Introduction
Problem solving is a way of thinking in order to come up with a solution. A problem is any situation that presents an opportunity, challenge or is of concern to the community. There are different ways to solve problems which just involve thinking. Models however have been developed to help people solve problems. One such model is the Creative Problem Solving model. This is the model that will be used to solve the following given problem. That “Manager must devise a plan on how to meet critical customer desired Due dates(CDDD)on Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders, without increasing the number of Engineers or overtime hours worked”.
This model has five steps which are: Analyzing problems, Redefining problems, generating ideas, evaluating and selecting ideas and implementing solutions (Course Guide, 13). All these stages will be used in solving the above problem as described in the course guide.
Analyzing the Problem- Divergence
Definition of the Problem
The problem presented in this case is “Manager must devise a plan on how to meet critical customer desired Due dates(CDDD)on Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders, without increasing number of Engineers or overtime hours worked”. What could possibly be the problem that would require a manager to devise a plan on how to meet critical customer desired due dates. According to the CPS model, in order to define a problem, it is important to collect information based on the following questions as Proctor (2005) indicates in the “Creative Problem Solving for Managers”.
a) Does the problem involve changing perspective in terms of conceptual, operational or strategic? Changing perspective in strategic, operational or conceptual levels would mean the use of the laddering or the why method or the progressive abstractions to define the problem. No change of perspectives requires moving to the next step.
b) Is the problem clear about obstacles, goals, and constraints?
If the constraints, obstacles and goals are clearly defined in the problem statement, then the next step in defining a problem follows. If however there are no clear goals, constraints or obstacles, problem definition should be by use of goal orientation.
c) Is the analyst happy with the assumptions he/she has made? Being satisfied (happy) with the assumptions needs moving to the next step while lack of satisfaction needs a boundary examination.
d) Are there clear facts of the problem? If there are, the analyst should move to the next step, while if there are no clear facts the analyst should use the 5 W’s and H to define the problem.
e) Does the problem subject seem to be a hierarchical phenomenon according to the analyst? If the problem seems so, the analyst should use decomposable matrices to help define the problem, but if it does not seem to be a hierarchical phenomenon, move to the next step.
f) Is the analyst clear about the cause and effect relationship in the problem? Being sure in this stage would mean the problem is defined while lack of clear facts about the problem cause and effect relationship would need another analysis using the cause effect relationship diagram (Proctor, 2005; Ptak and Schragenheim, 2003). The above described questions which define the analysis framework will assist in the analysis /defining the real problem
a) Does this problem involve changing perspectives in terms of strategic, operational or conceptual levels? NO, based on the presented statement, there is a problem with the critical customer due dates which seems not to be met by the company currently. The problem lies with the human resource department/management and does not involve any change in the operational level, the strategy or the conceptual levels.
b). Are there clear goals, obstacles and constraints according to what the problem statement describes? According to the problem statement, a clear goal is set which is “a critical customer desired Due dates(CDDD)on Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders should be met without increasing the number of Engineers or overtime hours worked”. The obstacle to success in this case is also quite clear which is; Poor management of the human factor which leads to the requirement of a plan on how they will work on Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders to ensure customer satisfaction (Proctor, 2005).
c) Is the analyst satisfied with the assumptions he/she has made? The assumptions made about this problem is that the human resources mismanagement is the cause of failure to meet customer desired due dates and a plan would be an important step to solving such a problem. Yes the assumptions are satisfying but the facts are not clear. The next appropriate step therefore is to find out these facts.
According to the above steps the 5W’s and H help find out the facts about the problem (Proctor, 2005). The five W’s are; why, what, who, where and when and the H stands for How.
Why must the manager devise a plan? Why has it to be the plan and not any other management issue? A plan would guide the human resource manager in ensuring smooth running of the company’s business with respect to this problem. Plans are always meant to avoid risks and inconveniences. No plans or poor planning are associated with poor outcomes under any business practice or management (Nemeth, 2004).
It could be that the human resource manager had employees working on customer desired due dates but never had an appropriate plan so development of a plan would improve the company’s efficiency in service provision. Planning puts everything in order and encourages efficiency (Nemeth, 2004). The problem in this case could be that the human resource manager lacked a plan to ensure efficiency in service provision.
According to the problem statement, no more employees should be hired, nor extension of working hours. This is a clear indication that every skill required and time to ensure customer desired due dates are met are available. The problem lies with how the process is handled or managed to ensure the customers are satisfied. The most likely problem is lack of a good plan on how to manage the available human resources.
What is in the plan or what is the aim of the plan? What benefits are expected from the plan? What plans should be devised? Planning is a very important step in business management and in management of companies, risks and so many others. They help avoid risk and ensure smooth running of any business. Planning also helps in time management which is a very important factor in ensuring critical customer due dates are met (Nemeth, 2004). Additionally, the mission statement indicates no addition of time in ensuring that customer requirements are met.
According to the problem statement, the plan is meant to help achieve the target which is to ensure customer satisfaction through employees. Planning can also be on employee selection for the right kind of skills to be in the right positions for maximum utilization. Setting of customer due dates, delivery methods and other requirements also need planning to ensure services are provided to the customers in the long run.
Who is involved in the plan? Who are the employees that can work as specified by the mission statement? The right people in this case are employees with the right skills for the right job. The right people with the right skills for different positions in supply chain management will ensure the right things are done according to specified plans hence efficiency in service provision.
When should the plan be devised to ensure customer desired due dates are met in time? Every plan is developed with a purpose and this comes before the actual process is carried out. In this case for example, the plan should be on how to meet customer needs that already exist in the company. Plans should be invented as early as possible or when changes occur and new strategies and methods of operation required.
Where should the human resource manager consider when devising the plan? Where can the necessary improvements are made?
How should the plan be devised? How will the plan ensure customer desired due dates are met? Human resource plans should be linked to business strategic planning to ensure the organization meets its goals and responds well to the changing needs. Customer demands is one of the changing needs of the organization and meeting such needs effectively is one way to attract and retain customers hence build the organization’s reputation and image (Boyd, 2008). According to the problem statement, meeting critical customer desired due dates is crucial and the human resources have to be well managed. This gives an impression that without good care of the customers’ values, the business will not stand a chance in the Hi-Ca Telecommunication orders. Customers are part of the business and without them; there is no business (Boyd, 2008).
Analyzing the Problem-Convergence
According to the Creative Problem Solving model, the most important data that helps in understanding the problem should be converged. In relation to the problem statement, the most important information include; the reason why the plan has to be devised which is to improve efficiency, the plan has to be linked to the strategic plans of the organization, critical customer due dates have to be met, no extension of working hours or addition of telecommunication workers which needs effective planning and what is required for the plan and how to develop this plan to meet the goals. The goal as previously noted is clearly indicated in the problem statement which is to meet customer critical desired due dates. It is clear that the what, why and how questions above are important in defining the problem.
Redefining the Problem-Divergence
In this case, the why method will be used to restate the problem hence help in identifying what the problem is within the company (Course Guide, 13-8). The initial statement reads; “Manager must devise a plan on how to meet critical customer desired Due dates(CDDD)on Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders, without increasing the number of Engineers or overtime hours worked”.
Why should there be such a plan in such a case? The reason why a plan is important in an organization is for effective management. The problem restated would be, there is need for effective management in the delivery of critical customer desired Due dates on Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders.
Why would the plan be on how to meet critical customer desired due dates?
Customer satisfaction is the key to more customers and improved performance and growth of an organization. If their needs are not met it means the organization will be affected in very many ways from reputation, loss of market share, reduced profits, reduced investors, reduced growth to so many that have not been mentioned (Nemeth, 2004). If the plan aims at meeting the consumer demands, it means that the consumer demands are not met by the current plan and the current people responsible for ensuring that there is effective delivery of services and products to customers. The problem restated would be; the customers’ critical desired due dates are not currently met by the people in charge and a different plan should be developed to ensure effective delivery of customer requirements at the right time.
Why would the plan be on management of the human resource and insist on not increasing the number of Engineers or overtime hours worked on Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders?
It means that it is in the section of human resource management that the problem arises. The human resources available and their manner of operation according to the current problem statement does not ensure effective delivery of what the customers want at the right time which is a clear indication that there is a problem with the employees’ productivity.
Employee productivity is often influenced by skills the employee poses, the kind of work assigned and how the skills are managed (Nemeth, 2004). According to the problem statement, the skills employed in the section are appropriate as its goal requires no hiring of new skills. The time available for the employees to produce results is also not a problem as the problem statement indicated; no overtime hours should be allocated for effective performance to be achieved. The problem therefore lies in the management of this resource. The problem restated would be; the human resources selected for ensuring effective customer delivery services have all the time and skills to ensure effective service delivery but still fails.
Redefining the Problem-Convergence
From the above description of the problem, the plan is for effective management which gives one clear problem, lack of effective management. What is not managed well is also clear, the human resources and the section where they are not well managed is also clear which is the delivery of customers’ needs.
The problem is lack of workforce planning which generally is a practice of poor human resource management. The capacity of an organization to achieve its strategic goals depends on the organizations plans especially human resource management plans. The human resource affects strategic goals through three primary ways. It affects the company’s capacity to operate, the cost economics and the capacity to undertake new change and enterprise operations (Boyd, 2008). It is therefore important to ensure effective human resource management for good performance of the organization which also depends on the strategic goals. Failing to meet organization goals means the organization is failing (Proctor, 2005).
A redefined problem statement would therefore consider the following:
Satisfaction of customers plays a very important role in the performance of any organization. Businesses also need customers to be termed businesses and good customer care contributes to good performance of the organization when all the resources of the organization are well managed. An organization’s business consists of so many areas of concern/departments for example the finance department, sales and marketing, human resource department, stakeholder management department and so many others. All these also contribute to the success of the organization.
When one area fails, it contributes to the organization failure. Effective management of such areas is important to ensure effective performance which also includes caring for customers. Employees have a role to play in ensuring customer satisfaction. This role is guided and managed by the human resource manager, without effective management of this resource, the customer relations from this area is destroyed. This initial problem statement “a critical customer desired Due dates(CDDD)on Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders should be met without increasing the number of Engineers or overtime hours worked” means that there is ineffective management of the human resource in ensuring delivery of services to the customers of Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders.
Generating Ideas-Divergence
In this stage, brainstorming techniques are used to generate ideas. Brainstorming is a group process that generates ideas from a group of employees or people (King and Schlicksupp, 1998). The following brainstorming techniques have been used to generate ideas in this case. The pin card, semantic intuition, and picture stimulation (King and Schlicksupp, 1998). The main problem is how to deal with the ineffective management of the human resource in ensuring delivery of services to customers without increasing the number of employees and extending working hours.
Ideas from Pin Card Technique
An idea of matching the skills with demand was brought up followed by the ones described below by other participants of the brainstorming session.
For skills to be matched with the demands of the customers, planning has to be done. The human resource manager has therefore to plan on what type of skills will be required to ensure delivery of services and products to customers.
Selecting the appropriate skills depends on a lot which include; the level of training experience and productivity.
The human resource manager has therefore to consider employee skills, the experience an employee has or employees have, the productivity of employees selected for specific tasks and seniority (that is, staff mix) (Nemeth, 2004).
Appropriate number of staff is important since very few can produce poor quality work yet enough could compress margins.
Another idea was how to ensure continuous success: In order to ensure the company does not have problems in delivery of services and products to consumers, continued training of relevant staff and market research on consumer was proposed. Other ideas include: that market research needs more investment and skills. Continued training however requires the human resource manager to identify the skills that may be required in areas left by those transferring and those retiring and replacing with the trained ones. The human resource manager has to develop a plan on how this will be accomplished.
Another suggestion was on how to improve the delivery system with the available skills. Good management of the delivery process was proposed as well as time management. Development of delivery schedules was also an idea that came up. An employee suggested that supervisory roles should be assigned to one of the employed members in this section to ensure effective delivery and identification of deliveries that can be late. This led to another proposal which was to develop a system of emergency delivery systems or fast delivery systems to cater for late products and services. Working according to the customer relationship strategy of the company was also highlighted.
Ideas from Semantic Intuition
Two lists of words related to the problem were created and given to a group of employees for idea generation. The employees were expected to respond the two lists one which required ideas about the customer and the other the supplier in ensuring effective service and product delivery (delivery of Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders in time) (King and Schlicksupp, 1998).
The following results were obtained.
Customer
- Need satisfaction
- Driven away easily by a small mistake
- Responds to trustworthiness of a company
- Is influenced by company reputation
- Need to be retained
Supplier
- The company needs a delivery strategy
- Ensure the mistakes are identified and reduced
- Effective communication should be developed between customers and the delivery team
- Other teams involved in the strategic delivery process should be evaluated
- There should be incentives to promote collaboration
- The strategy must describe the skills important in the delivery process
- The skills must be available and must be assigned correctly especially customer service skills
- Ideas from Picture Stimulation
Ideas are about how effective management can be achieved to ensure customers are satisfied with deliveries of Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders just like in the previous cases.
A diagram illustrating good customer relationship management was given to the brainstorming group and the following ideas were obtained.
Employees among other resources are important in ensuring good customer relations.
It is important to recognize employee effort in maintaining this relationship.
Poor management of employees can lead to poor performance of an organization.
The employees need to be motivated.
The right employees for the right jobs should be observed.
Employee experience contributes to his/her productivity therefore should be considered in assigning roles (Morçöl, 2007; King and Schlicksupp, 1998).
A diagram illustrating a network of supply chain management was shown to employees in a brainstorming session about how to ensure effective delivery of services and products to customers and the following ideas were received:
- The company requires a well managed network with good coordination
- The manager needs to review how the process leads to delivery of services.
- The manager needs to recognize the efforts the employees put in ensuring duties assigned to them are performed.
- The supply chain network should have a tool that helps in bargaining for time to deliver from the company and time to be delivered the product or service on the customers’ side (Morçöl, 2007; King and Schlicksupp, 1998).
Generating Ideas-Convergent
Based on the above ideas it is appropriate to develop a plan on how to deliver the services and the products. A delivery strategy is also important which considers the following delivery points: effective communication between the customers and the team responsible for service and product delivery, offering of incentives to the team that ensures delivery of services and other cross functional teams and building of necessary skills for the delivery process (Lombardi, 2005).
Important Ideas selected are:
- Select the important skills for delivery and ensure that are trained and have the right skills. Continue training for continued effective delivery and assign the right skill in the right place.
- A delivering strategy to cater for how to deliver at the appropriate time that also includes how to identify those deliveries that could be late and how to solve the problem. There should be a plan or plans on how to achieve the goals of the strategic delivery points.
- The human resource manager should consider revising his/ leadership and management strategies and the employees should be motivated to improve productivity.
Evaluating and Selecting Ideas-Divergence
Ideas described above act as the solutions that can resolve the problem of ineffective delivery system and a troubled human resource management. This stage will describe how to reach the solutions by use of a weighted matrix. Selection of an appropriate idea will be based on the weight of importance the idea has.
Solution 1: Select the important skills for delivery and ensure that are trained and have the right skills. Continue training for continued effective delivery and assign the right skill in the right place.
Criteria: Matching the employees with the jobs (that is a human-competency based strategy). Developing a selection criterion which includes the skills required for specific positions in the delivery system to ensure delivery strategy goals are met. The goal according to the redefined problem statement is to ensure delivery of Hi-Cap Telecommunication engineering orders before deadline. The core competencies required to meet the customer critical desired due dates act as the strategic delivery point.
Another way of matching the employees with the job is through training. The human resource manager should therefore identify the core competencies required to achieve delivery strategy goals, train the employees to have the skills that will enable delivery of services efficiently and assign roles. The job characteristics could also be changed to match the skills available in the delivery section which ensures efficiency (Simpson and Lorraine McKay, 2008).
Importance: The selection of the right skills, for the right work at the right time leads to improved performance and success of the company. Considering the described problem, it will enable efficiency in delivery of the orders since the right person has the right skills to enable delivery. Human resource planning enables effective management or the resource.
Solution 2: A delivering strategy to cater for how to deliver at the appropriate time that also includes how to identify those deliveries that could be late and how to solve the problem. There should be a plan or plans on how to achieve the goals of the strategic delivery point.
Criteria/principle: Developing a new strategy that focuses on translating consumer demand into workforce demand. This strategy will include demand driven supply chain network programs and human resource manager’s plans on how to ensure employees will help accomplish the mission. Human resource planning ensures taking of order management systems and manufacturing execution services to produce workforce schedules and plans that guide workers on attendance and time schedules for effective delivery of services (Cecere et al, 2005).
Importance: A strategy covers all the areas that are required for effective delivery. The consumer demand is translated into workforce demand hence producing the right results. The employees work towards specific demands.
Solution 3: The human resource manager should consider revising his/ leadership and management strategies and the employees should be motivated to improve productivity.
Criteria: By developing a new plan on how to manage the human resources.
Importance: This will lead to establishment of areas of mistakes and enhanced employee activity.
Evaluating and Selecting Ideas- Convergence
There can be a good strategy but with no good manager, the business can never be successful. The problem identified in this case was with the human resource manager that required a change on how the employees were scheduled to perform their duties. The right skills are available, the time is also available, but the employees are not producing results as expected. It means therefore that the employees’ skills are not maximally utilized. Utilization of skills requires planning and employee motivation. Appropriate steps to take are solution 1 and solution 3 both focusing on change of human resource management. Again based on the goal of the problem statement and the importance of the solutions given above, solution 1 would be most appropriate. Solution 3 is specific on employee motivation which is not the only way to improve employee productivity. Solution one covers all.
Implementing Solutions –Divergence
Before implementation, it is appropriate to carry out a potential problem analysis (PPA). This will be carried out using probability occurrence of the potential problems (P), the seriousness of the potential problems (S), the result of both the probability of the potential problems occurring and their seriousness (PS), the expected probabilities of potential problems if preventive actions are taken (PR))and the products of PS and RP (Course Guide, 13-11)
The analysis is as follows
Implementation action steps: This is another divergent action necessary in creative problem solving. The steps will be outlined in order with respective time required for implementation.
The actions needed for implementation of a human resource management skill-job matching strategy are:
- Identification of the skills necessary for effective delivery of services through analysis of the delivery process with consideration to the goal of the strategy: 2 weeks
- Analysis of the availability of such skills within the current staff: 2 weeks
- Developing ways of filling in unavailable skills, that is through training: 3 months
- Matching employee skills with the jobs and assigning duties: 1 weeks
- Ensuring effective performance through improved performance strategies and supervision
- Evaluation of the strategy to determine its effectiveness
- Development of another strategy in case of failure
Implementing Solutions-Convergence
There are two potential risks according to the above analysis which are; the risk of losing customers in the process of implementing a new strategy and the risk of poor collaboration from cross-functional teams. These risks however have reduced probability of occurring if appropriate action is taken. Risk analysis however is important before any implementation is done.
The important implementation steps of the selected solution however are; analysis of the current delivery system, identification of the important delivery points, and determination of the appropriate skills needed for the delivery points, analysis of the available skills within the current staff and matching of employee skills with the jobs.
After implementation of the strategy, evaluation of its effectiveness will be done after some time to ensure the solution implemented has really solved the problem. An alternative solution will be used to solve the problem in case this first solution does not work. Analysis of the problem will be necessary to find out the exact problem with the delivery system and the solution provided and necessary adjustments made. The alternative solution will consider problems encountered during implementation of the first solution (Course Guide, 13-11).
References
- Boyd, H. M. (2008). Human Resources Planning: The Long and the Short of it. Boyd Associates.
- Cecere, L., Hofman, D., Martin, R. and Preslan, L. (2005). “The Handbook for Becoming Demand Driven,” AMR Research. Course Guide. Unit 13: Synthesis—Putting it all Together. 13-1 to 13-11.
- King, B. and Schlicksupp, H. (1998). The Idea Edge: Transforming Creative Thought Into Organizational Excellence. New York, US: GOAL/QPC.
- Lombardi, V. (2005). Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Leveraging Strategic Delivery. Management Innovation Group LLC. New York, San Franciscoю
- Morçöl, G. (2007). Handbook of Decision Making. Bolton, US: CRC Press.
- Nemeth, C. P. (2004). Human Factors Methods for Design: Making Systems Human Centered. New York, US: CRC Press.
- Proctor, T. (2005). Creative Problem Solving for Managers: Developing Skills for Decision Making and Innovation. Ed. 2, London, UK: Routledge.
- Ptak, C. A. and Schragenheim, E. (2003). ERP: Tools, Techniques, and Applications for Integrating the Supply Chain. Ed. 2, California, US: CRC Press.
- Simpson, S. and Lorraine McKay, M.A. (2008). Competency–based Human Resource Management: Planning for Success. Customer Centered HR Solutions.