No matter how hard you try to prevent bad things in life, it sometimes seems like you cannot run away from trouble. The question is: how will you deal with it? Whether it’s related to your work life or your personal life, you will always need to find solutions to your issues. This blog shows the simple process, that our consultants leverage for our rescue missions, that will help you become your office hero when trouble knocks on your door.
Step 1: Identify the problem.
The goal here is to define the problem. This is the most crucial and most dangerous part of the process. At this stage, do NOT look for the cause of the problem. This is not to say the cause of it is not important (we’ll get back to it later) but at this step, it’s important to get everyone on the same boat and focused on solving the issue, not pointing fingers. Stay focused on WHAT the problem is. Ensure you have agreement from key decision makers on the problem statement before investing into the next steps.
Step 2: Find a solution (or many solutions).
Now that you know what the problem is, identify a solution. There are 2 types of solutions that you could explore:
- A permanent solution that will resolve the issue for the foreseeable future. While often ideal to go with a permanent solution, in many cases the timeline does not allow for it. The solution proposed must not take a long time to be implemented because when someone faces a “painful” problem, it needs to be solved quickly and efficiently.
- Often, a temporary workaround is preferable to be able to work through the problem for the time being before thinking of a more sustainable solution that can be implemented. Make sure this solution will resolve the problem sufficiently so that people can keep doing their jobs without having to make too many compromises on their current way of working.
This is the point to identify which approach you want to take and the solution you will put in place. A solution can take different forms; it can be a process change, adding more resources, delaying a specific deadline or even replacing an automated process by a manual one, temporarily.
Step 3: Implement the solution
Simply bring the resources (people or material) together and make it happen. Ensure everyone who will be impacted is aware of the situation, the problem and your solution plan.
Step 4: Follow up
Make sure you follow up constantly as the solution is being carried out. This requires you to set deadlines and touch point times (usually every hour or even two during emergencies) for all the people involved in the process. Don’t leave things up to chance. It’s not because you have a solution in mind that you can eliminate all the obstacles that may occur. By maintaining regular communications between all people involved, you’ll be able to avoid most surprises giving you the opportunity to catch critical issues earlier since you’ll detect the problem right away.
Step 5: Confirm the problem is solved
This is a very important step. Once the solution is in place, make sure it works. Run through every possible scenario and validate that the problem doesn’t occur again. If it doesn’t solve the issue, you have to go back to the second step and review your solution. Don’t get discouraged, it’s better to find out it doesn’t work earlier than later. We often say “fail often, but fail quickly” at Big Bang and urge you to do the same. Try, and don’t be afraid to fail, just be responsive and act quickly.
Step 6: Revisit the problem
Once you are sure the solution will work, evaluate constructively what was the cause of the problem and how to prevent it from happening again. Keep in mind that this should be a constructive evaluation and pointing fingers doesn’t help anyone. Instead, look at the steps that led to that issue and try to see if there are things that can be done differently to avoid similar problems in the future.
Don’t forget though, at this point, if you choose to put in place a temporary solution, you should determine the permanent solution and take the necessary steps to implement it. Once you will have dealt with all urgent issues, you should have the time to resolve the problem properly and sustainably.
If you need help solving a problem, you can easily reach out to one of our rescue specialists and we’ll be happy to help you get through your trouble.
