TROUBLESHOOTING
No matter what you do, things will sometimes go wrong. As a
manager, you will often be called upon to put them right, or to
employ other people to do it for you.
Troubleshooting requires: diagnostic ability, to size up the
difficulties; know-how, to select the required solution and decide
how to implement it; and managerial skill, to put the solution
into effect. It can be divided into three main parts:
■ Planning the campaign.
■ Diagnosis.
■ Cure.
PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN
Even if you decide to do it yourself without using management
consultants, you can still take a leaf out of the consultant’s book.
A good management consultant will go through the following
stages:
■ Analysis of the present situation – what has happened and
why.
■ Development of alternative solutions to the problem.
■ Decision as to the preferred solution, stating the costs and
benefits of implementing it.
■ Defining a method of proceeding – how and over what
timescale the solution should be implemented, who does it
and with what resources. If a staged implementation is
preferred, the stages will be defined and a programme
worked out.
The most important task at the planning stage is to define the
problem, clarify objectives and terms of reference. A problem
defined is a problem half solved. And it is the difficult half. The
rest should follow quite naturally if an analytical approach is
adopted.
Once you know what the problem is you can define what you
want done and prepare terms of reference for those who are
conducting the investigation, including yourself. These should
set out the problem, how and by whom it is to be tackled, what is
310 How to be an Even Better Manager