Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Time for Problems that are Truly ImportantLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Time for Problems that are Truly Important article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Hard as it may be to walk away once you're aware of it, just because a problem is there doesn't mean you have to solve it. Ask yourself and your colleagues, 'What will happen if we don't solve this problem?' If the answer is, 'not much,' then turn your attention to something more important. If you don't know what will happen, find out before you undertake a problem-solving project. It should be clear to you and everyone else involved that the problem is worth the effort--and expense--to fix it. Quantify the cost of the problem quickly, but as realistically as you can. Include lost opportunity costs as well as real expenses such as staff time to deal with the problem, travel expenses, etc. Use actual costs where you can; estimate where you can't. Then guesstimate what it will cost to analyze and fix it. Write your analysis down, stating all your assumptions explicitly. Get a colleague to verify that your assumptions and estimates are reasonable. Start with a rough 'order of magnitude' estimate. That may be enough to answer the question of whether you should proceed. If it's not clear, especially if the cost to solve it will be high, do a more careful analysis. If it will cost more to fix than to live with the problem, or if the number is even close, perhaps your resources (time, people, money) are better spent on other projects. If you decide to proceed anyway, you can do so with a better understanding of what you're undertaking. On the other hand, if you can demonstrate that the cost of the problem is much higher than the cost of solving it, using estimates based on reasonable assumptions, it will generally be much easier to get the resources you need. You can use your written analysis as a sales tool to help win support for your decision to proceed or not. We have to learn to distinguish those things that are truly important from those that are merely urgent. --Jerry D. Campbell
copyright 2005. Jeanne Sawyer. All Rights Reserved. |
More Articles:1. The Ten Keys to Maximizing Employee Performance By Tom Olson 1. Let people know what you expect. If people know what’s expected of them, that’s what they’ll do--if they don’t know what’s expected, they’ll do something else. Communicate clear and unambiguous performance expectations and hold people accountable for their achievement.2. Be a systems thinker. Remind people of their interconnectedness and that something happening in one area affects all other areas. If people know how what they do impacts on others, they’ll try harder to do it well.3. Keep p… 2. Being a Great Boss By Mike Shannon Are you one of those bosses that people just love to hate? Maybe successful, maybe very intelligent, maybe organized and moving forward but just can't get along with people. Communication and other people skills are as important to the success of your business as your talent, knowledge and entrepreneurial drive. After all, you cannot do it all by yourself and you need good people.I remember being a very arrogant and egotistical program director back in the mid 1970's when my boss called me int… 3. Tips for the Successful Manager/Supervisor By Mike Burstein Learn how to delegate Use sincere praise Seek employee input for change Screen applicants with appropriate testing Create an employee reward/bounty program for new hire referrals Do not hire husband/wife, parent/child teams – if one is terminated, the other may become a problem employee Long commutes usually lead to a disgruntled employee – take an applicants commute into consideration when hiring Set up a complete and ongoing training program Pair up each new hire with a long time employee a… 4. Story Telling With a Purpose For a brief time, I tried to sell life insurance. And, the operative word was 'tried' I can assure you. Although I thought I did a good job on the presentations and scripts provided by trainers, I did not make a single sale. On the other hand, the veteran who trained me didn’t spend much time with presentations or scripts. He simply told stories about clients who spared their loved ones great pain by getting proper coverage. Just as importantly, he talked about the troubles suffered by people wh… |
||||
