Preface

There are always problems coming up ahead. The difference between good and decent managers is that good managers are able to provide effective and creative solution to the problem at hand faster, and rely on teamwork when solving it. In Team Academy, some kind of issues come around almost every day. As a team leader, I just focused on solving the team issues with the team and my own issues as openly and fast as possible, so they wouldn’t come back later. As a leader problem solving is divided in to two main categories, which are decision making and innovation.

To solve a problem, those two things I mentioned earlier are often required. Innovation of a solution, and decision making when it needs to be acted upon. If the solution is risky, the manager needs to be able to take the risk. Proctor’s book focuses mainly on innovation part, and how can you approach the problem at hand and calculate the probability of success in the possible solution.

Objective finding

 When starting to create a solution, you first need to find the problem. Sometimes problems are just lurking in the shadows, without anyone noticing them. At this point, I thought that is the problem even there, if no one notices it? Well, the answer is that no one just notices it yet, and it will come to light and then it might be too late to fix it quickly. Best way to make sure the problem doesn’t become a bad issue, is to find it on time. It’s a bit like when finding cancer, earlier it’s found, easier it is to cure. Book offers some ways to identify a problem quickly, even when no one else sees it yet.

1. Compare current experiences with past experiences
2. Compare current experiences with current plans or objectives
3. Compare performance with the models of desired outcome
4. Compare performance with that of other organizations or sub-units.

If some of these comparisons don’t add up at all, then it will be worth it to look to it more closely. After these main comparisons, the closer way to look at the unmatching comparison is to use SWOT-analysis, (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and it usually offers the identification of the problem, when it’s analyzed from each point of view.

Six thinking hats

I picked this problem-solving and brainstorming strategy from the book, because I think that it will be well adaptable in team academy. Six thinking hats-method was developed by De Bono in 1985, and the point is to see different viewpoints and ways of thinking towards the problem. The size of the circle can vary, it can be six thinking hats or eleven, it doesn’t really matter. I think we could try this with Deveta at some point, but here’s how it works.

The strategy involves people working on a problem in a group and each member will be adopting a different viewpoint. There are six types of hats, which each represents a different way of thinking. We give one hat to each member of the group, and they have to use that way of thinking, what is said on the hat. Besides the six hats, group needs someone who can collect these thoughts and ideas which are created during discussions.

The procedure for six thinking hats:

1. Six types of thinking are written into a piece of paper and are put on the open. At the start, members have half an hour to familiarize each way of thinking. After that, the ways of thinking are put on six different hats.
2. Each member selects one of the hats and are asked to discuss about the problem in given point of view with the rest of the group.
3. Hats are exchanged three times, so each member of the group has to adapt at least 3 different points of view towards the problem.
4. After an hour, the time is up and the person who has been collecting all the thoughts, shows them to everyone and then the group tries to develop a solution to the problem using these thoughts.

Summary I think when I am in charge of our next idea labour, we could try six thinking hats-method during the labour while trying to solve the problem the customer has given us. We haven’t ever tried this before, and I haven’t ever been in charge to something like this before, but I am certain it doesn’t hurt to try. I think this book is going to be really useful in our future. We have Team Acacemy’s ending test 24-hour idea labour, and I think I’ll try to make sure that every member of Deveta reads this book before that. There were so many theories I didn’t even mention in this essay, but I think I could keep a training session about this book next year, there certainly was enough useful material for it.