Throughout the course of our lives, we are all members of organizations.  Our membership may come in the form of an occupation or simply in belonging to a like-minded community. A key determiner of success for any organization– whether for-profit, non-profit, governmental, academic, or any other category—is its ability to solve problems. Organizations comprised by problem-solvers are much more likely to succeed (however measured). The purpose of this course is to enhance students’ abilities to identify problems most worthy of solving and to provide them tools to solve them—thus enhancing their capability to be productive members in the organizations and communities in which they engage.

The Course is organized in three main parts.

In Part 1: “Selecting high-return problems from the Universe of Opportunities”, we will first introduce the key framing of the term “problem” as representing an obstacle that must be overcome for an organization or individual to achieve meaningful improvement.  The set of possible problems/opportunities within view at any point of time will be referred to throughout these materials as “The Universe of Opportunities.” In any highly functioning organization, leaders can (and should) be identifying more problems than they have the time and energy to solve. It’s important for a good leader (or individual contributor) to accept this reality and turn their attention toward identifying, and ultimately solving, the problems with the highest potential positive impact.

Two concepts are critical to beginning to manage the “Universe of Opportunities”.  First, bias towards things that you and your team can directly influence. Second, utilize the 80/20 Principle which states that in many settings a large percentage of given effect is attributable to a significantly smaller set of possible causes. (In other words, for any ten uses of your time in a given period, two of those uses will have outsize influence on the results you are seeking to achieve.)

From there we will transition into a description of specific tools that should be helpful in narrowing the Universe of Opportunities.  We will use a journey analogy to introduce a framework known as “Management by Objectives”, which organizations often use to drive linkage between high level enterprise statements of mission and purpose down to individual performance objectives. Once these objectives are clarified, leaders then have a more concrete concept against which to apply the 80/20 principle in their time- allocation decisions.

We’ll then discuss two categories of problems that should receive outsize weighting in any prioritization methodology: (1) Health and Relationships (while these may not appear to be organizational problems, their existence, if unresolved, will almost certainly suboptimize organizations’ results); and (2) Values/Legal/Compliance.

We’ll complete Part 1 of the Course by revisiting the importance of focus.  (Organizations that take on 10 priorities tend to complete none; Those that take on 5 complete one; and those that take on 2 tend to successfully execute both.) We’ll then confront the uncomfortable notion that deploying such focus requires one to say “no” more often than is comfortable— particularly for high-achieving individuals early in their careers.  We’ll explore some practical tips around appropriately declining requests on one’s time in different contexts.

We’ll use an ongoing case study of a highly-stressed manager working their way through a Universe of Opportunity to illustrate these concepts.

In Part 2: Problem-Solver Toolkit, we’ll (finally!) turn to some practical methods that leaders may deploy to actually solve the problems which they’ve chosen to undertake. For purposes of this section, we’ll focus primarily on methods used to solve fairly large and complex problems which arise in every organization (often framed as projects) but the methodology is also sound for smaller scale problems, as well.  These methods will include:

• The Power and Importance of Assembling a Diverse Team;

• Utilizing what’s often referred to as an “A3 Methodology”, or “DMAIC” as a useful system to frame, organize and track problem-solving activities and project planning. While there are a number of “Templates” used for A3 problem-solving, we’ll focus on a fairly typical progression and discuss each of the following components in some depth:
  • Correctly framing the problem statement;Using tools like process-mapping to ensure we understand the problem;Ensuring we are identifying the root cause;Leveraging your diverse team through brainstorming countermeasures and prioritizing those countermeasures through quantitative tools like a Pugh Matrix and/or ease vs impact matrix.;
  • Implementing a robust “Plan-Do-Check-Act” loop to ensure accountability in execution;

In the final segment of this section, we’ll explore the concept of “entropy”— the tendency of all systems to trend toward randomness.  We’ll then revisit the concepts of process documentation and the Plan-Do-Check-Act loop as tools that can be helpful in preventing entropy in areas critical to the organization.

Students’ mastery of these concepts will be evaluated through a team project in which assigned project teams select a problem to solve using the DMAIC methodology. The teams will present three “Gate-Review” presentations over a 3-4 week period during which feedback will be provided on progress. At the conclusion of the project, each student will also prepare an individual reflection paper describing what went well and what could have gone better over the course of the project.

Part 3 will focus on The Importance of Culture in leading a problem-solving organization and specifically what leaders should do to create and maintain a problem-solving culture. We’ll begin this part by discussing the importance of inclusivity as a cultural element necessary to leverage diverse teams and the importance of creating and nurturing an environment where team members at all levels are encouraged and expected to speak up. We’ll explore some practical leadership tips helpful in this regard. 

We’ll then discuss the importance that communication plays in developing culture, focusing particularly upon:

• The importance of clarity, especially in determining expectations as to who will be doing what by when.
• The appropriate use (and inappropriate abuse) of email and other digital communication tools.
• A concept I refer to as “meeting hygiene” and some practical tips aimed at minimizing the risk that meetings waste time.

We’ll then re-visit the concept of process-mapping previously discussed as a problem-solving tool and talk about how leaders in problem-solving organizations rely upon documented standard work as a training tool and a basis from which future improvement can occur.

Leaders who actively promote a culture conducive to problem-solving earn their team’s respect by respecting them. We’ll talk about the importance of “going to the work” for leaders at any level to ensure that they are getting a true understanding of their organization and earning the trust of those at all levels of the organization.

Finally, we’ll conclude this last portion of the course by looking at the importance of focusing upon the “customer” (differently defined in different types of organization) and using the customer’s perspective as a prism through which to view and drive problem-solving opportunities.