These bottom line values are the big three, but there are a few other outcomes that are less obvious and, in some ways, equally valuable:
4. Increased Staff Morale and Commitment
Introducing structured problem solving makes a difference to how people feel about their work, in at least two ways:
• Knowing how to approach a problem – even just knowing where to start (define the problem statement, for example) – adds to confidence and reduces stress when confronted with something going wrong. Giving these skills to staff reaps rewards quickly and permanently, with positive impacts on morale.
• Staff feel more committed when they know they can raise a problem through an established channel and that they will be heard. It is a respectful way to treat the experts you work with and they appreciate it. Acknowledging their contribution adds to the beneficial effect.
Of course, solving problems is also very satisfying, as well as a lot of fun, so why wouldn’t you want to get involved?
5. Collaboration Becomes the Normal Behaviour
I have seen this several times: Getting engaged in problem solving allows people to cross boundaries between silos and even organisations (think vendors and partners, but also customer organisations) and work together collaboratively.
People comment on this – ‘You know, I never had much to do with the infrastructure teams until we got together to work on the latency problem. They really know their stuff. That turned out to be a lot of fun. I was amazed at how fast we got to the bottom of the issue.’ This is a real quote from an application support lead in a major global organisation that I worked with.
The CTO of a major European bank commented on how much more collaboration he was seeing after we had been running problems properly for eighteen months. Even vendors were opening up and getting more engaged.
Problem solving encourages collaboration because it works best when done as a group effort – a range of experts with different skills are more effective at solving problems than an individual on their own or a group of people all with the same knowledge and skills. To be effective, you have to bring people together.
Recently I did some work in New Zealand. At the end of the session, one of the leaders pointed out that the problem was solved because people who do not normally work together or even communicate were all in the same room for the first time. Seeing the problem from different perspectives at the same time made the difference.
So, improved collaboration is an unexpected but very welcome side effect of problem management.
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