Tag: Problem Solving

Categories
Coaching Leadership

Fix the Small Things

Man tying shoes
Photo by Shelbey Fordyce on Unsplash

In any organisation, there’s always a lot of really big things going on. The bigger the org, the larger they are likely to be. They are also going to span over ever longer periods of time, as more people need to be consulted, included in the loop or given the chance for a final review.

Sometimes, we get so fixed on the big things and how difficult they will be to fix, we let the small things go, even though they are causing us pain right now.

I’ve talked before about how we can fix small problems to build traction on solving the big stuff, or get some big improvements from a small fix, but sometimes it’s worth just fixing a small problem that is causing you a minor amount of pain, just to clear that distraction out of the way.

If you get a stone in your shoe, you can stop right away to get it out and stop the irritation. Sometimes you are rushing because you are late, so you don’t stop to make this quick fix. You suffer the pain all the way to your destination, leaving you with some longer lasting damage and maybe even ending up getting there later than if you’d just stopped to make the quick fix.

The same logic holds true in the workplace. Those big things are going to take time, and you should put your consistent effort in to build up the flywheel effect.

Sometimes, you’ve just got five minutes spare. Use that to fix a small pain point. It might just have an outsized effect, and it’ll certainly make you and your team feel better.

Categories
Coaching Leadership

Fix Small Problems

Tools on a bench
Photo by Eugen Str on Unsplash

It’s too easy to get caught up in the big issues, things that are intractable at first glance and that feel like they can never get better.

If you stop and look a little closer, you will find that there’s something that you can do to improve things. It might be a very small step, and it might not feel worth doing, but fixing something small is a great start.

It changes your mindset, you become powerful rather than powerless. It starts to build momentum, powering up the Flywheel of Change. It also marks you out as someone who “gets things done” rather than complaining about the way things are.

Even if you can’t find something that’s tied up to the big problems, there’s bound to be something that’s small but annoying to you and your teams. Set aside a few hours and get it sorted out. Cancel a recurring meeting if it no longer provides value. Fix some spelling mistakes in documentation. Make a template for a weekly update. Delete some tickets that you know will never get done.

Once you’ve started, it’s easier to keep going. You’ll be able to break down some of those tougher problems and make good progress, and each change you’ve made will improve the overall state of play for everyone, so each one is worth doing.

Don’t complain, don’t let overwhelm win, go out and fix those small problems!

Categories
Coaching Leadership

You Don’t Have One Problem Anymore

Photo by Karla Hernandez on Unsplash

When you only have one problem, it’s almost certainly got an approachable solution. It might not be easy, and it might take a while to get there, but you will likely be able to see a path to get to where you need to be.

This can often be the state of play when you are working at the level of a single team. You have one big overriding problem to deal with at a time, you figure it out, then you solve it.

As you take on more responsibility, the chances that you are dealing with just a single problem become vanishingly small. Working across a group of teams, you quickly find that each team has their own problems, whether that’s product, project or people issues. There’s also things going on in the wider world, across the organisation and even inside your own department.

Now you need to work with different strategies. These problems are going to be linked to one another, so working on one could make another worse. You won’t be able to solve them all, so you need to figure out where to put your focus. Things will change, so you need to be ready to adapt to what’s coming.

  • Understand – Look at everything that’s a problem right now. Figure out the Important or Urgent ones, delegate or ignore the rest.
  • Relate – Put together problems that are related. If working on one impacts another then you need to understand that relationship.
  • Communicate – If people feel their problems are being ignored, then they will feel that those problems are unsurmountable. Let them know where the focus is, and why.

Keep going through this process on a regular basis. You’ll solve a few problems, some will get more important and need more focus. Some might just go away!

There’s a lot more that you need to do when working at the higher level. You don’t just have a single big problem any more, and you need to recognise that to succeed.

Categories
Leadership

Work the Problem

Technologists love solving problems, it’s one of the defining characteristics that pulls people into the world of high-tech. When this desire is put towards the right ends, then it’s a powerful force for good. There are some tools and techniques that can keep you on this path, and a few traps to watch out for.

First up, be clear what the true problem is you are trying to solve. Understand what the issue is, consider who is impacted now and what will change once it’s solved. Look at the value in the solution, the costs involved in solving it and the opportunity cost of targeting this vs something else.

Taking time to build this understanding gives a proper frame to the problem. It’ll prevent a couple of the traditional mistakes we can make, things like automating the existing bad process, or only providing benefit to the noisy stakeholders who are demanding a solution right now.

Now, step away from pure technical solutions. If you stay fully in the world of software and hardware, you’ll find you default to solving all problems by just writing code. The longer you do this, the easier it is to drift away from your customers, until all you care about is the minor version of the tech stack and wringing out another micro performance update. You’ll probably place too much weight on getting rid of old software just because it’s built in a slightly outdated way, rather than moving on because it’s no longer serving a purpose.

So, look over the problem again. If you aren’t selling enough of a widget, then don’t immediately jump on updating a feature. Maybe you are not marketing it to the right people, or your copy is out of date. Is it a complex product that has a sales funnel? Can you optimise that? Are people using it correctly or is it too complex? Maybe the right solution is taking away features rather than adding more?

When you look up beyond the purely technical, you increase the overall impact you are able to have. Work with the cross-functional experts in all the disciplines relevant to the problem and you’ll always come up with a better solution. You can be confident that when you break out the development environment and start cutting code that you’ve worked the problem and that a technical solution is the right one.