COURSE 5 - SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING
SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING
Identify: Writing problem statements Mini Quiz
Question 1 of 3
Extra Chance
1.Which of the following is the best way to define a problem?
A situation that could lead to a negative outcome
A goal that is difficult to achieve
Something that needs more attention
A situation that shows positive implications
2. What helps put together the key facts of the problem, provide a concise, accurate description of the problem, and clearly articulate what you want to achieve?
An account of who, what, and when
3. Which of the following is a good problem statement?
Bill reaches the office to find the doors locked.
Explore: What are the options? Mini Quiz
Question 1 of 3
Extra Chance
1.Which option best describes “The Five Whys” questioning technique?
Ask a different person why the problem occurred each day for five days.
Ask five people involved in the problem why they think it occurred.
Ask "Why?" repeatedly at least five times until you get to the root cause.
2. What is an informal way for a group to come up with ideas for solving a problem?
3. True or false: You should go for quantity over quality when brainstorming.
Select: What's the best solution? Mini Quiz
Question 1 of 4
Extra Chance
1.Who should choose the solution to Georgia's problem?
2. If buy-in is important, who should choose the solution?
One person who consults with advisors and stakeholders
3. If time is of essence, who should choose the solution?
One person who consults with advisors and stakeholders
4. If quality is critical, who should choose the solution?
One person who consults with advisors and stakeholders
Show What You Know
Question 1 of 10
0 Strikes
2 Lifelines
1.You oversee organizing a meeting with the design team. They are scheduled to meet face-to-face for two weeks in a different city. You completed all the arrangements for the meeting, including hotel and flight bookings. You just learned that the city where you plan to meet is experiencing political unrest and will not be safe. There is no update on when the situation will be under control.
Which solution is an adaptive solution for the event?
You may consider postponing the meeting to a later date when the political unrest settles down. You may have to make different flight and hotel bookings at a later date.
You can consider telling your team that they don't really need this training, and that you'll organize some other type of event in future to avoid disappointing them.
You can ensure that all activities are scheduled inside the hotel. That way the team members will not need to go outside and compromise their safety. This does not fix the real problem of safety but definitely reduces the danger.
2. In today's budget meeting, the team was looking for ways to forecast the company's budget. Next year's budget will be drastically cut, so the team needs to be creative on ways to save. They are exploring as many ways to reduce the budget as possible. Martina is the IT Manager and wants to focus only on reducing the spending of the Marketing team. Cutting Marketing's budget is not an option and is outside of Martina's control.
What are some common mistakes that people might make when looking for solutions?
Wanting every proposed idea to work perfectly right from the outset.
Killing good ideas too quickly because they sound strange.
Letting one person dominate discussions on the best solution.
Coming up with one idea and then stopping.
3. Tasha manages teams that handle various technologies. She needs to present project updates to the leadership team every Friday evening. She asked all the teams working on the project to send their weekly status reports by the end of every Thursday. It's Friday morning and she has not yet received the Database team's report. When she checks with them, they inform her that they had to handle a high-priority issue and have not worked on the status report.
Which would be a good problem statement to describe Tasha’s situation?
4. The Marketing department will be presenting the advertising campaign to the leadership team. From past experience, the leadership team usually cuts the amount of time for the presentation. The Marketing department is looking for a creative approach to presenting their three options for the advertising campaign.
What are some tips for brainstorming a new approach for the meeting?
Don't criticize; avoid killing an idea just because you see a problem with it.
Expand and improve other people's ideas or take them off into new directions.
Go for quantity and not quantity. To begin the process, ask the team for as much input.
5. Georgia is the manager of a team of five people that processes travel expense claims. It is December 15, and her team must process and check 100 expense claims so that refunds can be made by December 31—the end of the organization's financial year. Earlier in the year, Georgia approved leave for one team member starting 19 December. Today, another team member notified Georgia that he needs to stay at home for the next 10 days to care for his child. This leaves her with only three people to do the work.
Which option could be Georgia's problem statement?
Georgia's team downsized unexpectedly causing a shortage of people to handle the workload.
Georgia has several options to choose from to get the work done on time.
6. Alicia is the project manager that works on the Spanish Telecom project. Recently, the client sent a request for a custom cloud solution. The typical development time for this kind of solution is 10 days, but the client needs it in a week. Spanish Telecom is a long-term client. Alicia wants to please the client but, she does not want to compromise on quality. She would have liked to discuss the issue with her manager, Robin. But Robin is away on vacation for two weeks. The only way Alicia can meet the client’s timeline without affecting the quality is by expediting the testing process. She will need to ask the testing team to prioritize this task and reschedule all other activities.
In such a scenario, how should Alicia go about resolving the problem?
Since Alicia has already identified the solution, she should inform the testing team and move ahead.
Alicia should wait for Robin to return and move ahead only after he approves her idea.
Alicia should wait for any other suggestions Robin might have.
7. Calvin leads the expense reporting team. He has introduced a new format for the team's weekly report that provides all the specific details the team requires, such as expense type and exception factors. Previously, the team had to pull that information from multiple sources. Calvin feels the new report will reduce the effort for his team. However, Gina tells him that she's struggling to work with this new report because she finds it confusing.
What should Calvin do?
He should tell Gina that she does not have a choice and must work with the new report.
He should ask Gina to explain why she finds the new report challenging.
He should ask Gina to continue working with the previous report till she figures out this new one.
He should tell Gina to learn how to work with the new report by watching her teammate work with it.
8. Lukas and Maria are business analysts on a product design team. The project manager tasked them both to design a workflow model to aid communication across the various skills on the team. After two weeks, Lukas and Maria shared it with the team. The model received poor feedback from several members of the team, across skills. The project manager has asked Lukas and Maria to rework the workflow model.
What would you recommend Lukas and Maria do next?
Rework the proposed model by extrapolating the possible issues faced by the other team members.
Brainstorm between themselves to come up with several workable models.
Convince all members on the effectiveness of the current proposed model with supporting data.
9. Rashida is concerned about her team member Deena. Deena is normally the team's top performer. In the last 2 months, Deena's productivity has sharply declined. Rashida has already asked if Deena needs help. Clearly, Rashida needs to determine what exactly is going wrong.
How would you suggest Rashida tackle this problem?
Rashida should continue to wait until Deena wants to talk to her.
Rashida should invite Deena for a chat and let her say whatever is on her mind.
Rashida should observe Deena at work to try and find out what the issue is.
10. Alberto's team makes precision parts for a new government project. The parts are for a new aircraft that will be an important part of his company's future sales. Carlos is his lead engineer and has found an issue. Carlos is having quality issues with the metal used in the specifications. Fortunately, there is time to investigate the problem.
What is the best way for Alberto to choose a solution for this quality problem?
It is important for Alberto's team to all get a chance to weigh in on the decision.
Alberto and Carlos should experiment with a variety of metals to find a solution that works best.
Carlos should be allowed to make the choice since he is more technical.
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