Norman Vincent Peale – “How you think about a problem is more important than the problem itself so always think positively”.
I would imagine that the majority of us face problems of varying degrees each day in our work and home life. At work problem solving is a key skill essential for achieving personal or organisational goals and dealing with day to day challenges.
You might be supporting and helping people who are solving problems, solving a problem for an internal or external client or you even might be discovering new problems to solve.
Regardless of the size, complexity, difficulty and nature of the problem at hand, every manager’s role includes finding ways to solve them. Therefore a key factor to your success is to be confident and have an effective process to follow.
With a good process to follow you will be able to solve problems quickly and effectively and reduce the need to go back to the drawing board, due to your prior thinking being thorough and effective.
So here is our suggested problem solving process for you to take:
1. Define the problem
It is essential to define the problem correctly before you start. Sometime we jump to conclusions as to what the problem is without actually digging deeper and seeing a variety of perspectives to find the root of the problem. For example, if performance in a department is poor, assumptions might be made that the problem is with individuals submitting work. However, in reality the real problem might be big workloads or insufficient training.
Furthermore it is essential to provide a problem statement to clearly position the real issue.
To help you do this, use the CATWOE checklist which reminds you to look at all elements that contribute to a problem therefore expanding your thinking (http://creatingminds.org/tools/catwoe.htm).
2. Possible causes
After defining the problem we often jump to looking for a solution, however instead we should be looking at the possible causes and effects first. Use a cause and effect diagram such as this to highlight the underlying causes (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_03.htm).
3. Possible solutions
The next step is to think of possible solutions to the problem. Using the Go MAD 10 possibility areas below to expand your thinking and come up with as many solutions as possible. Don’t prioritise yet, that comes later, and remember to go for quantity.
- What possible resources might be required to solve this problem?
- What could be possible tasks and things to do?
- What could be possible obstacles to solving this problem?
- What possible ways might there be of overcoming potential obstacles?
- How could you possibly communicate the goal to others
- How could you possibly gain the buy -in of others to help you to solve this problem?
- Possible reasons to involve others
- Possible people to involve
- Possible assumptions and self-imposed limitations
- Possible implications and risks
4. Prioritise and plan actions
The final step is to prioritise and plan. You can now look at the solutions you created from step 3 and prioritise and plan actions around them. To help you decide the actions to take you might want to think about weighing up the pros and cons of each solution.
Remember not to fall into the trap of finding a solution but not implementing it. Create a detailed plan of action that holds specific people accountable for implementation.
To discover more problem solving techniques and hear how iCheev our online coaching toolkit can help with problem solving, take a few minutes of your time to listen to this podcast http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/episode-110-how-to-turn-problems/id253188126?i=95397003.