| Mr.
Hughes, a mechanical engineer, is a member of the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) & the American
Society of Training and Development (ASTD). He is currently
a Senior Training and Reliability Consultant with Reliability
Center, Inc. |
 |
| (an
engineering and consulting firm). His expertise encompasses
all areas of Human and Plant Reliability including the training/mentoring
and facilitation of Root Cause and Opportunity Analysis efforts
worldwide for client companies. |
Many analysts become extremely concerned when
assigned the responsibility for solving a problem they know nothing
about. This presents a great challenge to the problem solver.
First one must be cognizant of the fact that you don’t have
to be an expert in the failure in order to analyze the failure.
Quite the contrary, being the subject matter expert is often times
a detriment to the analyst. The subject matter expert is so close
to the problem that their expertise keeps them for exploring all
the possible causes of the failure. The tendency is for the expert
to push the analysis in the direction of his or her own pre-conceived
conclusions. This is not to say that subject matter experts are
not required for problem solving or failure analysis, but they
may not be the right person to lead the effort. What they need
to be is an expert in the science of problem solving, not the
failure.
Another great challenge to the problem solver
is overcoming the fear of the unknown. The analyst cannot be expected
to be the see-all and know-all of everything. Putting it in the
proper perspective, problem solving can be thought of as an exercise
in continuing education. A good analyst recognizes his or her
limitations and is smart enough to both locate the recourses necessary
to provide the answers and ask the questions that lead to the
correct solutions.
Perhaps the greatest challenge of all to the problem
solver is training oneself to deal only with the facts. Often
times we see our plants or processes as being overwhelmingly large
in size and complexity. This in turn translates into problems
and solutions that must also be large and complex. Nothing could
be farther from the truth. The facts are the facts no matter the
size or complexity of the problem being analyzed. Good problem
solvers are not afraid to deal with factual information and will
do whatever is necessary to uncover those facts. Dealing strictly
with facts not only builds individual confidence but also provides
strong documentation to obtain the resources necessary to implement
solutions to the identified root causes of analyzed problems.
The best problem solvers
are those individuals who are not afraid to take on new challenges
no matter how difficult they appear to be. In actuality, they
look at these challenges as being the greater the difficulty -
the better. I think Buckminister Fuller said it better than I
ever could when he said – “The reward for being a
good problem solver is to be heaped with more-and-more difficult
problems to solve.” How true this statement is, after all,
nothing breeds success like success. So the question becomes,
are you up to the challenge?
|
