Problem Solving

Problems are an Opportunity to develop ourselves. Solving it involves two parts:
1) Creativity – Generate Options
2) Decision Making – Select the best options

Team decision – Ask everyone’s view/help, consider all the potential risks.

• 1. Identify the real problem

What's causing the problem
Knowing the cause is the key – At times there could be more than one cause – and at times we might have more than one effect. Eg. Beach drowning/ high icecream sale – not related but real reason is hot weather.
Get list of possible causes; find the real one and work on fixing it.

1. Asking the five whys

The problems may be like a tree, or a circle . If a circle it is not easy to break the loop. Bad manager will fix the surface problem. Good ones will get into the root cause.

2. The Kepner-Tregoe process
Situation -) Problem -) Cause -) Solution -) Select -) Risk

Find when does it happen and when it doesn’t happen? Try swaping

3. Pareto analysis
80-20 rule. Eradicate 20% problem, will save 80% cost. Find and tackle top ones.

4. Look at the whole system
Book – ‘Why things bite back?’; ‘The 5th discipline’. The illusion of control. Managers are just a cog in the machine. Stand back and try to analyze the system as a whole.
Systems = Feedback loops + Time delays

• 2. Generate Possible Solutions

1. Fast and slow thinking

Intuitive or logical – slowly nibble.

2. Brainstorming

Group brainstorming gets many ideas – write all ideas. Keep the momentum coming. Let go of ownership.
Use both sides of the brains. Some just suggest ideas, and some judge them. Let all do, everything – but in steps- first get ideas from all don’t judge. Then judge all together.

3. Mind maps
Start from middle. Use paper in landscape. Use colour. Use a white board. Use ipads. Helps note making, and explaining to others. Limitation in case you have multiple Causes and multiple solutions. – A picture.

4. Decision trees

Have timelines.

Boost your creativity
Consider reversal
Use adjective
Apply what if scenario
Sleep on it.
Combine variables – create metrics
Talk to other people
Keep going
Develop, silly, fun solutions.
Chunk up or down.

• 3. Selecting the Best Solution

1.Intuition and logic
So, the first principle is that you should think about both head and heart, both logic and your intuition, and that they should agree. If not, you need to do more thinking. One of them must be wrong. So the more you can use both halves of the equation the better. And what about you? Are you a logic person who could maybe give their intuition more of a chance?

2. How to view the options
At least ask yourself, "How do I feel about "what the numbers are telling me? "Could they be wrong?" Or are you more of an intuition type of person who could maybe benefit from doing a few numbers?

3. Rating charts
Put in tabular form and discuss with group. A comparison chart typically has columns for the strengths and weaknesses of each idea .


4. Don't settle for second best
Make decisions – Must haves, Nice to haves,

- Something that often gets forgotten is that choosing between options isn't always the answer. What if none of the options is really good enough? An example of this would be recruiting a person. What if the best candidate is okay? In fact, quite good, but not excitingly brilliant? A friend of mine calls these people the Forty Percenters. Not bad enough to fire, but not really good enough, either. Should we give them the job if we really need someone?

And if the solution that you're considering is missing even one of the must-haves, then it's not good enough and the search must start again. even if one of your candidates has all of the must-haves, they might still not be good enough because they have very few of the additional nice-to-haves. And this is something that you have to decide, ideally before your interviewing process.

5. Risk analysis

It will almost always be the case that the more risky options will have higher payoffs, because you wouldn't consider a more risky option unless it was higher paying.

the easiest way to allow for risk in your calculations is to multiply the value of the expected outcome by the risk. The expected value is the amount you'll get if you succeed multiplied by the probability.

6. Team decisions

The wisdom of the crowd – Better to consult, more people you ask, better answer.
Involve as many people as you can in your decisions, especially if they involve judgment or estimation of numbers. But make sure that they either don't confer or if they do, that you don't get risky shift. Counter this by having a black hat wearer, asking everyone what they think, and having a separate section on what might go wrong.

7. Sensitivity
Sensitivity is the risk that your estimates are wrong, and to what degree that matters.

8. The sunk cost paradox

The time you've put into relationships, the time you've put into projects, the money you've put into advertising and marketing. If it's not working, you should cut your losses now. The correct decision-making process is to think only about going forward starting from now. What's the cost of the time and the money that I need to put in and what's the benefit that I will get out?

Only what will happen going forward is what matters.

9. Framing – subconscious and deliberate
The word framing comes from our frame of reference. We can't help seeing the Sun set from our frame of reference, even though we know the Sun isn't moving, it's the Earth that's rotating really. And in the same way, we look at things from the point of view of ourselves, or our department, or our organization, or our country, and this can bias our decision making and perhaps make us take the wrong decisions.
Look for neutral words.
Always compare options using the same way of measuring them. For example, either looking at the chance of success, or looking at the chance of failing
when we frame options we have to make sure that we don't compare gaining in one option with losing in another, because the losing one will tend to have more weight and especially so if you're a risk averse person

10. Four simple rules for decision making

1) Does’nt really matter: If the decision is very close, then it doesn’t matter which option you choose. – only tragedy is if you don’t choose any. - The two paths that your life will take are going to be different, but both will be fine, so it doesn't matter.
2) Toss a coin but be prepared to ignore: because they're equal, then just get the coin out and do it. - And the weird thing is, that as the coin is in the air, you sometimes find yourself hoping for one of the options. In which case, ignore the coin and choose that. Or, once the coin lands, you find yourself either glad or disappointed, in which case, ignore the coin and choose the one that you've discovered that you really want. If you feel no emotions as the coin spins, or your emotions continue to pull you in both ways equally, then go with the coin.
3) Take the simplest solution:
4) Delegate the decision. - whatever happens, you want them to be motivated to carry out the decision, so give it to them if you're 50/50 about the choice.

11. Consider implementation
Always consider the implementation as well as the solution itself.