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. Leadership W/O Communication is Like a Gun Without a Bullet-- Imppressive but It Can't Do Anything By Rick Johnson Next to people, communication is the most critical element to success whether you are in a growth mode or you are facing difficult economic times. However, when times are tough, failure to communicate has much greater consequences. Failure to communicate could accelerate failure . Communication is essential to developing trust. Trust is necessary to get people to reach down deep inside and give everything they have under the most difficult circumstances.Colin Powell stated in an interview that… 2. Agendas Make Meetings Productive By Martin Haworth Having an agenda template that works well for you, week in, week out, creates a consistency which gets your people bought into the process. Delivering an efficiency and effectiveness which makes the most of the valuable time you have together. Key points to note are:-CirculateShare your agenda in good time, well before your meeting (with reading material for preview). This gives time for review, preparation and challenge. RolesIn a meeting there are various roles to be taken on from the star… 3. IF YOU WANT TO BE A BETTER LEADER - OIL YOURSELF IF YOU WANT TO BE A BETTER LEADER - OIL YOURSELFMaybe this happened to you before…if you don't add oil to your car or your lawn mower, you are soon going to soon have problems. Why? Because oil is the magic ingredient that reduces friction. In the workplace, there can be tons of friction. As the leader, part of your job is to reduce that friction and keep all the units working together smoothly. One way to day that is through developing a higher level of trust between yourself and those who repo… 4. When Change Is In the Wind...Heads Up! By Marcia Zidle In these days of takeovers and mergers, of downsizings and lean management, chances are that you are going to be caught in a job upheaval at least once in your career. Probably more than once!Change in the wind may come like an invigorating breeze on a hot humid night. For instance, your boss is promoted to a new job and you have to get used to reporting to someone new, who turns out to be even better. But change also can come as a spark before the forest fire, when an outside takeover of … |
||||
