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Creative Problem Solving

Creative Problem Solving....

 Have you ever been creative? Thought of a solution that is different.? If the Answer is yes, you have already been part of the Process called ‘Creative Problem Solving’. If the Answer is no….No issues, this write up will guide you to be a Creative Problem Solver...


“Creative problem solving is - looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.” - Albert Szent- Gyorgi, former Nobel prize winner

Creative Problem Solving is a proven method for approaching a problem or a challenge in an imaginative and innovative way. It’s a tool that helps people re-define the problems they face, come up with breakthrough ideas and then take action on these new ideas.

Sounds Exciting!

Let us get into what constitutes Creative Problem Solving……

Step 1:State what appears to be the problem.

The real problem may not surface until facts have been gathered and analyzed.  Therefore, start with what you assume to be the  problem, that can later be confirmed or corrected.

STEP 2.  Gather facts, feelings and opinions

Answer the 5 W (when, where, why, what, who) and the How questions..

z         What happened?

z         Where, when and how did it occur?

z         What is it’s size, scope, and severity?

z         Who and what is affected?

z         Likely to happen again?

 

There might be a need to assign priorities to critical elements.

STEP 3: Restate the problem

Restating the problem helps in reassessing the problem.

Actual Problem , might not be what was stated before.

STEP 4 Identify alternative solutions

Think of  the alternative solutions. At this step the ideas are generated, no idea should be ruled out until several have been discussed. There should not be a hesitancy to discuss an idea, as it may seem unfeasible, many times such unfeasible ideas become what we call as creative solutions.

STEP 5: Evaluate alternatives

    Ask these 4 questions:

z         Which will provide the optimum solution?

z         What are the risks?

z         Are costs in keeping with the benefits?

z         Will the solution create new problems?

At this step you are moving very closer to your final solution.

     Discuss all the alternatives, keeping in mind the different parameters. By the end of this step you would have arrived at your Optimum solution.

      STEP 6.  Implement the decision!

     Just arriving at the solution, does not solve the problem! The Solution needs to be implemented…

       Time for asking some more questions…

z         Who must be involved?

z         To what extent?

z         How, when and where?

z         Who will the decision impact?

z         What might go wrong?

z         How will the results be reported and verified?

After finding answers to these questions, you are ready to implement your  ‘Creative Solution’.

STEP 7.   Evaluate the results.

z         Test the solution against the desired results.

z         Make revisions if necessary.

After the solution has been implemented, it needs to be verified if it serves its need.

If it needs any modifications, the same are to be re implemented.

  BRAINSTORMING

To generate a large number of ideas in a short period of time. 

• The more ideas the better! 
•   No discussion
• No idea is a bad idea
• Display all ideas
•  Build on one another’s ideas

        

       MIND MAPPING

       :  A visual picture of a group of ideas, concepts or issues.

          Purpose:

y        Unblock our thinking.

y         See an entire idea or several ideas on one
  sheet of paper.

y         See how ideas relate to one another.

y         Look at things in a new and different way.

y         Look at an idea in depth.

Now, you are on your way to be a ‘Creative Problem Solver’….Enjoy the journey….

Organizational Structure

 

I have seen companies spending extravagant amount of time and money changing their organization structure. Just recently Infosys Ltd redesigned its organization structure realigning its services around four verticals - BFSI, ECS, Retail and Manufacturing. It makes complete sense since the company wants to present a uniform and consistent deal to its clients and avoid the problems of multiple deals across different offerings. But this was the same company which was split across Geographies in the late 90's. By 2003, the geographies were merged and company was realigned based on respective delivery units. Gradually the whole company was re jigged across six different verticals. Come 2007 and five horizontal units were embedded within these verticals. Finally just a year back, it was realigned on the lines of four verticals with most of the horizontal business units being merged to respective verticals. So coming back to the question. Why does companies spend so much of their money and time on re-jigging their organization structure?

One word answer - because it is that important to the success of the firm. While the strategic decisions are taken by the top line management, it is the effectiveness of the organization structure which translates this strategy into successful implementation. 

Changing Times > Different Strategy > Continuously changing Organization Structure.

In this context we should look at the four main blocks of Organizational Structure:

Let us take the example of Infosys:

Division of work: Complex work can be better executed by dividing it among different people. For example, every project has some people working on different technologies. Some people working on high level design, others doing project management etc.

Departmentalization: This involves grouping people into departments based on some logic. In Infy they are categorized into departments like Delivery, Marketing, HR etc. Also verticals like BFSI, ECS etc. 

Hierarchy: Chooses who reports to who. Engineers reports to lead. Lead reports to PM. PM reports to GPM etc.

Coordination: This involves the integration of departmental activities as a whole and monitoring the effectiveness of this integration.

There are mainly 3 types of Organizational Structures:

Functional Organization:

Product/Market Organization:

Matrix Organization:

One example of Matrix Organization in real life example is the Organization structure of Accenture. 

This organizational method is more common in the consulting world and has the following characteristics:

• Each worker is assigned to two bosses in two different hierarchies. The first hierarchy is the executive aspect and is there to get projects completed using the resources that the company has.
• The second kind of hierarchy in the matrix structure is the functional aspect and its purpose is to train employees in industry specific knowledge.

At Accenture this functional aspect is also a matrix and is made up of five industry-based operating groups and three capability groups as shown in the figure:

These are some of my observations and experience of the different organization structure in IT Industry.

Theory X and Theory Y

Theory of Motivation - War of X vs Y

What is it?

Douglas McGregor's 1960 publication which highlighted the concepts of Theory X and Theory Y managers have forever been used to explain the art of motivation based on human behaviour. It encapsulated a fundamental distinction between the different management styles and is a valid basic principle from which to develop positive management style and techniques to propel organisations towards excellence.

 

Theory X and Theory Y

Organisations consist of employees and managers. The theory delves on the attitude and outlook of managers - the direction and growth of the organisation is in the hands of managers and it is solely their way of managing things which leads to proper motivation of the employees and in the process, achieve growth in the organisation.It is important to note here that Theory X and Theory Y looks into managerial psychology and their way of planning and running the organisation. Thus, it focuses on the class of managers and their behavioral attributes and attitude. 

Theory X Managers

His Theory of Motivation states that there is a certain class of mangers who fall in the bracket of Theory X. In this theory management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can. Because of this, workers need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of control put in place. A hierarchical structure is needed, with narrow span of control at each level, for effective management. According to this theory employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can.

The managers influenced by Theory X believe that everything must end in blaming someone. They think most employees are only out for themselves and their sole interest in the job is to earn money. They tend to blame employees in most situations, without questioning the systems, policy, or lack of training which could be the real cause of failures.

Theory Y Managers

Management influenced by this theory assumes that employees are ambitious, self-motivated, anxious to accept greater responsibility and exercise self-control, self-direction, autonomy and empowerment. Management believes that employees enjoy their work. They also believe that, given a chance, employees have the desire to be creative at their work place and become forward looking. There is a chance for greater productivity by giving employees the freedom to perform to the best of their abilities, without being bogged down by rules.

A Theory Y manager believes that, given the right conditions, most people will want to do well at work and that there is a pool of unused creativity in the workforce. They believe that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong motivation in itself. A Theory Y manager will try to remove the barriers that prevent workers from fully actualizing themselves.

The following diagram gives a clear explanation about Theory X and Theory Y managers:

 

Now we further discuss the role of such managers and the effect on employees through the following four cases. As and where possible, examples from my experience of working under such managers has been highlighted.

 

Situation I:   Employee dislikes his work and manager assumes he is lazy

This kind of a situation is seen in many organisations where lack of clear directive principles and ineffective goal setting leads to disillusionment and non-motivation among the employees to perform better. During my working days, while working in various committees as junior members, I often found seniors at the leadership didn't care much about us or the betterment of the club as a whole. Gradually, we assumed a stance where we also didn't work or care much and slowly started disliking working in it. They assumed we were lazy and went about it in that manner. This is a classic case of Theory X Managers where both the management and employees assume that the top rung will be giving orders to the lower rungs and they will follow the same.

Situation II:   Employee likes his work and manager assumes he is lazy

This is probably the most dangerous out of all the four possible situations where the employee likes his work and finds himself highly motivated from within to work and contribute, however the manager still assumes he is lazy and thus is greatly harmful to the motivational growth of the employee and the organisation as a whole.  I had the (mis)fortune of having such a manager during my initial days at my workplace. The team members would work extra hard to achieve already stringent deadlines and produce quality work, often doing value addition on their own and inspiring each other to work harder and stay focused. However, our manager still assumed we were a group of lazy employees and would constantly point out minor issues, without focusing on the larger picture of employee's performance. Even with whole-hearted contributions, the team was deemed to be performing below par and not meeting objectives. Such managers can be detrimental to the success of the organisation as often, good employees might leave the organisation to other rival companies, leading to further attrition.

Situation III:  Employee dislikes his work and manager assumes he is not lazy

In this case, even though employees dislike their work, there is a strong focus from management to think they  can do better and perform much more to aid the organisation. Immense morale boosting attitude, a definite belief that employees will perform better given more optimistic managers at the helm, performance based incentives at all levels are some of the means of getting the employees up to speed. This kind of a workplace is where the Theory Y managers exhibit their true mettle and where the attitude they adopt crucially shapes the future of the organisation.

Situation IV:  Employee likes his work and manager assumes he is not lazy

This is the most ideal case where the employee is focused and likes his work and performs it to the fullest extent. This is achieved as a result of hardworking employees working in an environment of synergy with the management who leave no stones unturned to motivate them through their positive attitude. I had the fortune of being under such a manager during my last days at the workplace. He would focus greatly on the employee's performance on a weekly basis. If there ever came any reasons which could demotivate the employees, he would take it up on an immediate basis and have it solved as soon as possible. An ever-supportive person for the employees, especially in front of the senior management during appraisal times, he had succeeded in bringing harmony in a team which had initially lost all faith in the management due to prior incidents. He would take time out from his personal schedule to interact on a person-to-person basis with us, understand each person's problems and offer solutions and his own help to sort them out so that the employee didn't go home disgruntled. It showed in our work as we too started to scale up and exceed the goals set in front of us, thus leading to excellence of the organisation. Such Theory Y managers make great organisations greater.

In a diverse world of different organisations with different philosophies, I believe that managers should try to become Theory Y managers in situation IV as this leads to successful growth of all stakeholders involved. Even in the case where such a situation becomes hypothetical, I feel that Theory X managers shown in situation II above are the worst managers as the negative vibe they give out harms all the parties.

Valley Crossing!!!!

So.... here I am... Sitting in my hostel room.. Thinking of a yet another thought provoking class on Valley crossing!

A very simple idea of making 3 ppl cross a valley, which individually, they couldn’t have crossed! what better example to understand the criticality of team work, patience, coordination and communication in an organization with big dreams!

Here is what we were shown......

 

 

And our task was to make them cross!! With 3 ppl and only 1 wooden log (understand limited resources in an organization), our minds set off.... thinking!!!

And then i recalled my dance lessons in childhood about coordination....  and basketball lessons about team work to win! And martial arts lessons... where i got hit so many times right on the face when i misread the expressions on my opponents’ faces!

Thinking of all these, I could actually think of a way of making them cross the valley without exposing anyone to more risk than the other! Isn’t it all there on the picture itself????

 

 

SET THE GOAL: Yes! That is the most important task! Be it the simple task of doing my assignment on time or setting up my dream restaurant in Goa, you got to SET the goal! As they say..  eyes on prize! Here, our goal was to cross the valley... safely!

DEFINE THE STEPS: Now how do we go about it???

Proper prioritizing of subjects for me to meet the deadlines of assignments....

 savings for setting up my dream restaurant.... finalizing the location... studying the trend of tourism... operational difficulties.... basically a road map to get a good night’s sleep every day, with no tension of reporting to bosses... loving my job where I am the master!

Or in this case, making them cross the valley, which goes like this:

 

COMMUNICATE:  If you think as to what are the crucial drivers in this exercise, the first one coming to my mind is TALKING!! Communicating to the other 2 persons about implementing the above strategy, what will be the hindrances, points of high risk, ways of tackling them and every other detail required for perfect execution!

We were taught in our martial arts classes to “look into the eyes of the opponent” to understand his next move. That was something I never practiced in my early days of Karate... and that was when I got hit the most! It took me a while to figure out the exact reason of broken bleeding noses and paining backs! When I figured it out, I could really see that if done wisely, I could expect a certain move from my opponent!

Thats what happens in this case of Valley crossing as well... Communicating the right things at the right time is crucial and once done that, crossing is a cake walk!

COORDINATION IN A TEAM: Second thing will definitely be COORDINATION! One mistake on anybody’s part and its all lost!

Same is applicable to my dream business as well! One wrong step in choice of location or maybe the selection of menu or just the rock band to be performing, I am finished!!

Criticality of major decisions and necessity of a proper execution plan couldn’t have been better stated as simply as this example!

While watching circus during childhood, we used to be in awe! Great moves... excellent tricks.... all depending upon one tiny little thing: COordinATION! U lose it and you are dead!

How does it relate here??? It does! Very much! An organization is built by imbibing many departments/business units together. All work to achieve their targets (bosses have to be reported to!!) but when it comes about standing together as ONE to fight competition and all those forces that tend to throw you out of your position, coordination is what is required to add to the ultimate target of the organization

 

TRUST: When striving so hard to achieve our goals, trust on the support functions is very essential. In our case of crossing the valley, this picture depicts exactly the emotions in the person’s mind!

 Conclusion: Be it about making your dream come true or working your way up the ladder in a company:
Love what you do... Do what you love!!

A Short History of Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank

                                                             

Muhammad Yunus was born in 28th June, 1940 in the village of Bathua, in Hathazari, Chittagong, the business centre of what was then Eastern Bengal. He was the third of 14 children of whom five died in infancy. His father was a successful goldsmith who always encouraged his sons to seek higher education. But his biggest influence was his mother, Sufia Khatun, who always helped any poor that knocked on their door. This inspired him to commit himself to eradication of poverty. His early childhood years were spent in the village. In 1947, his family moved to the city of Chittagong, where his father had the jewelery business.

 

In 1974, Professor Muhammad Yunus led his students on a field trip to a poor village. They interviewed a woman who made bamboo stools, and learnt that she had to borrow the equivalent of 15p to buy raw bamboo for each stool made. After repaying the middleman, sometimes at rates as high as 10% a week, she was left with a penny profit margin. Had she been able to borrow at more advantageous rates, she would have been able to amass an economic cushion and raise herself above subsistence level.

 

Realizing that there must be something terribly wrong with the economics he was teaching, Yunus took matters into his own hands, and from his own pocket lent the equivalent of ? 17 to 42 basket-weavers. He found that it was possible with this tiny amount not only to help them survive, but also to create the spark of personal initiative and enterprise necessary to pull themselves out of poverty.

 

Against the advice of banks and government, Yunus carried on giving out 'micro-loans', and in 1983 formed the Grameen Bank, meaning 'village bank' founded on principles of trust and solidarity.

The Grameen Bank Project (Grameen means "rural" or "village" in Bangla language) came into operation with the following objectives:

·         extend banking facilities to poor men and women;

·         eliminate the exploitation of the poor by money lenders;

·         create opportunities for self-employment for the vast multitude of unemployed people in rural Bangladesh;

·         bring the disadvantaged, mostly the women from the poorest households, within the fold of an organizational format which they can understand and manage by themselves; and

·         reverse the age-old vicious circle of "low income, low saving & low investment", into virtuous circle of "low income, injection of credit, investment, more income, more savings, more investment, more income".

                                                   

In Bangladesh today, Grameen has 2,564 branches, with 19,800 staff serving 8.29 million borrowers in 81,367 villages. On any working day Grameen collects an average of $1.5 million in weekly installments. Of the borrowers, 97% are women and over 97% of the loans are paid back, a recovery rate higher than any other banking system. Grameen methods are applied in projects in 58 countries, including the US, Canada, France, The Netherlands and Norway.

 

 

 

 

Learning Principles of Management through Animated Movie : Three Monks

The film ‘3 monks’ is a Chinese animated film, released in 1980 and directed by A Da. It is one of the most famous and beloved Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions, and has won awards at film festivals throughout the world.

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water.”

Before I write any further, I request you all to watch the video of the movie.

 

For those who do not have time to watch the movie, here is the brief synopsis of the movie:

There is a monk who lives in a monastery on the top of a hill. He has to come down to fetch water from the river and he was living happily. Then a second monk comes and starts living with the first monk. The problem starts when they together go to fetch water. They are unable to decide how to divide the work amongst them as no one wanted to do any extra work. They decide to calculate the length of the stick carrying the bucket and hung the bucket in between. The coming of the third monk creates a conflict as to who two will bring the water. Since they are not able to resolve this conflict no one goes and the monastery is without water. Then one day fire broke in the monastery and the three monks with their combined efforts put it out. Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacks water again.

 

 

Followings are the management lessons learnt:

1. Teamwork does enhance the efficiency in the working of task.

2.  Disputes tend to arise when there is more than one person involved.

3. Scientific and objectives measurements and instruments should be used to resolve the conflict.

4. The most efficient method to solve a problem evolves over a period of time.

5. Teamwork and team interest should take precedence over the personal interest.

6. Experiences in crisis management come handy to come up with new innovative methods to solve a problem.

 

7 Attitude of each team member determines the fate of the task and decides for the success rate.

8. Synergistic roles:   Individual sums become bigger than what was there individually.

Learning

The story of the three monks tells us about the basic human nature and the requirement of having a proper coordinating team. People mostly tries to off load their work to others instead of making a collective effort and divide the work properly. Also for any activity to be done successfully, the coordination between the team members is very vital. And for proper coordination the team members must feel friendly towards each other. As in the video when the three monks become friends towards the end they were able to come up with the innovative idea of the pulley system.