It is an artificial intelligence that roots from the state that is already present working on to the state that is desired. The method of solving the problem involves finding the problem and shaping the problem.
There are various ways on how to approach a problem in order to solve it. It all depends on the nature of the problem as well as the people that are involved. The more rational and traditional approach is by clarifying the problems that are present and analyzing the roots on why the problem became present. Then the alternatives on how to resolve it are identified.
After all these have been done, the individual chooses one solution and implements it. Then he evaluates whether the problem is resolved or not.
Another procedure to resolve problems is the appreciative inquiry. In this approach, the individual claims that the problems are the roots of a phenomenon that is something more complicated than the problem at-hand. When determined which is which, appreciative inquiry also resolves the situation from the past that triggered the problem at the present.
As what is mentioned above, activities that are used to solve problems and to make decisions are interconnected. Therefore problem solving and decision making are two topics that go hand in hand.
In business, supervisors and managers invest so much time and effort on solving problems that arise in the regulation of the company before they make decisions. They know that each decision is rooted from a problem and by making one can have an effect on the whole business.
Consequently, whenever supervisors and managers encounter problems, they react depending on how they see the situation. It may be easy to attack it in such a way that will only involve that problem, but since this is a business, they expect the problem to occur again if they resorted to a wrong decision.
So if you think about it, getting paid big bucks when you're a supervisor or a manager of a company has its setbacks. You will always be ?under the gun? meaning you are constantly stressed and should always be up on your toes whenever a problem is right in front of you.
But problems are not concrete. These can be solved. Here are steps on how to do so.
1. Define the problem.
Do not struggle at this point. If you do so early on, you wouldn't be in the right state of mind to come up with the solution. What you can do instead is to ask yourself (and others) these questions: - what is the root of the problem? How is this happening and how does it affect the whole company?
By defining, verifying and understanding the problem, you can picture what the root is and work from there.
2. Uncover the causes for the problem
You may be surprised to discover that you do not know everything. Therefore, in this procedure, you have to gather the input from everyone who also notice the problem and are affected by it.
After gathering all the input that you need, you can write down their suggestions on how to solve the problem.
3. Identify the approaches on how to solve the problem
Two heads are better than one. Since this is a business, it helps to have people around you who can also pitch in solutions for the betterment of the company. This is also when you study whether the solution you came up with your team was able to eradicate the problem. If not, then you can try another approach.
Creative problem solving is about finding the solutions that might normally get missed. Why are they overlooked? Often it is because we are trapped into a certain approach by the assumptions we are making. When we challenge these "hidden" assumptions, we find that there are many creative solutions that never occurred to us before.
An example will help here, but first a question: Have you ever been in Los Angeles traffic? I have been in bumper-to-bumper traffic, trying to get to the airport at 10:30 at night. If you have had a similar experience, you can understand the following problem.
Joe had an audition for a movie role at eight the next morning in Hollywood, and he lived on the other side of the city. The news of the audition came late, and now - at one in the morning - it occurred to him that he had a problem. It could take as much as four hours to get through the morning traffic, plus he needed some time to shower and get ready. This meant getting up by a little after three that morning.
Two hours of sleep, followed by hours on the freeway. It seemed that this might affect his performance, and this would be his first important role if he got it. His mind started scrambling for solutions. Would taking the bus be faster than driving his van? But he didn't know the bus schedules, and it was too late to learn. He took out a map of the city and started looking for a better way. There might have been one, but it seemed dangerous to guess about routes he wasn't familiar with.
Then he remembered the creative problem solving techniques his friend Steve had told him about. He decided to quickly do the assumption-challenging exercise. He took out a pen and piece of paper and wrote: "I need to drive there," and "I have to take the freeways." Quickly challenging each of these, he had a few ideas, but nothing that seemed to help much.
Then, when he wrote down the assumption, "I need to leave early in the morning," and "I have to deal with heavy traffic." Upon asking if these two assumptions were true, the idea hit him. What if he didn't have to deal with heavy traffic? What if he didn't leave early in the morning, but now?
Quickly he showered, prepared himself, and drove to the audition, arriving by 2:30 a.m. because the traffic was always lighter in the middle of the night. He parked his van in a dark corner of the parking lot, crawled into the back, and set his watch-alarm for 7:40 a.m. He got five hours of sleep instead of two, and freshened up in the bathroom just before the audition.
The Problem Solving Technique
The essence of this technique, as you can see in the story, is to identify all the assumptions that are already being made, and ask if they have to be true. Making a list on paper is a good idea. Otherwise you'll tend to forget some of them. List them, and challenge them, looking for alternative approaches - that's about it.
Suppose you start by writing down a problem like "Generating more income with our business." The immediate and obvious assumption is in the formulation of the problem itself. Do you really want more income, or just more profits? After all, some companies have millions in income with no profits.
Having challenged the idea, you now can ask the obvious questions, like, "If we don't increase income, how would we increase profits?" This might lead to many ideas on ways to reduce your expenses, or to pay less in taxes. Now, lets say you were assuming that the business needed more income - or profits. You challenge this and realize that you actually want more for yourself. This might lead to the idea of borrowing money to buy out a partner, resulting in more of the existing profits going to you.
This kind of problem solving is so powerful and creative because it gets you "out of the box." The box is the usual way of looking at things. Challenge assumptions, though, and you get a look beyond the normal. You often get to a deeper or more fundamental problem, as when a man who thinks he needs a better apartment to rent challenges the idea and ends up investing in a new home. This is a problem solving technique for real life.
Both Mario C Churchill & Steve Gillman are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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