Step 1 - Assessment

Accurate problem assessment is the most critical step in the effective problem-solving process. During the assessment, a manager gathers all possible information about the problem to determine the real problem or root cause and formulate alternative problem statements. One of the most effective problem assessment techniques is called the “Situation Analysis”.

Situation Analysis (SA) is a problem-solving tool that will help you break a large – even messy – situation down into manageable pieces. These pieces become the problems, decisions, plans and even new problem situations (“messes”) to be analysed.

So, when you have a problem that is big, complex, bulky and has lots of parts and pieces, it is probably the time for Situational Analysis. Issues such as high turnover, low morale, dirty facility or high cost are often called problems. Technically they are not problems at all, but statements about symptoms of problems. And for concerns like these, a good tool to reach for is Situation Analysis.

Click here to view a video about Old Jake.

Let us take a messy situation and examine how Situation Analysis can be used to break it down.

“I just do not understand those leaders”, thought Old Jake, a senior manager with ITA. “Back when I was a foreman, I mean foreperson; an employee took a lot of pride in the fact that he/she was a leader at the best organisation this side of the Mississippi. But now if morale were any worse, I would have to jack my people up with a hydraulic lift. They are grumbling and complaining worse than a bunch of workers who just got an across-the-board pay cut.”

“Now, because I have been here longer than anyone else, the boss wants me to come up with some bright ideas to solve the morale problem. I do not even know where to start on this one. It is a real mess because so many things are causing the situation. Maybe it is because every time there is a dispute between a team leader and a worker, the team leaders get shot down by personnel.”

“Of course, it could be that the team leaders just are not as tough as they used to be in my time. I mean, after all, we used to be called ‘foreman’. We had respect! And it seems like the workers can sense when a foreman, I mean a ‘team leader’ is weak. And then they needle him/her constantly until something blows.”

“The low morale might also be a result of some team leaders not being able to make that big transition from being a worker to being a leader. I have seen several like that. Tom is a good example; he is the most miserable human being I have ever seen. He loved doing what he was doing and was good at it. Then he was promoted to leader, and now he cannot keep his hands off the equipment.”

“Another problem is that there is so much pressure to get high production. A team leader who achieves high production gets a lot of recognition from everybody. But sometimes things happen outside a leader’s control that hurts his/her production. Then we have got a morale problem.”

“I do not know”, thought Old Jake. “Maybe the problem of low morale is caused by the new ‘work team’ program. Delegating authority and responsibility to workers is fine – I am all for it. But it seems to me like the workers really were not ready for all that authority and responsibility. Now the team leaders are having fits trying to get their people to work together as a team, to take charge of their own goals and objectives, and at the same time keep up production. They are having meetings about having meetings! Why couldn’t the organisation spend some of its money on giving the workers some training before dumping a new way of operating on them? It is crazy!”

“What a mess!” sighed Old Jake. “I am usually an optimistic kind of person. But things are not going well. Something needs to change.”

First – Write the Problem Down

The first step in using Situation Analysis is to make the problem statement visible. Write it down!

Low Team Leader Morale

Second – Separate the Problem into its Related Parts

Separating the pieces of a problem allows you to focus your energy on those areas that most affect the initial problem – and at the same time let you see the problem as a whole. At this point, you do not have to analyse or conclude anything. Just jot down as many parts and pieces of the problem as you can think of. In the example, Old Jake would ask himself this question: “What are the things that make me think, ‘we have got low team leader morale’?”

Third – Determine which parts of the Problem are Probable Causes and which are Probable Results

In the third part, decide which of the separate pieces are causes and which are results of causes. To fix a mess, you must attack the causes, not the results. When four people who work for you suddenly quit their jobs, you do have to replace the people. But you do not stop there! In order to fix the cause of the problem, you must find out why they quit. You have not solved the real problem just by replacing the employees. So when you analyse a messy situation, you need to determine the probable causes – and first take action on them, not on the results.

You can indicate a probable cause by drawing an arrow pointing towards the problem situation and a probable result with an arrow pointing away from the problem. Then cross out the “results” and focus your energies on the causes. Here is an example:

The team leader’s grumbling and complaining are probably a result of low team leader morale and should be “axed” out. If a piece of the situation seems to be both a probable cause and a probable result, treat it as probable cause.

Fourth – Set Priorities

Many problems have a number of related causes, some major and some minor. To be effective, you need to devote your time to the major causes that can be changed. With today’s tight schedules, you simply do not have time to do everything. Therefore, fix the things that matter most by making them visible components, determining causes and results – and then assigning priorities only to the causes.

A simple way to assign priorities is to use the categories of “Seriousness”, “Urgency” and “Growth”.

Rate each suspected cause as having a high (H), medium (M) or low (L) degree of (1) seriousness (2) urgency and (3) growth.

Seriousness:

How serious is this cause in relation to the other causes?

• How big is it?
• How bad is it?
• How frequently is it occurring?
• Money-wise, how important is this part of the problem?

Urgency:

• Do I have to drop everything else and take care of this today?
• Can I do it just as well next week?
• Can this part of the problem wait until next month?

Growth:

• If I do not take care of this cause now, will it get worse?
• Will it soon spread out of control?
• Does it have a growing financial impact?

Old Jake finds that he can now analyse his problem fairly easily by using the “Seriousness/ Urgency/Growth” (S.U.G.) system to rate each cause. It seems to work best to rate the “Seriousness” of each cause first, then the “Urgency” and finally the rate of “Growth”.

Here is what his chart looks like now.

At this point, note that Old Jake rates two parts of his problem as “high” in seriousness: “No recognition when uncontrollable factors reduce production” and “Difficulty in implementing the work team concept”. But his urgency rating for these two causes was not “high”, but “low” and “medium”, respectively. You may feel that if the seriousness of a problem is high, then the urgency must be high and thus the growth factor will also be high. But be careful not to allow a high seriousness rating to influence your ratings of urgency and growth. In Old Jake’s case, “Difficulty in implementing the work team concept” was serious to him. But he also felt that the urgency of this cause was only medium and that the growth factor was also only medium.

Likewise, even though he rated “No recognition when uncontrollable factors reduce production” as high in seriousness, he rated it low in urgency. Jake’s management needs to do something about this part of the problem. But realistically, it is not something that must be handled today – or even this week. In fact, it might be better to give this cause some time and solid thought before talking to management about it. Jake wisely rated this piece of the problem as low in growth. Yes, the problem is bad. But no, the problem is not likely to get any worse. It is probably as bad as it is ever going to be right now. Therefore, it has low growth potential.

Fifth – Decide which of the Problem Causes are Problems, Decisions, Plans or New Situations to be Analyse

The final step in Situation Analysis is to analyse each of the major causes of the problem situation as follows:

Problems to be diagnosed: For example, “Difficulty in implementing the work team concept” may be a problem for Old Jake because he does not really know what the cause is. He thinks it might be a lack of worker training. But that is only an assumption at this point. He needs to discover why the teams are not working out. Only when he determines why this is occurring is he ready to take some kind of action to address the problem.

Decisions that must be made: Jake knows why there is no recognition when uncontrollable factors reduce production. And since he knows the cause of this situation, his next step is to make some decisions about fixing it.

Plans to be implemented: Jake also knows why some leaders are miserable as team leaders. He even knows what needs to be done about it. But he feels that determining how to do what needs to be done will require some planning.

New problem situations: that must be further broken down. For instance, team leaders not feeling supported by the personnel department may be a new situation to be analysed, with its own set of causes and results.

After you have analysed your problem using Situation Analysis, you are ready to devote your time to the high-priority causes. The SA tool will not hand you a predetermined solution to your problem. But it does help you with the key task of making the various parts of your problem visible, evaluating each part in a meaningful way and deciding where to focus your energy.

Each priority part of a Situation Analysis can be regarded as an opportunity – an opportunity to do something differently and better.

Click here for a Situation Analysis Work Sheet for you to use to analyse your problem situations.