SERIES INTRODUCTION: Solving Problems Effectively

Problem Solving Series Introduction

We are doing a series on problem-solving using a six-sigma process called the 5 Whys. If you use EOS®, this is what they call IDS™ or Issue, Discuss, Solve. Using EOS or not getting to the root cause, and knowing how to do so is an art. GCE has found this is where most teams breakdown and struggle to push the business forward. A couple of reasons for the breakdown are either the team goes straight to root cause based upon emotions, or they go straight to a solution. Both are bad, and both are costly.

Let’s look at a scenario of going straight to a solve vs. following the process. The issue or business problem is “Sales are Down” with a small software company. Now imagine a team sitting around, and each person has their own bias. The owner, who is a salesman at heart says, “we just don’t have the right marketing, this product could sell itself if marketing would do more.”

The team agrees and charges forward in spending more money on marketing, changing the website, messaging everything. The company realizes three months later, and there is no improvement in sales. For the sake of this newsletter, we don’t have the time to go through the entire process.

Let’s assume that this particular scenario is tied to a new product launch that isn’t going well:

• Instead of the team getting to the root cause identifying the product issue and solving, the team spends their time and money focused on the wrong problem, Marketing.

• Solving the wrong problem can sometimes hurt you more than it helps.

Over this series, we are going to break this process down further along with sharing a tool GCE created to help teams IDS better along with measure, monitor, and track results.

If you or your teams are not getting to the root cause of your issues, please reach out to us at www.gcestrategicconsulting.com, and let’s look at how we can help specifically, if you are like many companies using EOS and may be self-implementing.