Every quarter, we bring you a management insight from one of our courses. This time, it’s about problem-solving – something we all battle every day!
Dealing with problems is at the centre of what many people do at work every day. Problems can feel frustrating, but they also present opportunities for people and organisations to improve what they do and stay ahead of their competitors and innovate on their offering.
There are many types of problems:
- Large or small
- Simple or complex
- Clear or ambiguous
- Easy or difficult
Everyone in the organisation should learn problem-solving skills to be able to look out for issues and help solve them. Problem-solving entails using certain tools and methods, in a structured manner, to find solutions to problems. The process is a cycle and is iterative in nature- new ideas and solutions you come up with will often present new problems and challenges to solve.
Although there are many frameworks to problem-solving, most of them follow the 5 steps below:
- Identify a problem
- Understand the problem
- Generate alternative solutions
- Evaluate alternatives and select the best solution
- Implement that solution
We’ll focus for now on the first step – Identify the problem.
To help you identify potential problems around you, we recommend you use the Identify a problem-4Cs tool. This tool guides you in reviewing any challenges that your team or company could be facing, exploring how your customers’ experiences could be improved, evaluating what you could learn from your competitors/colleagues and any anticipated changes that the organisation might face which could pose a challenge or opportunity.
Try it out today by clicking here and start diagnosing where the problem could be coming from.
AMI has worked with a range of organisations to help find simple solutions to their complex organisational challenges. If you would like to learn more, get in touch to see how we can help at sales@africanmanagers.org.
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