Hello everyone. My name is “Yoshi-san”. This is my memorable first post 🙂 .
As you can see in Profile for my biography, but I’ve been involved in various problem solving in my career so far. In this blog, I would like to post little by little what I have learned so far, hoping that those will be helpful to everyone!
Since this is the first time, I would like to write about the “flow of problem solving” roughly.
Maybe you have encountered situations where you have to solve various problems in your daily work or in your projects. In such a case, the flow of problem solving that should be taken is roughly two stages from “as-is (current state analysis)” to “to-be (future state design)”. In some cases, the “to-be” might be drawn first, but in many cases, the flow would be a bottom-up process from “as-is” to “to-be”.
About “as-is (current state analysis)”
The first thing we do is “as-is”, but in fact, this is where you can show off your skills as a problem solver! Whether it’s your daily work or a project, when you’re solving a problem, there are people who are involved in that aspect together (here we call them stakeholders). At this “as-is” stage, if you can uncover facts that stakeholders “did not know” or “unthinkable”, and then “grab their hearts”, your stock will extremely rise up :). Stakeholder engagement should increase, and subsequent problem solving should be easier to proceed.
There are many problem-solving methods in the world that can be used at this “as-is” stage. In this blog, I would like to share the methods (from famous one to not so famous) that can be helpful for everyone based on my experiences. So stay tuned.
About “to-be (future state design)
The “to-be” stage that follows “as-is” draws the “future state” after the problem is solved. Then, create an action plan to realize the future state, and execute the plan. This is the high level flow.
Drawing a future is also a creative task, so some problem solvers may be enthusiastic about coming up with amazing ideas that no one has ever thought of before (especially in the case of a consulting company, there may be many situations where you feel that kind of pressure). But the keyword for a successful “to-be” is “the key to problem solving exists in Gemba (ground level) !”
In order to succeed in “to-be”, it is necessary to execute the action plan properly, but I think that it is not the problem solvers who carry out the plan, but the stakeholders (especially those at Gemba) in many cases. In such a case, if the person at Gemba does not truly understand the plan, it will not be seriously implemented. In order for the people at Gemba to be convinced, it is important to “involve” them in the stage of drawing the future state. I would like to introduce this “how to get involved” in this blog.
That’s all for this time, and I would like to continue from the next time onwards. Thank you for reading until the end.