Problem Resolution & Management

One method I regularly use to make a problem more broadly perceived by other people during the problem management of a major incident is through “Argument”. An argument like Stufflebeam (2006) defined is what we present as a means of demonstrating that the truth of something follows from the reality of another. For instance we claim that the occurrence of an incident on an IT Service e.g. Network Communication Links, impacted a number of services that are dependent on that service, and then we present the evidence that our claim is real e.g. logs and traces of the impacted components.

From experience, the problem resolution team should include the subject matter experts in the various fields of the problem domain; in the example cited above, the problem resolution team will include the owner of the problem, people affected by the problem (e.g. application owners of the impacted services), a problem manager and a business representative. These parties are interested in helping accomplish the goal of resolution because they are being affected by the problem. The owners of the failing and impacted services are subject matter experts on their various applications; they are also being measured on how fast they can restore services by defined service level agreements. The problem manager primary role is to lead and drive the resolution of problems through engagement with the relevant teams, to get to the root cause and prevent their recurrences. The business representative understands the impact to the business more than most of the people involved and can bring a business perspective to the resolution of the problem.

As a leader, you have to pose or frame the situation to appeal to your team, once everyone catches the feeling, the problem is easier solved. A Toyota executive cited in Passuello (2008) once asked the employees to think of “ways to increase their productivity” all he received back were empty stares but when he made the situation more appealing to the employees by rephrasing the question as “ways to make their jobs easier” he got back lots of suggestions.

In the resolution of the problem, I usually try to highlight to the team the importance of resolving the problem as fast as possible and the quality of our resolution in terms of preventing a recurrence, reminding them of the reward we have if we could keep our operating environment very stable and its translation at the end of the quarter or yearly review to the amount of bonuses we receive and how a prolonged or continued downtime would have an adverse rating on our financial take homes

Seek to guard against the negative sides of over promising or wearing out the support teams with business expectations or over assuring the business of the team’s capabilities where the capacity is lacking. Seek to create an environment where communications and trust are valued, encouraging support teams to speak up when it is imperative to escalate or where another level of support is needed.

In conclusion, oftentimes the leadership style also influences how quickly the team reaches a resolution. Alimo-Metcalfe and Bradley (2008 cited in Huczynski and Buchanan 2013) opined that a participative or engaging leadership style improves performance, and I agree. A leader who understands the technical bit of the problem is appreciated by the support teams because he could relate to them, often providing guidance/insights from experience, he is able to take the technical terms and translate it to the business in a way they can understand, than a leader who understands the business more, takes a non-participative stance during problem resolution and struggles to understand the technical details. If that be the case, be wary of your support teams and be very logical, it usually really helps. Sometimes they might try to pull the wool over your eyes, by delving in too deep, sounding smart and very technical. We refer to this habit, locally as “trying to Bobo” When they are done explaining or “Boboing” I pause and calmly ask “please, forgive me but can you break it down more, just keep it simple?” if they let out a sigh and breathe out heavily, you have them, but in every way be patient and try to let them see you trust in the capability and capacity to resolve the issue they only have to be honest with you.

References Cited

Huczynski, A.A. & Buchanan, D.A., 2013, ‘Organizational behavior’. 8th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Pg. 666

Passuello, L., 2008, ‘Einstein’s secret to amazing problem solving (and 10 specific ways you can use it)’. LiteMind blog, 4. Viewed 18 July 2015

Stufflebeam, R., 2006, ‘Introduction to the Methods Used to Study Perception’. Consortium on Cognitive Science Instruction (CCSI) Available from: http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/ Viewed 18 July 2015