Asking the right strategy questions – Valutrics

Questions are the spanners that unlock the mind. Here are the kind of questions you should ask yourself– and others.

Understanding the problem
• When did you first sense or become aware of the problem or the need for a decision
• Have you defined the problem or objective in your own words  (Remember that a problem properly defined is a problem half-solved.)
• Are there any other possible definitions of the problem worth considering  What general solutions do they suggest
• Are you clear about what you are trying to do  Where are you now and where do you want to get to
• Have you identified the important factors and salient facts  Do you need to spend more time on obtaining more information  Do you know the relevant policies, rules, limitations, and procedures
• Have you reduced the problem to its simplest terms without oversimplifying it

Towards solving the problem
• Have you checked all your main assumptions
• Out of all the possible courses or solutions, have you identified a shortlist of the feasible ones
• Can you eliminate some of these in order to shorten the list still further

• If no solution or course of action seems right by itself, can you synthesize elements in two or more solutions to create an effective way of dealing with the problem
• Have you clearly identified the criteria by which the feasible options must be judged
• If you are still stuck, can you imagine yourself in the end-state where you want to be  If so, can you work backwards from there to where you are now
• Has anyone else faced this problem  How did they solve it

Evaluating the decision and implementing it
• Have you used all the available information
• Have you checked your solution from all angles
• Are you clear about the manifest consequences
• Have you an implementation plan with dates or times for completion
• Is the plan realistic
• Do you have a contingency plan if things do not work out as expected
• When are you and your team planning to review the decision in the light of experience

You may feel rather overwhelmed by this long list of questions. But you do not have to ask them all every time you are involved in making decisions or solving problems, for some of the questions will already have clear answers. What you should develop are three levels of competence:
• Awareness of problems or the need for decisions – either actual or potential. Have your feelers out, so that you are not taken by surprise.
• Understanding of where you and the team are in relation to the problem or decision. In what phase of the bridge model  are you  Does more work need to be done on analyzing information and defining the problem or decision  Or are you in the business of generating feasible options
• Skill in asking the right questions of the right people at the right time, and being able to test the answers for their truth content. Action based on truth is much more likely to be effective than action based on a faulty
perception of reality.

It may all sound like hard work. You recall Roy Thompson’s words about ‘thinking until it hurts’ and ‘this arduous and tiring work’. Yes, yes – but it is also great fun. It is what life is all about!
there is nothing more satisfying than being faced with a mental challenge and overcoming it. The harder the problem, the more elation you and your team will feel when you overcome it. So resolve to enjoy decision making and problem solving. The more you enjoy something the more of it you will want to do – and the better at it you will get.

Obstacle-type problems account for 80 per cent of the problems that leaders encounter, but you should also be aware of systems problems – the other 20 per cent. If you are a technical specialist, of course, those proportions are reversed and the majority of your working time will be spent on systems problems.
A system is a whole made up of integrated parts. It can be organic (your body), mechanical (your car engine), or a process (your system for billing customers). A systems problem is essentially a deviation from the norm. We can represent it visually by two lines (see the illustration above). The greater the difference between the normal performance (how the system is supposed to work) and the active performance (what is actually happening), the bigger the problem.
The main strategy in systems problems is to find the point of deviation and then establish what caused it. The first aim is to establish the exact time and place of that critical deviation.
What happened  When  How much  Who was affected  Who saw it  And so on. Notice again that the key skill of asking the right questions is in play, focusing on the deviation point on the diagram.