Every day, each one of us are confronted with some situations which
needs solution. Someone misses the bus to his office, someone suddenly
falls sick, someone has some other problem.These problems are so common
that they are treated as routine. Such things get solved each day, and
life goes on.
But in life, all problems are not as simple as the ones mentioned.
Imagine the loss of life of someone whom we love and care for, huge
financial losses leading to adverse living conditions, loss of
employment, deterioration of health and so on. These are difficult to
face and makes us clueless about “what next”. Truly these are real
problems of life. Thus, a problem maybe defined as a situation which is
either confusing or that shatters us. “Problem solving” is what we do,
when we don’t understand what to do. It involves a process of working
through the details of a problem to arrive at the solution. Solving
involves both analytical and creative skills. During such situations,
the first thing that we have to do is to recognize that there is a
problem and accept it. Living in denial and dodging things makes the
solution more difficult and distant. Occasionally, there maybe problems
for which time holds the solution. This does not mean that we should
sleep over our problems.
In academics at school/college, problem solving is part of both
teaching and assessment. Be it problem solving in physics, maths or
engineering, the benefits not only relate to developing expertise in
domain, but also builds the general capability of problem solving in
handling day to day issues. The solution sometimes maybe very creative.
Children are generally very creative. They can do out of the box
thinking too which is important in problem solving. It is important to
nurture problem solving skills from a very young age. Here is an
interesting story to illustrate the same.
A professional lady was on a “work from home” mode on a particular day.
She was very busy working on her computer but her 5 year old daughter
kept disturbing her. To keep her daughter busy for a while, the mother
found a map of the world printed in a magazine.The mother quickly pulled
out the page and tore it into several pieces. She then gave it to her
daughter and asked her to put the map together. The daughter was happy
and went to her room. The mother was happy that she could work
peacefully for another 30 minutes as that was the time needed to put the
pieces together. The daughter came back running in 5 minutes and
announced that she finished the puzzle. The mother was surprised! She
asked her daughter how she was able to put the pieces together so fast.
The daughter replied “It was very simple Amma. The other side of the map
was the picture of a lady’s face. I just put the picture of the face in
place.”
Life’s problems may not necessarily be confined to self and family.
Problems may be at school, workplace or the neighbor hood. Each problem
maybe unique and its solution too. Though there is no standard method to
solve all problems, the following steps generally help in arriving at
a solution.
The first step is the description or the definition of the problem.
This stage consists of asking the right questions and collecting and organizing all information relating to the problem. This is followed by
the definition of the end goal.
The second step would be to plan a solution. This can be done by
breaking down the big problem into smaller ones which are easy to solve.
This stage also involves assessing various possible solutions.
The third step is to implement the plan and continuously asses the progress.
The fourth step would be to check for the right result or the end goal.
A feedback at this stage would also help in fine-tuning wherever
required.
When one has a problem, it is better to take help from people who are
directly affected by the problem as they understand it better than
someone external to the problem. The story below illustrates the same.
Once a toothpaste factory had a unique problem. The factory would
manufacture the paste, fill it into a metal toothpaste tube, which would
in turn would be packed inside a thick labeled paper casing / box.
These individual casings would be packed in a carton box and sent to
shops. Customers buying individual toothpaste cases found the toothpaste
tubes missing in the box. This annoyed the customers and the customers
started switching to other brands. The CEO of the toothpaste company
started getting worried. He called an external consulting firm to help
solve his problem. The external agency came, studied their production
line and gave a detailed report suggesting improvements. This took about
6 months and a costed a big sum. The agency suggested to install a
weighing scale at the end of the production line where the toothpaste
boxes landed. If the box had the tube inside, it would match the preset
weight and would move forward. If the tube was missing in the box, the
weight would be less and the production line would sound an alarm and
the whole production process would stop till someone removed the empty
box.
The CEO was happy that he did a smart thing by hiring the external
agency to solve the problem. After few weeks, when the CEO was reviewing
the production report, he noticed something very unusual. The number of
defective boxes reaching the weighing scale had come down to zero. He
asked his production team if they had changed anything in the production
process for which they replied that there was no change. The CEO
decided to visit the the factory to check this. When he visited the
weighing scale section, he noticed that a small table fan was kept just
before the weighing scale. He observed that the empty boxes were blown
off by the fan even before they reached the weighing scale. He asked
employees around as to who had kept the fan there.They said “Sir, that
is kept by the guy who is responsible for taking out the empty boxes
from the scale when the alarm sounded. He was tired of running from his
place every time the alarm went on. So, he kept the fan there.” The CEO
realized that the employee working at the production line on a routine
job was much better than the big consultant he hired!
Thanks to Dr. H S Nagaraja
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