S1 Business Prasetiya Mulya Business

School

PROBLEM ANALYSIS

What’s the best way to define or specify a problem?

What are the “right” questions to ask? How should you go about isolating and

verifying the cause of the problem?

“PROBLEM ANALYSIS”

EXPLAIN A DEVIATION

IDENTIFY

SHOULD - ACTUAL

SPECIFY

IS & IS NOT DATA

INVESTIGATE

DISTINCTIONS & CHANGES

TESTING

EXPLAIN IS AND IS NOT

VERIFY

LOGIC AND REALITY

PROBLEM ANALYSIS

Provides the skills needed to explain any situation in which an expected level of performance is not being achieved and in which the cause of the unacceptable

performance is unknown

ELEMENTS IN COMMON

• Every problem is based on a discrepancy

• Each has its own distinctive characteristics

• Every problem’s cause is related to change

STRUCTURE OF A PROBLEM

DEVIATION

SHOULD

PRESENT

performance

PAST ACTUAL

CHANGE

performance

performance

SHOULD

STRUCTURE OF A DAY ONE PROBLEM

DEVIATION

SHOULD

ACTUAL

PAST PRESENTDAY ONE

performance

performance

Some condition required for achievement of the SHOULD

NEVER HAS EXISTEDor

NEVER AS FUNCTIONEDCORRECTLY

TECHNIQUES OF PROBLEM ANALYSIS

1. IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM (Definition of the problem)

2. SPECIFY THE PROBLEM (Description of the problem in four dimensions: IDENTITY, LOCATION, TIMING, MAGNITUDE)

3. INVESTIGATE THE PROBLEM (Extraction of key information in the four dimensions to generate possible causes)

4. TESTING THE MOST PROBABLE CAUSE5. VERIFY

1. IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM

• We define the problem with the deviation statement or name of the problem

• Contains two elements: 1. nature of discrepancy 2. subject or object affected

• Ask ourselves: “Can the effect of this problem as we have describe it in the deviation statement be explained now?”. If it can, we must back up to the point at which we can no longer explain the deviation statement.

2. SPECIFY THE PROBLEM

A. Describing the Problem:• IDENTITY – what is the problem?• LOCATION – where is the problem?• TIMING – when is the problem

occurring?• MAGNITUDE – how serious, how

extensive it is?

B. Determining the boundaries of the Problem: “IS” and “IS NOT”

“IS” and “IS NOT”: A Basis of Comparison

• Identify COULD BE but IS NOT data• We will be able to identify the peculiar factors

that isolate our problem: exactly what it is, where it is observed, when it is observed, and its extent or magnitude

• Once we have identified bases of comparison in all four dimensions, we are able to isolate key distinguishing features of the problem

3. INVESTIGATE THE PROBLEM• DISTINCTIONS

As the questions “What is distinctive?” (the IS data compared with the IS NOT data) is applied to all four dimensions of a problem, our analysis begins to reveal important clues to the cause of the problem

• CHANGES“What changes are most likely to suggest the cause of our problem?” (when the distinction is appreciated as representing a change – its significance as a clue is greatly heightened)

• GENERATION OF POSSIBLE CAUSES“How could this distinction (or this change) have produced the deviation as described in the deviation statement?”

4. TESTING THE MOST PROBABLE CAUSE

• Testing for cause is a process of matching the details of a postulated cause with the details of an observed effect to see whether that cause could have produced that effect.

• The true cause must explain each and every aspect of the deviation, since the true cause created the exact effect we have specified.

• Testing a possible cause against the specification is an exercise in logic.

5. VERIFY• To verify a likely cause is to prove that it

did produce the observed effect.• Verification is easy to perform once you

have identified a likely cause.• Verification is an independent step taken

to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.• Verification is possible in most problem

situations. What it consists of will depend on the circumstances.

Problem Analysis was not developed with improved communication in mind.

It was developed as a system that would make best use of a people’s natural cause-

and-effect thinking pattern