best. Such decisions are guided by past results, where a chosen course of action yielded a result. The past cannot justify the present because the situation might have changed. An innovative situation is creating at an optimal solution in a dynamic and turbulent world. Generating too much of alternatives can also be a problem because evaluating each one of them requires time, money and effort to be invested so, the prima facie, alternatives should be evaluated before generating it. Innovation and creativity may be required, looking at the nature of the problem. If the problem is about decreasing market share and one of the alternative is to launch a unique product to beat the competitors. There could be several alternatives to develop a product but keeping the resources within the company in mind would be the right perspective before generating alternative.
One needs to evaluate all the alternatives. Personal judgments are guided by factors, which may be rational as well as extraneous. Limited information, skill and experience acts as detriment for solving problem. However, more importantly value and attitude of person solving the problem play a vital role and prevents from taking most rational decision at every steps of problem solving. The metric or criteria involved in evaluation are important. It should be well decided in advance to employ the techniques to appraise all the available alternatives.
Choosing the best alternative and executing it
This may not be the end of the process because the implementation of the best course of action for solving the problem may require a constant monitoring to see whether desired results are expected from the chosen path or it requires some course correction.