Intensive workshop · Strategy
Solving the wrong problem
The expensive mistake is rarely in the analysis. It is in the statement nobody argued with, written as a sentence that already carried the solution inside it.
- Duration
- 4 hours 30 min
- Delivery
- On site · Virtual
- Participants
- From 8 to 20 participants
- Investment
- Request a quote
Investment depends on scope, number of participants and delivery mode. We prepare a proposal at no obligation.
The problem it solves
The problem arrives at the meeting already named, and the name settles most of what follows. There is a communication problem between two areas, or the system is slow, or people are not committed. From there the work organises itself around the statement, and the statement was written by someone describing a symptom from wherever they happened to see it.
Months later the matter returns under a different name. Coordination meetings were held, a tool was replaced, staff were spoken to, and the same event happens again because the mechanism producing it was never examined. Nobody did their job badly. A problem that was not the problem got solved with real diligence.
On top of this sits a habit of proposal that makes the effect worse. The person doing the analysis arrives with one option dressed as three, where two exist so that the first looks reasonable. The conversation stops being a choice and becomes a yes or a no, and whoever decides is left without the thing they needed: what was being left out, and why.
What it covers
The workshop hands over a working method for the moment a problem lands on your desk, and it does so by practising on real cases participants bring. The first part deals with the statement, which is where most of the value is lost. The problem gets written as a sentence containing no solution, with precision about who it happens to, since when and how often, and with an answer to the question almost nobody asks: how would we know it had been solved.
The second part bounds it. A problem that happens everywhere is almost never a problem; it is several problems at once. On a worksheet, participants mark where it occurs and where it does not, with whom it happens and with whom it never has, at which point of the process it appears and at which it has never appeared. That boundary usually points at the mechanism more precisely than any discussion of causes, and it shrinks what has to be investigated.
The third part moves from symptom to mechanism. Using a structured line of questions the group reconstructs the chain producing the observed event and puts it through a simple test: if this chain is real, what else would have to be happening. Particular attention goes to the point where these conversations usually stop, which is the explanation by attitude, because stopping there closes the analysis without performing it.
The closing section builds options. Participants practise generating genuinely different alternatives, including the two that rarely get written down, which are doing less and doing nothing, and they fix the comparison criteria before comparing so the criteria cannot rearrange themselves around the preferred answer. Each participant ends with their case stated, bounded and turned into options with their trade-offs made explicit.
What participants learn
- Evaluate the statement you were handed and rewrite it in one sentence containing no solution.
- Identify where the problem occurs and where it does not before investigating causes.
- Analyse the chain producing the observed event and test it for consistency.
- Design genuinely different options, including doing less and doing nothing.
- Prioritise the evidence that would distinguish between two competing explanations.
Agenda
- The statement that already carries the solution
- How would we know this problem had been solved
- Where it happens and where it does not: the boundary as evidence
- From symptom to mechanism through a structured line of questions
- The explanation by attitude and why it closes the analysis
- What evidence would separate two competing explanations
- Real options against one option with two companions
- Comparison criteria fixed before the comparison
What the organisation leaves with
- A one-sentence problem statement with no solution inside it, written for a real case.
- A map of where that problem occurs and where it does not, with the boundary documented.
- Three genuinely different options for the same case, each with its trade-off stated.
- The team can hand an assignment back when the problem arrives stated as a solution.
Programme details
- Format
- Intensive workshop
- Also available as
- Workshop · Corporate training day
- Languages
- Español · English
- Includes
- Participant workbook
- Action plan
- Post-training resources
- Facilitation
- ALUD Consulting LLC — Global Business Transformation.
Who it is for
- Professionals who are handed problems already stated by someone else.
- Analysts, specialists and project coordinators who prepare recommendations.
- Supervisors who receive recurring complaints and answer with measures that do not stop them.
- Technical teams that solve well and watch the same matter return under another name.
Frequently asked questions
- Does the workshop teach a named improvement methodology?
- It borrows pieces from several without adopting any one as a complete framework and without certifying anyone in it. An organisation looking for a formal methodology rollout needs a consulting engagement, not a one-day workshop.
- Does it work for people problems and not only process problems?
- It works for stating and bounding them, which is usually what is missing. That said, when a case involves the conduct of an identifiable person the workshop stops: that belongs in a supervision conversation, not in a group analysis.
- Does the session cover the final decision or only the analysis?
- It runs as far as the recommendation with its options and trade-offs. The decision belongs to whoever holds the authority for it, and the mechanics of deciding under pressure with incomplete information are covered in a different programme.
- Is it better for several people from the same team to attend?
- Considerably better. A problem stated by one person tends to keep the angle that person sees it from, and the bounding work improves a great deal when someone in the room observes the same event from another point in the process.
Request this programme
Tell us the context and we will prepare a proposal tailored to your organisation. No obligation.
Working this inside the organisation
If this challenge will not be settled in one session, ALUD Consulting LLC works it as consulting: management consulting, human resources, strategy, organisational design, leadership development and business transformation.