TECHNICAL WORK
Solutions engineering
8 practices · 4 case practices · 1 free
Help a customer decide whether a solution fits their work.
Finish every practice on this route to earn the “Human skills for solutions engineering” completion certificate. It records that you completed the practices; it is not a professional credential.
The conversations on this route
Each step names the skill it rehearses and why it matters in this kind of work.
A customer’s team left your task board for a spreadsheet
Understand before proposing
Explore a recent workflow instead of steering someone toward your preferred answer.
You have 15 minutes with Sam. Use your notes to choose questions about what happened, and leave out the ones your notes answer or that pitch your fixes.
12 minFoundationsCase practiceSoulful
Selling booking software to an instructor swamped by messages
Connect to a real need
Describe value in the customer’s terms, beyond a list of features.
Noor described her evenings in an interview. Connect your scheduling software to that part of her day without claiming hours saved.
8 minFoundationsFree starter
Writing a budgeting app headline without unproven savings claims
Make a supported promise
Separate a useful claim from a result you cannot substantiate.
Sort your team’s suggested lines against what has actually been tested, then write the headline from what the file supports, not from hoped-for savings.
12 minStretchCase practiceSoulful
A customer asks if your notebook paper suits fountain pens
Discuss whether it fits
Explain where a solution helps and where it may not.
Check what the shop’s ink tests show for Rae’s own pen, then answer honestly, including the drawback, and offer a sample page to try before buying.
12 minStretchCase practiceSoulful
A nonprofit can’t afford your full workshop
Explore the constraint
Ask why a price or condition matters before proposing different terms.
Read your notes from the call, build a shorter session within their budget around what the volunteers need most, and offer it honestly.
15 minDeep practiceCase practiceSoulful
No reply ten days after sending your workshop proposal
Follow through with care
Keep the next step relevant while respecting the other person’s choice.
Dev said they’d take a look. Pass on the venue’s offer of free equipment, then decide when you’ll stop following up.
6 minFoundationsSoulful
Your numbers for Thursday’s client review will be a day late
Report a slip early
Tell the people who depend on a demo or proof of concept what changed before they ask, and when they will hear next.
Tell the team now that your numbers will be a day late, say what that means for Mei and Daniel, and say when you will update them next.
10 minStretchSoulful
A director wants an AI system to run the whole company
Scope a proof of concept
Propose one test built on the customer’s own data, judged against a measure agreed in advance.
Acknowledge the ambition, then propose one proof of concept that plugs into what the factory already has, with a measure and a decision after four weeks.
15 minDeep practiceSoulful
Related reading
What to say when a client asks for one more revisionA reply for when a client wants changes beyond the agreed rounds: sort what is covered, state the price for the rest, and leave a free option.How to quote your price without apologizing for itPut the figure in the first lines of a quote, then say what it covers, what it leaves out and how to accept, with no apology or defensive build-up.How to tell a customer your product is not the right fitWhen a buyer’s need goes beyond what your product does, say so early, name what it does well, and point to a way to check before they pay.Clear copy starts with a promise you can keepHow to turn an exaggerated advertising promise into specific copy with a clear next step, and what headline research does and does not tell you.The research behind these practices
Each practice cites the studies that informed its design and says where they may not apply. These are the sources cited most across the 8 practices on this page; they inform the practices and are not proof that the practices work.
- Simulation-based learning in higher education: a meta-analysis (Meta-analysis · 145 studies, 2020). Cited by 4 practices here.
Chernikova and colleagues pooled 145 studies of simulation-based learning in higher education and found a large overall effect on complex skills, with scaffolding a positive moderator. Learners with little prior knowledge gained more from worked examples and those with more gained more from reflection. Most studies came from medical and teacher education, so applying the results to adult people skills or to this product is an inference.
- Practicing versus inventing with contrasting cases (Experiments · Journal of Educational Psychology, 2011). Cited by 3 practices here.
Schwartz, Chase, Oppezzo and Chin taught adolescents physics ideas with a ratio structure, such as density, using sets of cases that differed in the feature that matters. Students who tried to work out the principle from the cases before being told transferred it better than students told first and then practicing on the same cases. Leetsoul gives the guide first and one case per attempt, closer to the told-first group, so this supports building cases that differ in what matters, not the order; applying it to sorting statements against a case file is an inference.
- The Power of Feedback Revisited (Meta-analysis · educational feedback, 2020). Cited by 2 practices here.
This synthesis examines educational feedback across studies and outcomes. Feedback content and context matter; generic praise and feedback on specific work should not be treated as equivalent.
- A scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision making: evidence from a randomized control trial (Randomized trial · Management Science, 2020). Cited by 1 practice here.
Camuffo and colleagues followed 116 Italian startups for about a year. All received general training, but those taught to state testable hypotheses and test them rigorously performed better and were more likely to change course, without dropping out more. The startups were new ventures, not established firms adding a system.
- Ad skepticism: the consequences of disbelief (Studies · Journal of Advertising, 2005). Cited by 1 practice here.
Obermiller, Spangenberg and MacLachlan found that more skeptical consumers relied less on advertising claims and more on other information. The findings are correlational and concern advertising in general, not claims backed by a specific test.
- An examination of the nature of trust in buyer-seller relationships (Journal of Marketing · survey of purchasing managers, 1997). Cited by 1 practice here.
Doney and Cannon surveyed more than 200 purchasing managers. Trust in the supplier firm and in its salesperson shaped expected future dealings, although after controlling for prior experience and supplier performance neither affected the current supplier choice. It concerns industrial buyers, not small-business owners, and it does not test teaching before selling.
12 more sources are listed on the research page.
Limits
Role descriptions draw on public occupational sources. Practicing these conversations is not a qualification, and a Leetsoul completion certificate is not a professional credential or a hiring signal.
Leetsoul has not shown that these practices improve skill in real life, and the original scenarios have not been independently tested. The sources inform the design of the exercises.
Role descriptions
Try one in your own words
Write your response to a fictional conversation, read the guidance, then decide what you would change. Three starter practices are free; Soulful opens the full library.
Written by Leetsoul. Updated . Scenarios are fictional.