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. Innovation Management IBM Opens Lid On Its Treasure Chest By Kal Bishop IBM, which registered 3248 patents last year, has decided that sharing technology can sometimes be more profitable than jealously guarding its property rights on patents, copyrights and trade secrets (Herald Tribune, April 11 2005).International Business Machines have come to the above conclusion 205 years after the invention of electric light thus clearly illustrating that even the 19th largest company in the world (fortune.com) with a market capitalization on $141 billion (nasdaq.com) is s… 2. Does Your Organization Have a Learning Disability - Disability # 4 - Fixation on Events By Graeme Nichol Disability 4 System what system?Think systems not events.When we first came to this earth it was important to feed ourselves every day, not get eaten by the local saber tooth tiger and, more importantly, grow the population in leaps and bounds. Life was simple, eat or be eaten. This only required the ability to understand each separate event and have a means to handle the event. Learn to hunt and enjoy ourselves. There was no need to appreciate the larger systems at work or be able to connec… 3. The DNA of Motivation By George Ebert It really is about motivation. After all, what impels someone to climb a mountain, or go to college, or save for a car, or learn a new language or anything of a thousand things? What is it that moves someone to action from a position of comfortable stasis? The answer is motivation. Motivation is the process of stimulating you to action. It takes a need, desire or some other impulse and incites a response. Motivation is the high-octane fuel of success and, as such, its vital that individuals a… 4. The Leadership Imperative: Making Your Leadership Your Life By Brent Filson Nearly all leaders I've encountered are underachievers. They're getting a fraction of the results they are capable of. And in most cases, it's their fault. Their failures are the result of the choices they make. For the opportunities to consistently get more results are all around them all the time, theirs for the taking.For instance, to start getting more results than you are accustomed to getting, you simply have to change your mind-set. You should aim to make your leadership your life … |
||||
