Strategy/ Ways to Solve Project Management Problems

Last updated on 16/12/2021 0 By indiafreenotes

Some problems are small and can be resolved quickly. Other problems are large and may require significant time and effort to solve. These larger problems are often tackled by turning them into formal projects.

This approach defines five problem solving steps you can use for most problems.

  • Define the Problem
  • Determine the Causes
  • Generate Ideas
  • Select the Best Solution
  • Take Action

Define the Problem

The most important of the problem solving steps is to define the problem correctly. The way you define the problem will determine how you attempt to solve it.

If you define the problem as poor performance by the team member you will develop different solutions than if you define the problem as poor expectation setting with the client.

Determine the Causes

Once you have defined the problem, you are ready to dig deeper and start to determine what is causing it.  You can use a fishbone diagram to help you perform a cause-and-effect analysis.

If you consider the problem as a gap between where you are now and where you want to be, the causes of the problem are the obstacles that are preventing you from closing that gap immediately.

This level of analysis is important to make sure your solutions address the actual causes of the problem instead of the symptoms of the problem. If your solution fixes a symptom instead of an actual cause, the problem is likely to reoccur since it was never truly solved.

Generate Ideas

Once the hard work of defining the problem and determining its causes has been completed, it’s time to get creative and develop possible solutions to the problem.

Two great problem solving methods you can use for coming up with solutions are brainstorming and mind mapping.

Select the Best Solution

After you come up with several ideas that can solve the problem, one problem solving technique you can use to decide which one is the best solution to your problem is a simple trade-off analysis.

To perform the trade-off analysis, define the critical criteria for the problem that you can use to evaluate how each solution compares to each other. The evaluation can be done using a simple matrix. The highest ranking solution will be your best solution for this problem.

Take Action

Once you’ve determined which solution you will implement, it’s time to take action. If the solution involves several actions or requires action from others, it is a good idea to create an action plan and treat it as a mini-project.

Using this simple five-step approach can increase the effectiveness of your problem solving skills.

Techniques:

Gantt chart

A Gantt chart helps you visualize the project schedule. It’s a bar chart you can use to understand the various relationships between correlating activities and study their current statuses.

This project management tool can be custom-made to suit your personal preferences and to adequately advise you on how to deal with specific projects. Software versions allow you to manage activities within your defined plan and measure them against time constraints.

This will enable you to create a yardstick to measure the performance of each subtask or primary task within your project, helping you realize existing problems with a mere glance over the progress report. If any assignment is taking longer than expected, it shows that you need to put your attention toward that particular task, or you may be required to redirect more resources to meet with predefined objectives.

Ishikawa diagram

Also known as a fishbone diagram, this is a fundamental technique used by project managers to identify the reasons behind any defects, failures, and unsolicited variations. By showing cause and effect, the Ishikawa diagram can help you design better products and prevent potential factors from bringing about mistakes and shortcomings within your project.

Many software developers and companies use the Ishikawa diagram to perform software testing. Project managers also use it to deal with concerns such as low developer velocity as well as slow resource procurement. This tool is quite adaptable in its basic form and theory, which enables you to use it in many ways.

Root cause analysis

A simple yet powerful process for practical problem solving, root cause analysis is a four-step methodology to identify project troubles. This tool is used to distinguish the root cause from other causal factors so that corrective actions can be determined and taken. By knowing the root cause of a fault or problem, you can choose the most practical solution that meets your specific requirements.

This also helps you get out in front of problems. For example, the goal of incident management is to resume a faulty IT service as soon as possible (being reactive); by addressing an outage’s root causes, you can solve the problem for good (being proactive).