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 Retailer's Calendar By Linda Carter The Julian calendar we use to pass the time every day, every week, every month and every year is the one most commonly used by businesses. Its general availability and familiarity make it a natural selection.However, the Julian calendar was certainly not devised with the peculiar needs of the apparel and sporting goods retailer in mind. The seasonal, holiday and special event nature of retailing makes the Julian calendar practically useless for accounting periods.An accounting calendar that … 2. Are you maintaining your documentation correctly? ============================================================Are you maintaining your documentation correctly?============================================================As I've said in many eZines, you must write stuff down.The other day, an interviewer asked, 'How many pages you written?' 'Somewhere around 30,000 pages delivered, not including thousands of draft pages.' 'You must love writing!' 'Not really.' 'Then what...?' 'I don't love writing per se. I love the applications. I love the resul… 3. Muggers in Our Midst - When Rumour and Gossip Pay You a Visit By Philip Lye ‘I heard it on the grapevine’ the old song goes. But the grapevine has the potential to cause your business strife, misunderstanding and ruin! In effect the rumour mill and gossip are dangers you cannot ford to ignore. People who indulge in these behaviours are like muggers – they leave you feeling you have been robbed!Many small business owners and managers are so busy that they fail to take notice of the poison disseminated through their organisation like a cancer silently consuming all befo… 4. Understanding Every Aspect of Your Organization By Andrew E. Schwartz GET TO KNOW YOUR ORGANIZATION: If you don’t understand an aspect of the organization or a procedure within it, ask. If you still don’t understand, ask again. Question until you are sure you understand the topic. It’s easy to feel your questions aren’t sophisticated enough, especially when you work with people who have been doing what they do for years. Start with basic questions like “What does our organization do?” “How does our organization do it?” “Who needs our product?” “Who does what wit… |
||||
