Every organization faces challenges, but what sets exceptional companies apart isn’t the absence of problems—it’s their approach to solving them. Indeed, a systematic problem solving process can transform daily hurdles into opportunities for growth. As a result, you can distinguish your business from the competition and build exceptional trust with your customers. In this article, find out the benefits to having a superior problem solving process, how to prioritize problems, and a 4-step approach tailored to your business.
1. The Benefits Of Your Business To Have A Superior Problem Solving Process
Running a business requires identifying and capitalizing on opportunities and minimizing the impact of problems. However, each company has its own personality, mission, competitive landscape, and skill sets. So, it’s important for your business to have a distinctive approach to tackling problems and reaching objectives. Indeed, your choice of what to focus on, and how to do it, will distinguish your business from the competition, build customer loyalty, and enable you to thrive. For specifics, see below for the benefits of having an effective problem solving process for your business.
Benefits of a Superior Problem Solving Process
a. Fix Things That Are Broken.
You need to have processes in place for both you and your staff to identify what is broken and not broken within the context of your business process. For example, do not buy a new printer, if the current printer meets your business needs. Indeed, fix things that add real value to your business.
b. Address Risk.
All businesses manage risk and they should fix problems that can mitigate risk. For example, buy anti-virus software if it has a significant advantage over your current anti-virus software.
c. Improve Performance.
Indeed, you improve your business performance by solving problems that reduce friction in your business processes. For example, you buy project management software to streamline and gain visibility over high-priority, time-sensitive projects.
d. Seize Opportunities.
You fix problems that will give you a competitive advantage. For example, you hire a web developer for your web site to have a superior user experience over your competitors.
e. Lower Stress and Anxiety.
You address things in the workplace that are causing employee stress. For example, you have a team building event to build stronger relationships to increase camaraderie in the business.
See BrianTracy’s Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills – Steps, Processes & Technique for more information on the benefits of having an effective problem solving process for your business.
2. Framing the Problem: What Is Your Business Situation and Strategic Goals?
Identifying and solving a business problem isn’t one-size-fits-all. Therefore to succeed, you need to understand your company’s strategic goals, determine what’s realistic for your business to tackle, and evaluate your current situation. Indeed, this is called framing the problem. Only then can you work on the right problem and make sure it gets solved efficiently and effectively. After all, your resources and time are valuable—you can’t solve the world’s problems! See below for more explanation on strategic goals and determining your business situation.
a. Strategic Goals: Identify and Prioritize Problems Based On Your Strategic Goals
It is crucial that every business has strategic objectives along with an effective problem solving process. Indeed, this will assure that everyone in the organization resolves problems in the context of the corporate goals. Preferably, these objectives are clearly outlined and documented as they provide all employees with guidance on the company’s desired path. Moreover, employees will use these objectives to prioritize efforts, assign resources, and align personnel to stay on target.
Strategic goals are essential for success. For example, the military uses a concept called “statement of commander’s intent” to ensure everyone understands what they’re working towards and how to get there. In civilian terms, the commander’s intent is a way to identify the ultimate purpose and tasks necessary to reach that goal.
“A wise leader must deal with reality and state what he intends,”
Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead
See SmartBrief’s Fixing strategy execution with commander’s intent for more information of the commander’s intent.
b. Know Your Business Situation – The SWOT Analysis.
To set priorities and allocate resources to address problems, it is essential to be aware of your business situation. This is where the SWOT analysis is used. Specifically, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Moreover, it is a method used to assess a company’s competitive status and to craft strategic planning. Consequently, SWOT analysis makes complex problems more manageable. In fact, a SWOT analysis can be used for almost any business problem. For instance, you can use it to analyze product viability, changes to branding, geographical expansion, or an acquisition.
For more information on SWOT analysis and analyzing your business situation, see Investopedia’s SWOT Analysis: How To With Table and Example and LivePlan’s The Best Ways To Approach Problem Solving In Business. Also, for more on achieving situational awareness, see Unvarnished Facts’ article, Organizational Situational Awareness: How To See Remarkably In The World Of Digital Tech and AI.
3. The Four Key Steps Of The Business Problem Solving Process.
Problems in business are slippery and hard to define. It is not like school, where the teacher gives you test problems to solve. Indeed, in business you have to identify the problem to solve. Hopefully, you will pick the right problem to solve. Moreover, problems come up in a lot of different ways. For instance, it could be straight forward where a new product with a defect and no one knows why. Or, it could be a piece of software that does not work after you go through all the basic troubleshooting steps. In some cases, it can even be a perceived problem where an employee thinks there is a problem.
No matter what the business problem, your business needs a standard problem solving process that solves the right problems in an efficient manner. Below is a 4-step problem solving process. At the same time, this process is not necessarily rigid. Indeed, you can change or add steps depending on your strategic goals, business situation, and staff maturity.
a. Define The Problem.
Here you need to gather the facts, not opinion. Also, you need to identify the root cause as that may be the actual problem that you need to solve. Based on this analysis, state the problem specifically – who, what, where, when, and why. Ideally, you also want to describe in detail the end outcome you are attempting to achieve. For instance, you can describe the deliverable or metrics for the success of the problem that you will solve.
b. Generate Alternative Solutions.
Next, it is best to come up with several solutions to the problem as comparing solutions is the best way to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each solution. In many cases, the solution you choose eventually may be a combination of two or more solutions. Obviously, any solution should align with corporate goals and be feasible.
c. Evaluate and Select An Alternative.
Here you compare each solution against a solution criteria. As a minimum, you need to verify that each solution is feasible, you have the resources to implement, and can any risks be mitigated. Also, you need to establish a criteria to evaluated each solution.
As an example of how to evaluate different solutions, use a decision matrix where you list each course of action against a weighted criteria. To detail, criteria could be cost to implement, speed to implement, lower ongoing costs, or best to delight the customer. Also, some criteria will usually be more important than others, so in that case you can double or triple the weight of that particular criteria. Then you give a numeric value to each criteria and added them up, The solution with the highest number is the recommended solution.
“He who wishes to fight must first count the cost.”
Sun Tzu
d. Implement And Follow Up On The Solution.
Once you decide on the solution, develop an implementation plan. To minimize risk, it is always good to implement a pilot test to make sure it works and get real-world experience to refine the solution. For example if you are implementing a new warehouse system, you may start with just one warehouse or with just one product line before implementing the full solution.
Whatever solution you implement, most likely you will need to have on-going support and maintenance for the solution. At least with automation and software, plan that the ongoing annual costs of support will be 20% of the original startup costs. Also, you will need ongoing monitoring and measuring of the solution to assure the solution works and the problem is no more.
For more information and other perspectives on business problem solving steps, see ASQ’s What Is Problem Solving?, SPCForExcel’s Problem Solving Model, and TheHappyManager’s Seven Step Problem Solving Technique. Also, for how technology helps human decision-making, see my article, The Problem-Solving Process: Humans Make Mistakes And Need Tech To Make Better Decisions.
The Problem-Solving Process: Humans Make Mistakes And Need Tech To Make Better Decisions.
Click here to explore the challenges humans have in the problem-solving process. This will include the top 5 challenges that humans and business organizations have with making good decisions. Now, this article is the first in a series on AI Impact On Business Decisions. Subsequently, the rest of this series will explore the opportunities and the challenges we have had in the past with using automation in decision-making.
For more from Unvarnished Facts, see articles on creativity and innovation and decision-making.
Writer and advisor in supply chain technology and operational analytics. Passionate about giving actionable insights on information technology, business, innovation, creativity, and life in general.