A pack of wolves attack an elephant, they chose their preferred areas to attack on the elephant's body, they then attack and bring it down, they then start eating bite by bite, in a matter of time the elephant is finished, midway through their eating if a flock of birds starts hovering over their heads then they eat the meatiest of the pieces and leave the rest of it.
Lets decompose the above sentence
A pack of wolves attacks an elephant (they have attacked many elephants before and hence they know how to attack elephants, i.e. they know how to solve this problem even before they have met the problem), they chose their preferred areas on the elephant's body to attack (they do a basic planning and positioning before they physically attack, i.e they plan their approach to break down the problem into pieces), they then attack and bring it down (they break down the elephant, if its a stronger elephant then they need to change their attack method, position, numbers; i.e they break down the problem into pieces and if situation demands they adapt their way of breaking down), they then start eating bite by bite (i.e. they solve the problem), in a matter of time the elephant is finished (i.e. they have solved the problem), midway through their eating if a flock of birds starts hovering over their heads then they eat the meatiest of the pieces and leave rest of it. (i.e they solve the biggest problems and quit).
The commentary above, in essence, explains the "Hypothesis based approach to solving problems".
The difference between wolves and consultants is that everyday wolves come across elephants who are all body-types and behavior whereas consultants (or people in general) come across problems which is different every time and this is the reason if you are facing a new type of problem and very keen to learn how to solve it then you should keep reading.
Consultants apply the same logic, as wolves eating an elephant, of breaking a problem down into pieces with the only difference being, consultants keep on trying to cut the problem in different ways till they are able to break it down into chew-able pieces, rest of the work is the same as wolves'.
Hypothesis based business problem solving is a very methodical approach of breaking down a problem into pieces and solving the most important ones.
Once clients gives consultants a big business problem they even starting the engagement think of ways of breaking it down into smaller sub-problems, once on the ground (at the beginning of consulting engagement) they validate if they presumed approach of breaking-the-problem-down was right or not, re-adjusting their problem cutting method continually so the problem cuts nicely and into the smallest possible piece which does not interfere with other problems boundary, then trying to find out solution-options for each of the sub-problems, if time does not permit then they solve the biggest of the problems and ignore the small problems. hence getting the best results with shortest efforts.
Now if its so simple to solve problems then why do we need a full blog on this article. The answer: the challenge with us is that there is a team of consultants working in a complex client environment where there are many unknowns, time is short, expectations high and reputation at risk. This is why the team from the top to bottom levels needs to work in coordination to solve complex business problems.
Let us first start by understanding the difference between a problem and its sub-problems
Problem:
A problem will always a business problem; it has to either generate more money or reduce costs for business.
Sub-Problem:
A big business problem can be broken down into smaller sub-problems which may be of any of these types E.g. customer-interaction issue, supply chain issue, analytics issue, information access issue, issue with any type of business-operations, risk due to an external business environment; issue with marketing, information system related issue, people related issue and the list goes on. To solve a sub-problem you need consultant who have expertise in solving each type of problem.
Hypothesis based Problem solving process can be summarized into following steps:
1. Define the Exam Question (aka. Problem)
2. Elaborate the sub-questions (aka. Problem Hypothesis)
3. Prioritize problem Hypothesis
4. Define solution-options
5. In light of the recent findings modify and redo the above steps 2, 3 and 4
6. Are we hitting the target? If required, adapt our approach
7. Measure effectiveness of solutions in solving the main Exam QuestionEngagement Leads
Consultants
Let's examine their roles:
Engagement Leads:
They leads the overall view of the problem and its solutions, typically a Business Architect who knows the business context (the dollar aspect) of solving the problem. We could have named thsi role as Chief-Architect but to keep it simple i have named it as such because most Consulting companies assign Engagement Leads to perform this kind of role. A consulting engagement generally has only one person working in this role. Engagement Directors are people who work on a part-time basis on project and guide the Engagement Leads in complex business problem solving. Engagement Lead manages the progress of overall problem solving process and their inter-dependencies and he is not concerned with nitty gritties of each sub-problems as that is the scope of Consultants. In a RACI matrix the Engagement Leads are Responsible and Accountable for Steps 1, 3, 6 and 7. They are consulted for Steps 2 and 5.
Consultants:
A group of people working under the Engagement Lead trying to solve a sub-problem; their skill-sets differ according to the nature of sub-problems. Their main aim is to solve that sub-problem and control all the risks and issues hindering their problem solving process. They escalate their concerns to the Engagement Lead. In a RACI matrix the Consultants are Responsible and Accountable for Steps 2, 4 and 5. They are consulted for Steps 3 and Informed about step 6.
Detailed Process:
During the Hypothesis based approach to problem solving at any point of time your team should be able to report on the progress of the Hypothesis validations. And this is why you would need a tool to track the work. I have used MS-Excel to manage this but there is a need for an application to do the hypothesis management.
Depending upon your success or failure rate during the work your team can take a go/no-go decision.
....Keep watching this page; soon i will be adding more thoughts on this.
