Perform an 8 Step Problem Solving exercise, in an aspect of your own personal life

Goal: Perform an 8 Step Problem Solving exercise, in an aspect of your own personal life. 3 pages, double spaced.

“A Problem- Solving Approach to Designing and Implementing a Strategy to Improve Performance” (Childress and Marietta) as a framework.

Choose a problem with limited scope, and document each step in its own section.

Possible examples;

a)    You repeatedly arrive at the university unprepared for your classes and activities for the day

b)    You have job interview coming up and felt very unorganized for the last one

c)    Your dentist says that she will have to perform gum surgery on you soon if you don’t improve your oral hygiene

d)    After repeated car troubles, you vow that, in future, you will better anticipate issues to protect yourself and your vehicle.

1. Clarify the Problem – pick a problem in your own life, something that you want to change. Remember that problems are positive, since they are opportunities to improve.  Identify the gap between the current state and the desired state.
2. Break down the problem – how can you segment it into different steps?
3. Target setting – set a realistic target for the improvement; show reasons why you chose this target. The target does not need to close the entire gap right away. Suggest timelines for improvement.
4. Root cause analysis – do a 5 whys assessment to identify at least 1 root cause.
5. Develop Countermeasures – create a list of actions that could be done about the situation to address the root cause, and describe them.
6. Deploy the countermeasures – implement at least one countermeasure.
7. Monitor the results and the process – discuss the results of implementing the countermeasure.
8. Standardize successful processes – describe how you will sustain the improvement.