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. So Now They Call You "Manager"? By Mark Smock You have worked hard and you have just gotten that promotion you have always wanted and certainly earned. You have never supervised or been held responsible for other’s job performance and productivity. Now what?If you can define answers to these fundamental management questions and truly understand how they can or will affect you in your new group leadership role, you can position yourself to maximize your group’s ultimate productivity.1) DEFINE WHAT IS EXPECTED OF YOU AS A “MANAGER”.• What… 2. Empowering Your Manager By R.G. Srinivasan "So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work." - Peter DruckerManaging is often equated with controls rather than leading and developing a business. The manager feels more comfortable and secure when they are able to put in strict controls on everything that happens in a business organization. This is so especially of Senior Managements where the controls and directing becomes so severe that it erodes any creative freedom for the middle managers to w… 3. What is Lean Six Sigma By Peter Peterka Lean Six Sigma combines the quality improvements that come from using Six Sigma with the speed improvements that come from using Lean manufacturing principles . Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects in any process -- from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service. Lean manufacturing focuses on improving the speed of a process and the elimination of waste primarily by eliminating non-value added steps. Lean Flow and Six Sigma a… 4. Take This Into Consideration Before You Write Your Mission Statement By Andrew E. Schwartz What principles should a company keep in mind when developing a mission statement? Appropriate criteria must be chosen for defining the business. There are several alternatives for defining one’s services: by the products one produces, by unique resources that the company possesses, by a particular strength that the company has, by unique financial measures, or by needs that are met. Anyone who has to draft a mission statement should pretend that he or she is an advertising copywriter. “Tell t… |
||||
