Bite-Sized Training™ The Mind Tools Career Excellence Club™

Bite-Sized Training™:
Problem Solving
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Bite-Sized Training™ The Mind Tools Career Excellence Club™

Bite-Sized Training™:

Problem Solving

This e-booklet is published by:

Mind Tools Limited

Copyright © Mind Tools 2006-2010. All rights reserved.

Version 1.1

This e-book is protected by international copyright law. It may only be used by members
of the Mind Tools Career Excellence Club™.

If you receive this publication and you are not a member of the Career Excellence Club,
please notify us at [email protected].

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Bite-Sized Training™:

Problem Solving
Problems have a way of making themselves very well known; Solutions on the other
hand, prefer to remain a bit more mysterious. One of the main reasons for this is the
reality that there is often more than one factor contributing to the problem and often the
real sources of those factors are not clear. When there are multiple potential culprits,
hiding in multiple places, identifying the best way to deal with the presenting problem is
mind-boggling.

Choosing the first solution that comes to mind or the easiest one to implement is very
attractive when faced with having to navigate the complexity of the interrelationships that
exist. However, you risk missing the real underlying causes of what is going wrong on
the surface. Without a systematic approach to understanding all aspects of the problem,
you often end up with “Band Aid” solutions that only cover up the symptoms temporarily.
When you don’t drill down to the root of the issue before looking for solutions, the
problem festers and quite often requires massive reconstructive surgery later on.

In This Session…
This Bite-Sized Training™ session focuses on helping you learn the essentials of
identifying the root causes of defined problems. In a Bite-Sized lesson that can be
“digested” in just one lunch hour, we’ll show you how to:

• Define the problem in a way that will help you uncover its causes.
• Identify multiple factors contributing to a problem using Cause and Effect
diagrams.
• Drill down to the root causes of those factors.

By the end of the lesson, you’ll have learned the tools you need to uncover sources of a
problem– the foundation to successful problem solving.

Share your thoughts and experience, or ask any questions of your Mind Tools’ trainer at
the Bite-Sized Training™ forum, by replying to the posting for this lesson. Just go to the
“Bite-Sized Training: Problem Solving – How to Search for Solutions” thread of the Bite-
Sized Training forum here http://www.mindtools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=275.

The Importance of the Big Picture

When you look at any problem there is always more than one contributing factor. Each
factor you uncover suggests many potential solutions. The entire issue expands
exponentially and it is quite impossible to keep all the information straight in your head.
When issues become complex and interrelated like this, diagrams or graphic

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representations of the problem are very useful. They help you to capture the big picture
by forcing you to organize the factors contributing to the problem in a sequential or
otherwise interrelated manner. Preparing your analysis in this way requires considering
all the possible causes of a problem rather than focusing on the one or two most obvious
ones.

Cause and Effect Diagrams

A very effective graphical tool for tracing a problem (the effect) back to its many potential
root causes is a Cause and Effect diagram, developed by Dr Kaoru Ishikawa, an
engineer and professor in Japan. The steps involved in creating a Cause and Effect
Diagram help you to:

• Define the problem.

• Identify the main contributing factors.
• Identify the causes within each of these factors.
• Drill down to isolate the root causes.
• Analyze the problem in detail.
• Identify possible solutions.

These diagrams are often called Fishbone diagrams because they have a spiny look to
them – the contributory factors are the key areas which contribute to the problem, and
the causes of those factors and their root causes are further traced.

Contributory
Contributory Cause
Factor
Factor

Root
Cause Problem
Statement

Contributory
Contributory Factor
Factor

You can see from the example that a Cause and Effect diagram is a method of capturing
many different inputs, which visually prompts you to consider all possible causes of the
problem, rather than just the ones that are most obvious.

Note: An “Effect” can be negative (a problem) or positive (an objective) depending on

what you are looking for solutions to. In our example we will be looking for solutions to
a problem but you can just as easily look for ways to accomplish a desired outcome.

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The best way to become confident with this method of solution identification is to work
through an example. Read the following case study and then we’ll complete a Cause
and Effect Diagram to analyze to the problem that is presented.

Case Study

S & P Office Machines keep finding themselves in a cash flow crunch. They are
looking at ways to avoid this problem in the future and think a Cause and Effect
Diagram would be a useful tool. S & P Office Machines has been in business for 28
years. They have been very successful to date, and contribute much of their success
to the fact that they had many of the same employees from start-up. Two of the senior
salesmen retired in September but the replacements are now doing a great job.

Every year they go through a forecasting exercise where they determine the next
year’s budget on a month-to-month basis, based on what happened in the same
month the previous year. This approach has been quite effective in the past, but this
year they find themselves way below target for the month of December and this is
causing cash flow difficulties. The low sales problem is compounded by the fact that
they had to spend over $8,000 recruiting their two new salespeople. They spent more
than they budgeted because it was much more difficult to find salesmen with office
machine experience than they had anticipated. There was no one in the office to fill-in
so they had to get the new guys up and running as quickly as possible.

This over expenditure on recruiting put a dent in the advertising budget as well, which
probably had a negative effect on December sales as well. Last November and
December they did a massive promotion campaign and there was no money in the
budget to do the same this year. In fact last year’s December sales were higher than
any other month of the year. The success of this campaign was particularly welcome
because it helped to offset the natural decline in sales due to the Christmas season
and the fact that year end was closing in. Companies tend not to invest in office
machines until the start of the year when they have a brand new budget and the
preoccupations of the holiday season make office machines a low priority.

They are looking at ways to make sure this type of significant budget shortfall does
not happen again and have decided that a Cause and Effect Diagram technique to
uncover root causes and reveal potential solutions will help them to do that.

Create Your Fishbone

To start a Cause and Effect Diagram, write your problem (or objective) definition in a box
on the right hand side of the paper and draw a horizontal line (a spine) going into it. This
sets up the “Cause” line and the “Effect” box.

Your Problem Statement:

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What is the problem in the S & P case study? It’s poor cash flow, of course. So write
your problem statement in the problem box.

Tips:
Take some time to define the problem accurately and make sure you are looking at
the real problem and not just a symptom.

When you define your problem as a negative effect you risk getting off track and
trying to justify or explain what happened. Restating the problem as a positive, where
appropriate, can help the team focus more on desired outcomes. In the S & P
example, you could define the problem positively as “Positive cash flow needed”
rather than negatively defining it as “Inadequate cash flow”.

If you are working in a team, gather a cross functional group so that you get the
widest representation of ideas. Your objective is to uncover as many causes as
possible therefore the wider the experience perspective the greater the number of
alternatives.

Appoint one person to be in charge of filling-in the diagram. Use a flipchart or

whiteboard if available. They key feature is that everyone must be able to see the
diagram as a whole and visualize the interrelationships. This person should also be
the facilitator when you start to brainstorm potential causes.

Identify the Main Contributory Factors

Next you start looking at the main contributory factors to the problem. You will use these
to investigate the causes of the problem in more detail.

Here’s a set of contributory factor headings that people use to identify problems.

5 Ms and E
• Man – do the people have the necessary experience, knowledge, and so on?
• Method – are there adequate processes, defined procedures, clear instructions,
and so on?
• Machine – does the machine have enough capacity; is it well maintained, and so
on?
• Material – is the material of good quality; is the supply adequate, and so on?
• Measurement – are the measurements accurate; are the instruments correct,
and so on?
• Environment – are there seasonal issues, economic issues, and so on?

You or your team needs to determine which factors are most appropriate to your
situation. To do this you may choose to pick one of the three groups of factors listed
above; you could also discuss the factors but use an original combination; or you may
want to brainstorm factors that are specific to the problem that you are analyzing.

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Remember, what you are looking for here are high-level categories. You will break
each of these categories down into causes in the next step.

For our example we will use four main contributory factors: People (“Man”), Methods,
Measurement and Environment. To do this we place the factors in boxes and draw
diagonal lines from each of them to the spine to represent the cause-effect relationship.

People Methods

Cash Flow
Shortage

Measurement Environment

Identify Actual Causes

At this point you are ready to identify specific causes.

• Look at each main branch and attach as many causes to it as possible.

• For each factor, ask yourself what causes are contributing to the effect.
• Indicate these causes by drawing lines into the main factor branch.

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Tips:
The most common method for identifying causes is brainstorming because these
diagrams are typically completed in teams.

It is preferable to brainstorm ideas for each factor separately. If you skip all over you
might get sidetracked and not exhaust all the possibilities for each factor.

If there are causes that fit more than one factor, record them under every one that is
applicable. These multiple factor causes are often root causes.

Take 5 or 10 minutes to fill in as many causes as you can based on the information
given in the case study. Here are some thoughts to get your started. You can see how I
completed mine at the end of the lesson.

How do People issues contribute to the problem of not having a positive cash flow?
Answer: New and inexperienced salespeople.

People Methods

New, inexperienced salespeople

Cash Flow
Shortage

Measurement Environment

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Drill Down Further

As you generate more and more causes you want to make sure that you reveal the root
causes of your problem. One of the best ways of doing this is to use the 5 Whys
approach. With this method you start with the high level cause and ask yourself “Why?”
five times in a row. By the end of the fifth “Why?” you have usually drilled down to a root
cause.

Using the 5 Whys technique, as well as some brainstorming on your own, take another
10 minutes to fill in as much detail as you can for the causes you have identified. These
causes may have causes, so go to the lowest level of detail you can.

As well as 5 Whys and Brainstorming, another effective way of identifying the causes
of a problem is the Drill Down technique. To read more about these tools and
Problem Solving in general, visit the Mind Tools Problem Solving Resources page.

Again, I’ve started the People issues for you to follow.

5 Whys:

• Why was there not enough cash coming in?

o Because the sales team was bringing in fewer sales.
• Why were they bringing in fewer sales?
o Because the sales people were new and had had not learned enough?
• Why had the new sales people not learned enough?
o Because the only people who knew the best ways to sell the products had
retired before the new salespeople had learned from them.
• Why had the new sales people not learned from the retiring ones?
o Because the recruitment process took longer than expected and so they
started too late to overlap with the previous sales people.
• Why had there been no overlap?
o Because there was no succession planning.

So here, the lack of succession planning was one of the root causes of why people
issues contributed to the lack of positive cash flow.

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Root causes of Method

Root causes of People problems:
problems: People Methods

New, inexperienced salesmen

No succession planning

Cash Flow
Shortage

Root causes of Environment

Root causes of problems:
Measurement problems:
Measurement Environment

Note: If one branch becomes too complex, simply break it off and continue on
another page.

Analyze the Diagram

The last step when using the Cause and Effect Diagram as a starting point for finding
solutions to problems is to analyze the root causes you have identified and decide which
ones warrant further investigation. Things to look for that tend to indicate where you
should focus your attention include:

• One branch that is more detailed or congested than others. When this happens it
is likely that you will need to look at that source very closely.
• If one of the main categories has far fewer causes than others, this often
indicates that you have not fully investigated this branch.
• If there are lots of categories that have only one or two sub branches, then
perhaps these need to be combined.
• Causes that are repeated under many different categories are often ones that are
root causes and typically should be dealt with first.

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If you are having trouble deciding which cause, or causes, should be given the
highest priority, consider using one of the decision-making techniques discussed in
the Bite-Sized Training on Decision Making Paralysis. Other decision-making
resources including Pareto Analysis and can be found on the Decision Making
Techniques page at MindTools.

Identify Solutions
Once you’ve completed your further analysis you’ll be able to identify the solutions that
you need to put in place.

Key Learning Points

Finding solutions to problems is a complex process and you can quickly become
confused by all the details and interrelated factors. Having a systematic way to analyze
the causes of a problem gives you a solid starting point from which you can start to
generate potential solutions. The Cause Effect Diagram is a very useful tool for this
purpose and the process you go through to complete the diagram can be very insightful.

Working through a Cause and Effect Diagram forces you to:

• Define the problem clearly.

• Identify and investigate main contributory factors that are exerting pressure on
your organization.
• Further detail the causes that are at play for each factor.
• Drill down to the root causes of a problem.
• Analyze the causes you have identified and determine where your next actions
should be.

At the end of the process you have a very good understanding of the problem and a
handful of ideas that can be investigated further and turned into actionable solutions.

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Learning Points and Practice

Note down the key things you’ve learnt and what you’ll do as a result.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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Share Your Bite-Sized Learning

Now go back to the Bite-Sized Training Forum, and share your thoughts, tips and
experience, or ask any questions of your Mind Tools’ trainer. Simply reply to the posting
for this lesson at the following URL:
http://www.mindtools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=275

Further Reading

Great resources to look at include the Problem Solving and Decision Making tools and
techniques that can be found on the Mind Tools website. Go to
http://www.mindtools.com/community/pages/main/newMN_TED.php for links to the
various Decision Making tools and
http://www.mindtools.com/community/pages/main/newMN_TMC.php for Problem
Solving resources.

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Cause Effect Diagram Example

People Methods

New, inexperienced salesmen No promotion campaign

No succession planning Over spent budget

Cash Flow
Shortage

Close to year end

Forecast not alerting management
to imminent cash flow shortage
Close to Xmas
Not enough factors taken into
account when forecasting

Environment No promotion to offset

Measurement
seasonal factors

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