Team Problem Solving

It is sometimes difficult to make time to really get to the bottom of problems and issues that are holding your business back, but ultimately it’s time well spent!

To really unlock business challenges and find successful solutions for the short and long term it’s a good idea to make use of a system or structure for problem solving and work with your team openly to find and assess suitable solutions.

Read on to see an example of a one such problem solving approach that focuses heavily on “causes” and “solution” generation, which you can adapt to support your own approach to problem solving and continue to improve your business.

1. Analysis of current performance

· Use the information and statistics you can gather to analyze and discuss the problem.

· What other data could you gather to look at the problem in more detail?

· Discuss all aspects of the problem with colleagues and form an overall view of what’s really happening.

2. Identify likely causes

· From the data you have look closely at the causes of the problem NOT the effects, as it is the cause you need to address!

· There could be more than one cause so look closely!

3. Opportunities for improvement

· List out likely causes.

· Look for likely opportunities for improvement. These are not solutions at this stage, just situations that could be changed to lead to a permanent solution.

4. Generate solutions

· Work as a team to search for solutions within each opportunity for improvement that you have identified.

5. Select solutions

· Select solutions that look most likely to be effective.

· Prioritize each in order of:

o Most likely to improve the situation.

o Most “cost / benefit efficient.

o Most “time / benefit” efficient.

6. Test solution viability

· Test the viability of the solution you choose, ask yourselves, “What could go wrong?”

7. Develop and deliver an implementation plan

· Choose the best solution and develop an action plan