Analyze Problem

Analysis is a useful process for understanding and solving a problem. Figure out what negative events are occurring. Then, look at the complex systems around those problems, and identify key points of failure.

We follow Five Easy Steps to Analyze Any Problem.

1. 1.    Problem: Is there a deviation from expectation?
2. 2.    Evidence: What’s the proof that the problem is real?
3. 3.    Impact: We state the impact the problem is having on our business or department.
4. 4.    Causes: What’s driving the problem?
5. 5.    Recommendations: Simple; just reverse the causes!

Identify Solution

You have identified the problem and understood its root causes. Congratulations!

Identifying solutions is a Two-step process that includes

Generating solutions As in framing the problem and diagnosing it, identifying solutions requires you to combine creative and critical thinking, using inductive, deductive, and abductive logic and keeping all relevant information accessible.

Evaluating solutions properly can be harder than it looks. You’ll need to check your assumptions and manage various biases, such as confirmation bias—the tendency to search for and favor evidence that support our prior beliefs. You’ll also need to question your intuition and remember your limitations.

Choose Solution

At this point, we decide on the best solution byeliminating those that do not meet your criteria. Of course most problems are not this simple. We are frequently find two or more alternatives that meet all our criteria. We then decide which will be the best.

This well be the hardest part of decision making because it causes us to fall into amission-oriented frame of reference. Which alternativeis best for the overall mission? Which will best dovetailwith other ongoing projects? Which pays the mostdividends in the long run?

Plan of Action

Step five is to write an action plan that addresses the problems. An action plan is written so that any employee can do the task successfully alone and is followed much like a recipe. It converts the goal or plan into a people process. It has three essential parts:

Based on the goal the action plans answers five questions - What? When? How? Where? Who?

1. 1.    Lists Resources
2. 2.    Lists Potential Barriers
3. 3.    The example below applies these steps to our sample problem. Some of the steps in the action plan are obvious.

Questions we asnwered after planing.

1. What? - Task
2. When? - By tomorrow night.
3. How? - The written SOP.

Implement

We follow the most effective approach, by far, has been to involve others in the implementation as a way of minimizing resistance to subsequent changes.

We must built Feedback channels into the implementation of the solution, to produce continuous monitoring and testing of actual events against expectations. Problem solving, and the techniques used to derive elucidation, can only be effective in an organization if the solution remains in place and is updated to respond to future changes.