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. Risk Management By Sally Jones Risk management is an important element in managing your business. You have a wonderful plan for your business, so you want to protect it against risks.Qualified Advisors Help You Protect Your Business It is essential that you find qualified advisors to help you with the legal aspects of protecting your business. Interview your potential advisors to find a fit in personality, objectives, and business philosophy. Trust your gut feeling; you haven't become successful in your business by ignoring… 2. Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: The Organizational Structure of Our Growing Business By Josh Greenberg This article relates to the organizational structure competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It shows how structural concerns can affect the typical employee workday, as well as feelings towards your organization's management hierarchy and reporting structure. A healthy organizational structure is one that arranges the activities of the enterprise in such a way that they contribute to the goals of the organization. Specifically, this competency looks to see if your emp… 3. Creativity and Innovation Management – Money Doesn't Do It By Kal Bishop Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development … 4. How To Hire The Right Person For The Right Job By John Nicholas Part of good leadership requires skill in the hiring process. Good leaders know that retention of productive employees affects the bottom line as well as morale and growth.Recruiting, training and then terminating someone is never desirable. There are many good candidates you could hire. However, even though they may have certain desirable skills, they may not be right for the job at hand. The key is not just to hire the right person, but to hire the right person for the right job.Taking the … |
||||
