The Directory of Help Desk Software Solutions and Information

If you work for a living, then part of what you do is solve problems. These problems might consist of people or things; they might range from office politics, to printers that refuse to print and LANS that just won�t LAN, in any case you get paid to fix it.   We�ll start with the easy stuff. The physical world -- these are all the things that do exactly what we tell them to and are literally incapable of doing anything they�re not supposed to.   When Did?  Did it ever work the way you think it should? Are you a hundred precent positively certain? Did you see it with your own eyes? Or are you relying on second hand testimony? There is a very good reason why �hearsay� evidence isn�t allowed into a court of law. Before you set out trying to make something do something, make sure it used to do it in the first place.   What Changed?  Once you know it did it once, the most important question is what changed to cause it to stop doing what it was doing. �I didn�t do anything! It just stopped working!� Is normally the cry of someone trying to hide what they did, or someone who did something they didn�t think would interfere with the smooth running of the universe.   Why Now?  But sometimes the above claim is both honest and accurate. Nobody did anything. Something happened to change the status quo that nobody knows about. A fuse burnt, a circuit breaker did its job, the power fluctuated, the gas tank is empty, the cat unplugged something.   Where Else?  Is there another copy of the same thing that is working as it should? Can we compare these two things, atom by atom if necessary, to identify what�s going wrong?   What If?  Problem Solving is the fine art of changing the world until it fits the vision in your mind. Go slowly in your changes, impatience is the enemy of progress. If you change more than one thing at a time, then you�ll never know which of what you did made things better or worse, or even if they are competing for dominance and causing failure in the attempt.   Why Not?  Remember all the out of the box thinking stuff you�ve been hearing about? Simply stated all it means is this, when what you�ve tried hasn�t worked, it�s time to work what you haven�t tried.   Now let�s turn to the graduate school of problem solving. This is where everything involved has a mind of its own, and might not want to be fixed. Welcome to the wild and wooly world of people problems.   Why You?  When working with people problems it is absolutely crucial that you are honest with yourself and lay out your personal agenda in the scenario in front of you. You cannot solve a people problem as an outsider. To attempt to solve a people problem is to become a player in the drama.   Who Cares?  Now that you have established you are involved, who else is party to this problem? Until you know all the players, how they interact and what their primary agendas are, you�ll be playing poker with half the deck and not sure if a full house beats a flush.   Who Wins?  Who gains from the current situation, and who gains if the situation shifts in another direction? People problems are usually brought about by perceptions of win/loss outcomes. Sometimes the perceptions are correct, other times they need clarification and correction.   Who Loses?  Rule #1 of Human nature -- Nobody likes to lose. It�s not always possible to find the holy grail of the win/win outcome, but it�s nearly always possible to find a win/(lose less) solution to the problem. It is also possible to lessen the blow of loss if the winner is aware that �gloating� aggravates the loss.   What Now?  Problem solving is a difficult task, made all the more difficult when we scurry from problem to problem without taking the time to examine past wins and losses. Each solution, regardless of effectiveness is a step towards the solution of the next problem, if and only if we take the time to look backward.   Like all art, to appreciate problem solving best you need to stand back from it a bit.   Peter de Jager is a speaker, writer & consultant. Contact him via [email protected]

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