Using the Tools in Your Performance Excellence Toolbox: Part 15 Selecting Your Potential Solution

Using the Tools in Your Performance Excellence Toolbox: Part 15 Selecting Your Potential Solution

This is the fifteenth in a series of posts on using performance excellence tools. You have created a list of ideas by brainstorming or other collective/group development methodology. You have narrowed them down to a few or perhaps one potential solution.  Now you need to figure out if it will work.

PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is used in the Improvement Stage starting at this point (Plan).  Let’s say you have 3 potential solutions.  You need to rank them as to the potential of their successful implementation AND SUSTAINABILITY of the solution.  Sustainable or Continued or Control or Maintenance whatever you want to call it, it must be one of the top selection criteria.  If the improvement is not sustainable it is not a solution to the root cause but only a Band Aid.

Ask the following questions of your potential solutions.  These are not necessarily straight forward components of solving the problem but are required to ensure success.

• Do you have the required resources to implement the solution?  It seems a simple question but you need to be sure that all the resources required are identified and are available.  For example, the solution requires that all the employees receive training on it.  Your team has all the time and expertise to create the training.  But do the employees have the time to take the training.  Remember that their time costs the company and will the training be seen as adding value to their work.
• Does it fit your business culture?  Note that just because it doesn’t fit your business culture, doesn’t mean you can’t select it.  You just have to be prepared to deal with any issues that come up.  Culture change (we’ll discuss change management in another posting) maybe a critical component of effectively eliminating the problem.
• Do you have the political backing needed to implement?  Are you going to be treading on someone’s turf?  Are you going to be perceived as building an empire or feathering your nest?

Remember that even after you have selected a solution, it is still only a potential solution.  You need to test it which is the subject of the next blog.

If you have narrowed your solution to only one choice, it doesn’t preclude this step completely.  You need to still do the basic work to verify that the potential solution is viable. If it doesn’t measure up, you need to go back to working on identifying potential solutions.  Implementing a bad solution is probable worse than doing nothing.