S1 Business Prasetiya Mulya Business School
S1 Business Prasetiya Mulya Business
School
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
What’s the best way to define or specify a problem?
What are the “right” questions to ask? How should you go about isolating and
verifying the cause of the problem?
“PROBLEM ANALYSIS”
EXPLAIN A DEVIATION
IDENTIFY
SHOULD - ACTUAL
SPECIFY
IS & IS NOT DATA
INVESTIGATE
DISTINCTIONS & CHANGES
TESTING
EXPLAIN IS AND IS NOT
VERIFY
LOGIC AND REALITY
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
Provides the skills needed to explain any situation in which an expected level of performance is not being achieved and in which the cause of the unacceptable
performance is unknown
ELEMENTS IN COMMON
• Every problem is based on a discrepancy
• Each has its own distinctive characteristics
• Every problem’s cause is related to change
STRUCTURE OF A PROBLEM
DEVIATION
SHOULD
PRESENT
performance
PAST ACTUAL
CHANGE
performance
performance
SHOULD
STRUCTURE OF A DAY ONE PROBLEM
DEVIATION
SHOULD
ACTUAL
PAST PRESENTDAY ONE
performance
performance
Some condition required for achievement of the SHOULD
NEVER HAS EXISTEDor
NEVER AS FUNCTIONEDCORRECTLY
TECHNIQUES OF PROBLEM ANALYSIS
1. IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM (Definition of the problem)
2. SPECIFY THE PROBLEM (Description of the problem in four dimensions: IDENTITY, LOCATION, TIMING, MAGNITUDE)
3. INVESTIGATE THE PROBLEM (Extraction of key information in the four dimensions to generate possible causes)
4. TESTING THE MOST PROBABLE CAUSE5. VERIFY
1. IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM
• We define the problem with the deviation statement or name of the problem
• Contains two elements: 1. nature of discrepancy 2. subject or object affected
• Ask ourselves: “Can the effect of this problem as we have describe it in the deviation statement be explained now?”. If it can, we must back up to the point at which we can no longer explain the deviation statement.
2. SPECIFY THE PROBLEM
A. Describing the Problem:• IDENTITY – what is the problem?• LOCATION – where is the problem?• TIMING – when is the problem
occurring?• MAGNITUDE – how serious, how
extensive it is?
B. Determining the boundaries of the Problem: “IS” and “IS NOT”
“IS” and “IS NOT”: A Basis of Comparison
• Identify COULD BE but IS NOT data• We will be able to identify the peculiar factors
that isolate our problem: exactly what it is, where it is observed, when it is observed, and its extent or magnitude
• Once we have identified bases of comparison in all four dimensions, we are able to isolate key distinguishing features of the problem
3. INVESTIGATE THE PROBLEM• DISTINCTIONS
As the questions “What is distinctive?” (the IS data compared with the IS NOT data) is applied to all four dimensions of a problem, our analysis begins to reveal important clues to the cause of the problem
• CHANGES“What changes are most likely to suggest the cause of our problem?” (when the distinction is appreciated as representing a change – its significance as a clue is greatly heightened)
• GENERATION OF POSSIBLE CAUSES“How could this distinction (or this change) have produced the deviation as described in the deviation statement?”
4. TESTING THE MOST PROBABLE CAUSE
• Testing for cause is a process of matching the details of a postulated cause with the details of an observed effect to see whether that cause could have produced that effect.
• The true cause must explain each and every aspect of the deviation, since the true cause created the exact effect we have specified.
• Testing a possible cause against the specification is an exercise in logic.
5. VERIFY• To verify a likely cause is to prove that it
did produce the observed effect.• Verification is easy to perform once you
have identified a likely cause.• Verification is an independent step taken
to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.• Verification is possible in most problem
situations. What it consists of will depend on the circumstances.
Problem Analysis was not developed with improved communication in mind.
It was developed as a system that would make best use of a people’s natural cause-
and-effect thinking pattern