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Problems and Solutions
Tools for Defining Problems
Table 5-1, the problem-definition tool, will allow you to sort out the pieces of a problem.
Sometimes, when we’ve defined the problem, there is one clear, obvious, easy solution. In that case, we should just do it. All too often, though, the situation isn’t that clear. If a problem has multiple causes, we might need to fix one of the causes, some of the causes, or all of them. If a problem is really
Name of Problem:
Date:
Your name:
Company name:
Problem Description
is there a crisis? _____Yes _____No
(If yes, take immediate action, then come back to complete this form.)
What are the symptoms?
(What tells me there is a problem? What do these symptoms tell me about the problem?)
What are the causes of this problem? (List one or more causes.)
What are the consequences of this problem?
(What will happen if you do nothing? List one or more consequences.)
Table 5-1. Problem-definition tool
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Project Management for Small Business Made Easy
expensive to fix, then we might be better off living with the problem and managing it rather than solving it. For example, if we have dandelions in our garden, it might be easier, cheaper, and healthier to weed the garden once a week than to dig up all the dandelion roots or use weed killer. So, instead of solving a problem, we can just bring it under management.
What Problems Are You Living With?
Take a look at your company or your office. Talk with the people on your team. Ask them and yourself, “What problems are we living with? What things do we have to take care of or fix or adjust over and over?” Write down a list of problems that you are living with, titled “Problems Under Management.” Next to each problem, write down the name of the person who knows the problem best. (That’s usually the person who has to fix it all the time.)
For each problem under management, give a copy of the problem-defini- tion tool (Table 5-1) to the person who knows the problem best. Have him or her describe the problem. Then you and your team are ready for the next step, picking a good solution.
The biggest mistake that people make in defining problems is assuming that each problem has only one cause. Usually, a problem will have several causes. If we can find them all, we have a much better chance of defining a low-cost project that truly eliminates the problem.
For example, suppose you run a business installing home theater systems for your customers. Business isn’t going so well and you do a customer satisfaction survey. You find your customers are not happy with your services at all. It would be silly to think that there is just one reason.
Instead, you need to do more research. Each customer had a different experience and there were probably a number of problems, some of which happened once and some of which happened several times.
When you put the list of problems together, you should organize it into three categories:
problems from your own company, directly under your control
problems you can influence
problems you can’t do anything about
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Problems and Solutions
Here is an example:
Problems directly under your control might include “installers didn’t show up on schedule,” “system didn’t work after the installer left,” or “installers were impolite, dirty, or uncomfortable to be around.”
Problems under your influence might include “delivery of components was delayed” or “customer chose incompatible components and we didn’t catch the error.”
Problems you can’t do anything about might include “power failure delayed installation.”
When you come up with a list of multiple causes, take care of the ones under your control first. Through better hiring, management, and training, make sure the customers are totally satisfied with your team. Then approach your vendors to solve problems with supplies and other things that you can influence. Last, create a program that acknowledges the frustration created by circumstances beyond your control and gives the customers some sort of compensation for their trouble.
Once we’ve defined a problem, we can ask whether we want to solve just this one problem or go after a bunch of similar problems all at once. To go after many problems at once, we will need to do more work. We’ll need to understand the root cause of the problem and design a permanent preventive solution.
What is a root cause? As we’ve seen, problems have many causes. If we go one step further, each cause has a cause. And, of course, those causes have causes as well. We can always go back and find an earlier cause. Doing that is the first step in a root cause analysis.
The easiest way to find a root cause is to ask the question “Why?” five times. “Why was the customer dissatisfied?” “Because the installer did not show up on the right afternoon.” “Why didn’t the installer show up on the right afternoon?” “Because the morning installation took all day.” “Why did the morning installation take all day?” “Because the installer was not trained to install the new model of TV that the morning customer ordered.” “Why wasn’t the installer trained before he went on the job?” “Because he was scheduled to go to training the next week.” “Why did we send an installer on a job he wasn’t trained to do?” “Because we don’t have a system for checking specific equipment against installer training.”
When we solve all the
sources of a problem, our work flows to our customer and their money flows
to us.
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Project Management for Small Business Made Easy
After five whys, we’ve found the root cause. And we have our solution: put in a system that tracks training and jobs so that all installers are trained for the specific jobs they are sent out to do.
The Five Whys technique drills down to the most basic cause of the problem. If we solve that problem permanently, throughout the entire company, we usually get the most improvement in the bottom line for the least cost.
From Problem to Project
Once we’ve named a problem and filled out the problem-definition tool, we’ve brought the problem under control, under management. Now, it’s time to plan a solution.
As we’ve said, sometimes the solution is obvious once we’ve described the cause of the problem. But sometimes it isn’t.
To pick a simple example, suppose a piece of equipment is broken. Is the solution to get it fixed or to replace it? That depends on all kinds of things, such as the nature of the problem, the cost of repair, the cost of a new machine, whether the new machine will have better features or functionality or reliability than the old one, and how much money is in your bank account this month.
Here is a process for going choosing the best solution to a problem. The general steps are in italics. This example is worked out in plain text after the italics.
1.Picture the solution. A piece of equipment—old or new—working at the office.
2.Ask if you need information. Do you need to get a price quote on repair? On a new machine? Do you need to learn about newer models? Do you need to see how much money you have available?
3.Ask if you need expertise. Are you and your team qualified to come up with the best solution? Remember that a lot of expertise is free these days—between vendors who will give a price quote at no charge and internet research, we can often get the know-how we need while spending little or no money and little time.
4.List your options. Write out a clear description of each solution. The repair will cost $2,000 and the machine will probably last two more
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Problems and Solutions
years. A new machine costs $6,000 and will probably last five years.
5.Maybe make a decision. If one option is clearly better than the others, then select that one. If not, then put off the decision by including making the decision as part of the project plan. In this case, we might delay the decision until we’ve learned about financing options on the new machine and the money we can make selling the old machine.
Once we have one option or several options and we know how we will make our decision, we’ve turned the problem into a project. Use the next six chapters to plan the project thoroughly and then carry through to success.
Which Problem Do I Tackle First?
Sometimes, we end up under a pile of problems. If we don’t take them one at a time, we’ll never dig our way out. But which one do we tackle first? You have two good choices. You can pick the problem with the biggest payoff first, the problem that has the biggest impact on the bottom line. Or, if you’re feeling really overwhelmed, choose the smallest problem first. There’s nothing like a small success to get us restarted when we’re stuck.
Sometimes, we have to solve several problems to get things working. For example, if a car has no gas and flat tires, we have to fix both problems before we can use the car.
The Lesson: Line up your problems, pick one, and get going!
Conclusion: Making the Solution Work
Once we’ve defined the problem and chosen our solution, we make a full project plan. You’ll learn to do this in Chapters 6 through 12. Then we follow the plan to success, as described in Chapters 13, 14, and 15. When we’re done, we follow through to a complete and successful solution of the problem for our company or our customer.
We can understand success on a problem-solving project by remembering that a business is like a car—when we fix the part that is broken, we know it is fixed because we can use the car, continuing our trip to our destination. Just the same, if we’ve fixed a business problem, then the business should be working again. So it’s not enough just to get a solution; we have to get the solu- tion—and the business—working. Here are some examples of what I mean:
It pays to fix your problems—
and it isn’t that hard.
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If you need better bookkeeping, you can’t just buy some new software. You have to learn how to use it, load the data, and keep your books up to date.
If you buy a new piece of equipment, make sure your workers know how to use it—and use it fully and productively.
New equipment needs to be reliable. Do you know how to maintain it? Do you know how to get it working after a disaster such as a flood or a fire?
When you have equipment, tools, and instructions in place and the training is completed, then your business is running well with your new solution. Congratulations! Your problem is gone and you’re back at work!
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Chapter 6
What Are
We Making?
NOW THAT YOU’VE LEARNED HOW TO DEFINE DREAMS, OPPORTUNI-
ties, and problems, it’s time to pick one and plan out what we are doing in detail to make this project happen. The Project Management Institute calls this defining the scope of the project. Scope planning includes defining all that we are making and
clarifying what we are not making. When we are done planning scope, we should have a clear picture of what we are making. Once we know what we are making, we can define how we will make it—that is, we move from describing results to describing the steps of the process, the tasks that will get the work done.
Scope definition starts with the big picture; then it works all the way down into the details. As we keep planning, we refine very precisely our description of what we are making. When we’re done, we have a complete picture of what we are making and we also have a to-do list—an action plan—that will guide us in doing the work of the project.
Complete, accurate, detailed scope planning is the most important part of project planning. If we describe the scope correctly, then the action plan, the schedule, the budget, the risk plan, the quality plan, and every other part of our project plan will be good as well. If we leave something out of the scope
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Acomplete, clear scope
definition is the beginning of project success.
Project Management for Small Business Made Easy
Many Ways of Describing Project Results
In defining scope, it is good to explain what we are doing in many different ways. Here are several ways of describing a product or service—the results of our project—and how we might make use of those descriptions:
Value: A short explanation of why we are doing the project, of the benefit it will bring to customer and company. This one-sentence justification of the project makes sure we get commitment to the project.
Benefits: A list of the ways that the product or service is good for the customer. This helps with marketing and sales.
Features: A description of what the product or service does. This helps the customer decide if it is right for him or her.
Components: A list of all the pieces of the product or service. This helps define all the steps of work we will do.
A system: This shows how all the components work together. This is useful for testing and also for future repairs or modifications.
A set of steps of work: This is the to-do list for our project. This is the core of the project plan that will allow us to estimate time, cost, and other factors.
The Lesson: A complete description of our project and product will make sense to everyone and give us everything we need to plan a path to success.
definition, then that item will be missing from our budget, our schedule, and everything else—and our project will be headed for trouble.
The Steps of Defining Scope
Here are the steps of defining scope, from the big picture down to the details.
1.Write a basic statement of what we are making.
2.Choose a general approach to how we will make it.
3.Draw and write a detailed description of what we are making.
4.Write a detailed Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
5.Write a detailed action plan.
Write a Basic Statement of What
We Are Making
If you are launching a project to create a dream, fulfill an opportunity, or solve a problem, then you’ve already written this statement using the tools in
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What Are We Making?
Chapters 4 and 5. If you are doing a project for a customer, then you need to take a different approach, called requirements elicitation.
To put it simply, requirements elicitation means finding out what your customers want—in detail. The problem is that they know what they want, but they can’t put it into words easily. So, we have to figure out who our customers are, meet with them, ask questions, and write up the answer. Once we write up the answer, we show it to the customers—and anyone else who cares—and make sure that everyone understands and agrees with what we are doing.
Requirements elicitation isn’t easy. Here are some of the most common challenges:
Some customers simply don’t know what they want until they see it and don’t know what will work for them until they try it out and use it.
Some customers aren’t available. If we are developing a product or service for sale, we don’t even know who our customers will be. We
need to either let a marketing department be a substitute for our customers or develop some kind of a customer focus group.
Some customers know what they want, but can’t define it unless we guide them through the process of describing the product or service, its functionality, and its value step by step.
To define project requirements, we’re going to have to find the customers and guide them through the process of telling us what will be good for them. Here is how to do requirements elicitation in six steps:
1.Figure out who the customers are. If there is more than one group of customers and they have different needs, answer each of the rest of the questions for each customer group.
2.If you can, prepare a prototype, mock-up, or picture of the product so that the customers can look at it, play with it, and tell you what they think.
3.Make a list of questions that you want your customers to answer.
4.Meet with the customers, show them what you’ve got, ask your questions, and write down everything. You may want to meet with them more than once.
5.Write up a clear, detailed description of the product or service, based on your notes from the customer meetings.
Make what the cus-
tomers want, not what you think they want.
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6.Show the results to the customers and get their approval before you launch the project.
Never Start Work on a Project Until the Customers Approve the Plan
It would be a big mistake to meet with the customers once, then write up the plan and get to work. Always show your customers the plan. You might have misunderstood something. The customers might have left something out. A careful review of the plan with the customers is essential to project success.
Choose a General Approach to How We Will Make It
As we discussed in Chapter 5, Problems and Solutions, there are many different ways of solving a problem or building a new product. We might do it inhouse with our own staff, we might hire a consultant, or we might subcontract the entire job. We might fix what we have or we might buy or make something new. The second step in scope definition is to choose our basic approach. We should be careful: if you are not an expert in this area, get some advice before you decide. Choosing the wrong approach can turn a project into a disaster. For example, many homeowners and small business owners think that they can do something as well as a professional can and save some money by doing it themselves. Most of the time, that doesn’t work. If it could be done better and cheaper, a professional would already know how! So it is best to either use the best—hire an expert—or learn from the best before you do it yourself.
In planning the basic approach, you’ll decide whether you’re fixing something old or making something new and whether you’re using your own team, bringing in an expert to work with you, or contracting the job out entirely. In addition, there are two other important decisions to make—you need to define your driver and list the constraints on the project.
A driver is the single, most important direction on a project. Since my company is called Quality Technology & Instruction, quality—making each book and course as good as it can be—is the main driver on most of my projects. Other companies might focus on speed (getting the job done as soon as possible) or cost (doing it as inexpensively as possible). For each project, you choose one driver.
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