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. Coaching Skills for Peers: Extending Influence Many people think of coaching solely as a management technique. Although coaching skills provide managers with the means to get business results while creating solid relationships, the value of coaching in other arenas is often overlooked. Utilizing coaching skills is also beneficial when cooperating and collaborating with others, developing influence within the organization, and getting effective business results.Peer coaching is not a new idea, but is not widely practiced. In fact, there are s… 2. Support is more important Customer Support plays a very important rolein expanding business. I'm not going into the details of 'Pre-Sales Support' or 'Post-Sales Support'. Customer support is something based on which a business can move forward. Its not the product or services we sell to the customer but the support that we actually sell. With an example I'm trying to explain this. A customer purchased an Electronic shaver from my online shopping mall. He was quiet happy with the product. The product was a normal produc… 3. The 20/60/20 Rule Of Leadership. Don't Go Solving The Wrong Problems By Brent Filson Several decades ago, a passenger jet approached a Florida airport with the pilot and co-pilot struggling to fix what they thought was a malfunctioning landing gear. The landing-gear light was on, signaling that the gear was deployed; but both men did not hear it actually deploy.As the men sought to understand whether they had a defective landing-gear light or a defective landing gear -- the co-pilot actually taking up a hatch and getting down into the wheel well -- the aircraft kept losing al… 4. Reduce Inventory Shrinkage - Put 2% of Your Annual Inventory Cost in Your Pocket Using "Carrots" The way I hear it, the 'typical' annual rate of inventory shrinkage in the retail industry is in the order of 3 to 5% - let's split the difference and say 4%. 'Industry Experts' (whoever they are...) suggest that of that total inventory shrinkage, 50% is due to external theft; 30% is due to internal theft; and 20% is due to 'messed up paperwork'. Other reasons for business losses, such as breakage, robbery, and vandalism, are separate problems that we're not going to deal with here. Do the math… |
||||
