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. Manage Communication to Add Value By Robert Abbott Management guru Tom Peters says white collar workers and managers in functional departments need to protect their futures.They have to learn "the difference between doing totally acceptable work and creating very new value...." he notes, in an Industry Week article. In other words, people in departments like Human Resources and Finance need to become entrepreneurial.With that in mind, let's look at three ways you can use communication to add new value, whether you work in a functional departme… 2. The Truth About Performance Reviews By David Meyer Now that it is January, many of you are putting together, or have just finished putting together your annual Performance Appraisals for your staff. Feedback on performance is certainly one of the most critical aspects of personnel development and one that deserves to be taken very seriously. But after 25 years of managing people I am going to finally confess how I feel about the whole process. I HATE Performance Appraisals. I hate giving them. I hate receiving them. Whew! I feel better… 3. Will Your Epilogue Be - "I got all my emails done"? Work life balance is the new Holy Grail; that search for nirvana; the need to find peace and contentment, the desire to achieve that fine sense of equilibrium that we can be happy with.For some people that means not working at all but, for many it means being happy with the amount of hours they spend at and think about work and are equally happy about their none working hours; whether that be time spent with family and friends or time spent participating in sports, music or other hobbies or inde… 4. Your Leadership Style If you want to succeed as a leader, you need to be comfortable with moving around the spectrum of leadership styles. Sticking with just one style means that you become predictable and hence, as a leader, dispensable. It also means that your style of leading may not fit the needs of the team or task. So, learn what the 4 leadership styles are and develop yourself to become skilled in each of them. 1. The Directive Style. The directive leadership style is the style most people equate with 'strong'… |
||||
