Is "solutioning" a correct word?

My Outlook flags the word "solutioning" as a spelling mistake.

According to Urban Dictionary :

solutioning: A word many business people misuse to describe the process of creating a solution. These people need a grammar lesson and should be fired immediately.

Is the word correct?

Solution 1:

I presume you mean "solution" in the sense of finding a way to overcome a problem. In that case, "solution" is the noun form of "solve". There's no need to take a noun derived from a verb and then derive yet another verb from that noun. You say "We are working on solving the problem", NOT "We are working on solutioning the problem."

If by "solution" you mean a solid mixed into a liquid, then the verb is "dissolve". Again, no need to invent a new word.

If there's some reason why you need to distinguish some method or process of finding solutions, or some specific approach to finding solutions, from simply solving problems, I suppose it's plausible to invent a new word.

But please please please don't tell me that you want to say "we solutioned the problem" rather than "we solved the problem" because it "sounds more professional" or something like that. I hate it when people utilize paradigms inculcating contra-diminutive words for the ostensible objective of maximizing pretentiousness.

Solution 2:

First, this is a specialist term. Much like vocabulary in medicine, engineering, math and sciences, software development, etc. The same term may be used across these domains with radically different meaning. As such it must be noted while this most certainly is an important term in the IT domain, use outside of this domain is probably a mistake.

Solutioning is a commonplace term in IT and IT recruitment. In IT there is the common job title solution architect. A solution architect is someone who provides IT solutions in a particular domain, often software development but there are solution architects in Data Warehouse(DW), Storage, and many other IT domains.

I would define it as the process of creating solutions. The distinction that should be noted is that many issues arise. All programming in a sense is problem solving, but regardless of the specific type of solution architect their ongoing duty is to solve problems. They are not hired to solve specific problems (although certainly quite a number of such would be identified) but also solve future issues. For this reason they describe their work as "solutioning", a term which encapsulates this idea of an ongoing problem solving process.

A further part of the etymology, is the link in software development from mathematics. That is, in software development a piece of software is often refereed to as a "solution"(among developers anyways). Like functions in math, software takes inputs and returns outputs. At the small level this occurs in software functions, at the larger levels in more abstract ways. But the point to take away is that during development you're plugging these systems together, each part complete in it's own right. Each sub-component a "solution" to some part of the problem. The work is software development and solutioning is highly related term, but when we think of the former we think of programming while the later refers to a concern at a higher level. This is why we say the architect performs solutioning, and it is an activity that is nearly exclusive to the domain of IT architecture (at least at the time of writing).

Solution 3:

There is a verb solution meaning ‘To treat with, fasten or secure by, a solution’. There is no reason why it should not have an -ing form.

Solution 4:

There is an actual job title of "Solutioner" in a lot of IT companies, such as IBM. The act of fulfilling their job role is known as "Solutioning". So if it is a made-up word, it is because the job title has brought it into existence.