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Several days ago I had a training for problem solving and decision making. It was a great and important training. Because I think these steps are very important, especially for people who are working.

I believe every people has his or her kind of problems. It could be related with work, family, money, and many more. And that’s why, skill and knowledge about how to solve your own problem is very important.

So these are the steps. Basically, In the simple ways, the steps are consists of six steps: problem identification, root cause definition, solution generation, solution decision, implementation, and result monitoring. Let’s take a brief look of each of this.

Define the Problem

The main problem for defining the problem is we usually jumped into the solution. One of the easiest example is this case:

When I tried to turn on the car, it didn’t work. What was the problem?

Most of the people will says one of these reason: out of gas, electrical problem, or maybe wrong key. Unfortunately those are not the problem. Those things are the causes possible to make the car broken. We miss out in defining the real problem, which is the inability to turn on the car.

I think this always happens in real life. Many people will jump into the solution directly without having a full understanding of the problem. Misunderstanding can lead us to wrong analysis, and wrong decision. So this is the most important step to have. Define the problem clearly.

Diagnose the Problem

After clearly defining the problem, we can try to analyze what are the causes. Is it because of the gas, engine problem, or anything else? In this step we should gather appropriate information to identify it. After have a full look into all evidence, we can define the root causes.

For example, we have a problem of many deliveries to clients are delayed. There are some possible root cause of the problem. It could be out of stock, the transporter, or maybe even the IT system that used to automatically process the delivery. For these causes, we can look deeper. Why we are out of stock? Probably our planning was not good enough, or maybe also late supply. This causes, can be dig deeper, but when the cause is really define a case that can be solved, we should stop on it.

There are some possible techniques to diagnose the problem. Why/Why Diagram, Process Mapping, or Brainstorming are one of it.

Generate Solutions

Now we have the problem and the root cause defined. We can move into the solution things. Sometimes, as soon as we found the root cause, we directly choose the first solution. Sometimes it is good to have a quick solution. But if we want to have the best solution, it is important to finding out what are the options possible for the problem. But it is also possible to have a condition when we cannot found the solution of the problem, because the root cause is very complex and cannot be resolved.

Finding the solution needs creativity. Creativity is not a gift. We just need to use relevant techniques to implement it. You can brainstorm it with other people or use this very useful useful SCAMPER technique.

Beside that, we have to thinyk out of the box. Perhaps you already know the Nine Dots or Cake Cutting Puzzle (find it all in here). The solution of these two problem is easy, but hard to find. Creativity is needed.

Choose the Best Solution

Now after you have all of the possible solutions, it is time to choose!

The thing that important when choosing the solution is, is it giving us a high impact or low impact? How much the effort needed to implement it? Does it have a big hassle factor or not?

The best solution should give us the biggest impact and the lowest hassle possible. It is understandable to drop options that have too low impacts or too much hassle. Why do we have to implement something that is not worth for?

The other technique to see what is the best solution is to see its cost, risk, benefits, and reward after choosing this solution. Compare it each other, and after that it will be easier for us to choose.

Implement the Solution

One of the leader of company that I work now have ever told me this: “I don’t need someone who can plan the solution. I need someone who can implement the solution!”

Implementing a solution is another challenge. Even bigger. Because in this step we have to involve all the stakeholders who will be affected by your idea. It could be your boss, your colleague, or maybe people from other department. There would be a resistance.

The most important thing in this step is the ability to sell the idea. The stakeholders should understand the problem and be sure with the solution. How we convince them? There are many ways, but explaining our analysis about the problem and the solutions, impacts, cost, benefits, and rewards are the most important thing to be included.

Monitor the Progress

The last step, is to monitor it. The end of implementation phase doesn’t mean that there is no more work to do. Monitoring the result is important because we have to make sure that the solution is really correcting the problem and solve the issue. If not, there should be further analysis about the problem. If the problem is really solved, congratulations! The problem is solved!

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So that was the six steps I learned about problem solving. Actually, if you are trying to find about problem solving technique in the internet, there are many variants of the steps. I believe all of the tips will give you same frame of thinking. It should contain steps above. So there will be no problem with the difference.

And that was the end. Since we already know how to solve our problems, what are you waiting for? Let’s start to solve it!