Tag Archives: problem solving

Project Management Problem Solving

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Project Management Problem Solving by Walter McIntyre

I hear the following a lot.  “He (or she) is a good problem solver.” This is a great quality to have, but it is less than half the needed skill.  It is better to be known for preventing problems.  From both a time and cost prospective, a problem prevented is best, because solving a problem typically adds more time and money to a project, than a solid plan to avoid the problem in the first place.

In my current role I manage a project management team with a portfolio of between 40 and 50 projects.  as  Project Management Office team, we keep a list of problems we have encountered and spend a portion of our time each week developing plans to eliminate the problems from future projects.  We address everything from scope creep, to time and cost overruns, to office politics, to known performance issues with specific groups and individuals.

The result has been a decrease in project cycle times, cost and defects.  This, in turn, has increased the volume of projects the group can manage over time.  Remember that successful project management means fulfilling the following:

  • What the customer wants/needs
  • On time
  • In budget
  • Defect free
  • Safely
  • Make a profit

We view each project from a value stream point of view.  We even value stream map projects in advance, and update the map in the middle and at the end of the project. We can quickly tell what went right, and what didn’t, on every project.  Using this information, we can build a control plan for project management.

So, don’t just be a problem solver.  Be a problem eliminator.

Communicating, Diversity and Problem Solving

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In the 1970’s, if you had a problem to solve, you could invite others to your office, write letters or make phone calls to bring minds together to help you. From a practical standpoint, you could bring maybe 5 or 10 of the best minds in your geographical area into one place, for a limited space in time, to synergize together.

Today, thanks to the internet, you can easily bring a million minds together to solve the same problem. These million minds do not have to travel to participate, so they are not on a time table. This is why the pace of change, world wide, is so fast. In fact, the pace of change is so fast, if you were to jump 10 years into the future, you would have the skills and knowledge of a child compared to others who have evolved to that time.

This poses a problem to our society. If the internet can bring millions of minds together, real time, then societies with large numbers of internet literate people will have an advantage coping with the fast pace of change. Additionally, societies that spend their energies looking for a way to work together will leverage these million minds to do great things and solve the un-solvable problems.

We in the United States do not have an advantage in numbers. I have read that there are more honor students in India than there are total students in the United States. The economic ramifications of our disadvantage in numbers of educated and internet literate people should be obvious.

Additionally, in the United States we spend our time looking for ways to differentiate ourselves from each other and from the rest of the world. Our focus is on divisive issues. Instead of celebrating our differences and leveraging our diversity, we try to destroy or eliminate anything that is different. This will be our undoing, if we cannot change.