Problem solving/identification

In today’s society being able to identify problems and solve them is perhaps one of the most useful and at the same time rare skills to possess in today’s society. With many people not having yet developed their critical skills it has now become increasingly harder for people to identify when there is a problem and more importantly how to fix it.

If you are trying to identify a problem the first thing to always do is carefully observe. This period is particularly important as it helps you see the current performance or state of what you are examining. Once you have examined the data for a period you will be able to better define the problem and its parameters.

Defining the original problem and its parameters will help you move towards the next step in solving it which relates to identifying the root cause of the issue. In this step, it is often useful to employ the 5 Whys technique in order to find exactly what is causing the issue.

Following the revelation of the root cause of your issue, it is time to start brainstorming in order to come up with potential solutions that would help you solve it. This brainstorming session can be further aided by your researching potential solutions as well as asking people on the ground whether they have any ideas on what would make it easier for them to deal with the issue.

However, this is where you need to not forget the most important step which is evaluating the solutions you come up with in order to determine whether or not they deal with the issue or not. Failing to evaluate them will most likely just result in you being unable to determine what the best course of action will be for implementing the solutions found and what the costs and requirements of those solutions are.