The best problem solvers I know share one habit. They never take a vague statement at face value.
The most valuable problems do not announce themselves. They hide inside vague, throwaway statements that most people nod past.
Our current setup is fine. We have been meaning to look at that. It works well enough. That is a project for next year.
Every one of those is a door. The skill is knowing how to open it, and it is the same skill whether you are sitting across from a client, a stakeholder, or your own team.
Listen for the hedge
Fine. Well enough. For now.
These are not statements of satisfaction. They are statements of tolerance. Nobody describes something they love as fine. When you hear a hedge, there is a gap underneath it.
Find out what the tolerated condition costs
Once you hear it, find out what fine is costing them. Not whether they are happy, but whether the current state has a price.
When it works well enough, what does the enough part look like on a bad day? That question moves the conversation from the surface to the actual pain.
Trace it to the system underneath
The vague complaint is usually a symptom. The work is to trace it to the root and show what it is actually connected to, which is the thing nobody has linked it to yet.
A complaint about how long something takes is rarely a complaint about that task. It is usually a foundation problem wearing the costume of whatever surfaced first.
The vague statement is the opening. What you do with it is the difference between solving the problem in front of you and solving the one that actually matters.