Complex problem-solving methods

- There are times when a simple problem-solving procedure just isn't going to cut it. For example, the University of California recently revamped its entire payroll and human resources systems. That change affected 14 different stakeholder institutions and over 100,000 employees. This was a huge change that required a massive problem-solving process to get it right. Most of us won't be involved in problem solving at this scale. But you should be aware of at least one method that's used in larger problems so you're prepared if you are faced with needing to solve a problem of that scale. One of the longest-standing methods is called PERT, program evaluation and review technique. It was developed by the US Navy in the '50s and it involves eight steps. First, you start by stating the final event or goal of the project. You need to make sure the planning team clearly defines the event that must take place. That might be opening a new facility to accommodate increased production or it might be rolling out a new payroll system across all UC campuses and affiliated organizations. Second, list the events that must happen before the final event can occur. At this point, you don't want your team to worry so much about chronological order but you should explore anything that needs to occur for sub events. For example, in planning to open a new restaurant, I would list train staff and install kitchen equipment. But I would also note, in order to train staff, I need to hire them, and I would need to develop training materials and in order to hire them, I need to recruit them and so forth. Third, you assess the order of events. Your group should lay out all of the events that must occur and the order that they must occur. In doing this, you should identify which events rely on others and so need to come before them, as well as noting things that can occur at the same time. Fourth, once you have the timeline, you should create a diagram that connects all the events in chronological order. I have seen these cover entire huge walls but they can also be created digitally. Fifth, now you should lay out the specific activities that need to occur between events. These should include strategic action plans for moving from event to event, resource acquisitions needed, et cetera. Now, sixth, at this point, you and the team should identify the amount of time needed for the whole project, including breaking down the specific time needed for each sub-event. Seventh, you've likely been thinking about feasibility throughout the process but at the second-to-last step, you should take a full and detailed look at all of the steps, events and components of the plan. Now, ask yourself the big question, is it feasible? If it isn't, figure out why not and what adjustments need to be made to make it so. Maybe you have to consider extending the project. Honesty and openness are key here. And the final step, you need to isolate your critical path forward. You and your team should identify those more critical and difficult tasks and make sure that the resources are allocated where needed in order to keep the plan on schedule. While this process is often used for very large projects, as I mentioned earlier, that doesn't mean it's only helpful for large organizations. Even if you run a small team, sometimes you need to make really big, impactful changes that may have lots of small or tedious parts. Taking time to build your plan in advance can absolutely be the difference between crashing and burning and pulling off something great.