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Productivity through Education

October 2010

Five Vital Steps to Analysingand Solving Problems Peter Dillon-Parkin, founder of ABLE Solutions (UK) Ltd

The Challenge

One morning, several people in my company begancomplaining that their computers were losing network access.From past experience, Dave (our head of IT) knew what theproblem was: router malfunction. Our ancient router wouldbreak down like this on a monthly basis, throwing all of ourusers off the network. Luckily, the cure was simplereboot therouter. The reboot would force everyone off the network, butsince our users didnt have network connections anyway, thatwouldnt be a problem.

Dave was about to reboot the router when I noticed thateveryone in the room outside the network closet was stillworking. I stopped Dave before he could cut them off thenetwork. Looking deeper into the situation revealed the realproblem: a patch panel serving one department had failed.

Assessing the SituationWhat I had done was react to a symptom rather thanascertaining the real problem. Later in my career, I learned toapply a ve-step problem-solving process to prevent these kindsof situations.

For example, when working at a factory making belt buckles,I had the job of sending the buckles to an external vendor forhardening. When the hardened buckles were returned, wewashed them in a water bath and got them ready to ship to ourcustomers. As a part of the hardening process, a few buckleswould become pitted and were discarded.

One day, on my way through the plant, I discovered severalscrap containers full of pitted bucklesmany more bucklesthan the few we normally had to discard. Before calling up the

vendor who handled our hardening, I gathered some additionalinformation. I discovered that the incidence of pitted buckleswas always signicantly higher on Mondays. It also turned outthat the pitted buckles found on Mondays had been returnedfrom the hardening plant on the Friday before. Those buckleshad sat over the weekend before they went into the water bathon Monday. Among all the causes that I considered, it seemed

possible that failing to get the buckles into the water bathpromptly was causing the problem.

My next step was to test that potential cause of the pittedbuckles with a small-scale test. The next Friday I ran somebuckles through the water bath before I went home. On thefollowing Monday, the batch that I washed had fewer pittedbuckles and the buckles that I hadnt washed had many more.Then I ran a larger scale test and got the same results.

Additional investigation revealed that:

a) The hardening shop had started offering a discount forprocessing large batches

b) Our manager was taking advantage of the discount

c) The batches usually came back from the hardeningshop on a Friday

d) We couldnt process all of the buckles in these largebatches in a single day

e) Many of the buckles went two days before getting theirwater bath

(Continued on next page)

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Expert Advice from Todays Top Professionals

October 2010

Step 4: Test the probable causes

Dont rush to judgementtreat all possible causes equally anddiscount none of them. For each possible cause, test the causeby asking if it explains all of the primary aspects in Step 2:

What, Where, When, and How. Only the true cause shouldexplain all the aspects (sometimes, a combination of multipleprobable causes will explain the deviation).

Step 5: Veriy the most likely

cause o the problem

Isolate and verify the likely cause using these three tools:

A. Observation

Using your cause as a guide as to what the key factorsare, gather data.

B. Experimentation

Experiment by changing a single factor to see whathappens. Does changing that factor increase or decreasethe level of the problem? Time is one of the factors; that

is, does the problem worsen or improve over time?

C. Confrmation

When you feel that you have veried the true causethrough experimentation, test your solution. Apply thesolution to the full quantity, time, or area that is affected.Then monitor the result. Do things improve and, if theydo, is it by the same percentage you observed in yourexperiment?

If there is no improvement, then you may have found a solutionfor only part of the problem. Go back to your experimentand isolate other factors that affect the problem. If there isan improvement, but it is not as big as you observed duringexperimentation, look for a secondary cause using the sameproblem-solving process. If the improvement is as big as the

improvement observed during experimentation, then congratu-lations, you have solved the problem.

Learning Tree

Management Insights

The Five Vital Steps to Analysing

and Solving Problems

In the real world, you come across the symptoms of problemsevery day. This ve-step problem-solving process will lead youto the real problem and thus a quicker solution.

Step 1: Defne a deviation statement

A deviation statement quanties the difference between the

actual and expected performance of a process or product; itessentially denes the problem. A deviation can be:

Positiveyou are getting more out of somethingthan planned

Negativeyou are getting less out of somethingthan planned

Your deviation statement should be clear and concise. Itshould help you immediately understand exactly what theproblem is. For example:

More pitted buckles than usual

Fewer lming minutes per day

Unexpected monthly cost

Step 2: Speciy the problem

Problems have four primary aspects:

What is happening?

Where is it happening?

When is it happening?

How big is the problem?

Before looking for a solution, rene your description of theproblem by including all of the four primary aspects.

Step 3: Develop probable causes

or the problemThis part of the process reveals clues, not answers. To startidentifying a probable cause for your problem, see where eachof the four aspects is and is notmanifested. For example, youmight note that when you ask, What is happening, that 40%of a product is affected and 60% of a product is notaffected.

Compare the is and is notand ask, What is distinctive abouteach aspect? You will see a set of patterns that point to keypoints about the problem. For instance, are the parts that areaffected processed on one shift while the parts that are notaffected are processed on another shift?

About the Author

Peter Dillon-Parkin is a business analyst, writer, instructor and

founder of ABLE Solutions (UK) Ltd. ABLE Solutions provides

training and consultancy for the public and private sectors. In

addition, Peter has worked in the software, banking and mediaindustries, as well as providing training for NGOs and the military.Peter may be reached at pdillonp@googlemail.com