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. Management of Growth - Just Stick to Your Rules By Hans Bool Your company cannot without growth. And to make this growth possible you need various types of resources of which the human resources are the most important. They determine the way in which the other types of resources like systems and infrastructure are managed. Together they constitute this unique building that is your own company and not the one of the competition.When preparing for this growth, you are offered a myriad number of solutions, methods, intermediary products, advices, etc, to s… 2. Retail Operations - Effective Branch Manager Support and Guidance As a customer how often have you experienced poor service from people obviously unsuitable for a retail environment? As a retail executive, how often have you observed poor performance or unsatisfactory behaviour within your own network of branches? If so, you have probably wondered why branch managers tolerate under-performance or poor behaviour? Anthony Dance has been supporting retail managers in performance management issues for over ten years and believes both the problem and the remedy is … 3. Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges and Solutions By Josh Greenberg Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences between people in an organization. That sounds simple, but diversity encompasses race, gender, ethnic group, age, personality, cognitive style, tenure, organizational function, education, background and more. Diversity not only involves how people perceive themselves, but how they perceive others. Those perceptions affect their interactions. For a wide assortment of employees to function effectively as an organization, human resource pr… 4. Motivating For Higher Performance By Linda Carter Employee motivation is probably the most important single manageable factor for success and profitability of all the facets of specialty store retailing. It is too vital to be handled on a hit or miss basis, depending on the whim or spirit that stirs the store owner or manager from time to time.To be effective, employee motivation must be promoted on a day-to-day, month-to-month basis. It is a function that can and will pay enormous dividends.There are almost as many effective ways of motiva… |
||||
