Kepner Tregor Methodology of Problem Solving

Kepner Tregoe is used for decision making:

• It is a structured methodology for gathering information and prioritizing and
• evaluating it.
• It is very detailed and complex method applicable in many areas, which
• is much broader than just idea selection.
• It is called also a root cause analysis and decision-making method.
• It is a step-by-step approach for systematically solving problems, making decisions, and analyzing potential risks.

Access situation (situation appraisal)

• Identify concerns (problems) by listing them
• Separate the level of concern (importance, magnitude, level of influence)
• Set the priority level to measure seriousness of impacts (influence), urgency and growth potential
• Decide what action to take next (step by step approach)
• Plan for who is involved, what they will be doing, where they will be involved, when it happened and the extent of involvement (magnitude)

Make decision (A choice between two or more alternatives)

• Identify what is being decided
• Establish and classify objectives (main ones, minor ones,..)
• Separate the objectives into must (must to have) and want (nice to have) categories (we have to assign importance factors from 1-10, where 10 is the most important want objective) and assign criterion rating (weights)
• Generate the alternatives (we can do it that way or we can take another way as well)
• Evaluate the alternatives by scoring the wants against the main objective
• Review adverse (harmful) consequences of your corrective steps (risk evaluation, risk assessment)
• Make the best possible choice what to do

See the Upcoming (approaching, next to come) and Potential Opportunity: Solutions

• State the action
• List the potential opportunities O{op1, op2 ,..,opN}
• Consider the possible solutions (e.g. the second one)
• Take the action to address the likely cause/solution
• Prepare actions to enhance likely (possible) effects

Uncover and handle problems (problem analysis)

• State the problem (definition and description of the problem)
• Specify the problem by asking what is and what is not
• Develop possible causes of the problem
• Test and verify possible causes
• Determine the most probable cause (root cause)
• Verify any assumptions
• Try the best possible solution and monitor what will be a situation after applied correctives step

Problem Analysis

Confirm True Cause

• What can be done to verify any assumptions made?
• How can this cause be observed at work?
• How can we demonstrate the cause-and effect relationship (e.g. Current Reality Tree or Ishikawa Fishbone Diagram)?
• When corrective act