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. Pitching to Employees The senior flight attendant on the WestJet flight was starting the routine safety talk: the bit about flotation vests and emergency exits that we ignore at the beginning of every flight.“If we could have your attention, please, we would appreciate it - in fact we’d be downright shocked,” she said. The passengers and the rest of the crew laughed along with her and then, having captured our attention, she went on with her instructions.That event, on my second flight with the airline, may have been… 2. Improving Patient Sensitivity in Doctors and Hospital Staff By Jose Sanchez COMPANY/ORGANIZATIONA South Florida hospital. The CEO of the hospital saw the need to provide exceptional customer service to differentiate itself from the competition and avoid being acquired.PROBLEMThe hospital was undergoing a series of changes involving personnel, organizational alignment and even an expansion of the property which caused disruption to the entire staff. The attitude of many of the hospital personnel was focusing on the negative aspects of the changes and reflected on reduc… 3. Doing More With Less By Cynthia Kyriazis This is a bottom-line environment.Decreasing the downtime of revenue producing employees is a major concern. Efficiency, effectiveness, productivity gains, lowering expenses and increasing ROI are words we are all hearing more of these days. Yet "Sales and Marketing Management" magazine says that less than half of today's sales forces have ever sold during the type of economic market we are currently facing.InvestmentAside from the obvious investment in training, sales professionals are provid… 4. How to Meet Quality Standards with ISO 9001 By Chris Anderson In today’s hectic business environment, it is vital that we are all on the same page, right? But how do we know if we meet those standards? Business owners and executives can avoid the uncertainty, and that’s where ISO 9001 certification comes in.Standardizing Quality SystemsThe ISO, or International Organization for Standardization, was established in 1947 to develop international standards for everything from electronics to management systems. Having over 13,000 standards currently in place,… |
||||
