PROBLEM DEFINITION

AZMI ABDUL LATIFF FACULTY OF SCIENCE, ARTS AND HERITAGE UNIVERSITI TUN HUSSEIN ONN MALAYSIA

Problem definition

It is worth spending an appropriate amount of time making sure that you have defined the problem properly before you set out on an improvement project.

Problem definition

No matter how clever we are at coming up with solutions to problems, if we are working on the wrong problems in the first place we are wasting our time.

Problem definition

"The question is more important than the answer" Edward Deming

Consider this problem

A hospital was getting lots of complaints from patients about the food.

"Solve the Egg Problem and you Solve the Food Problem"

Before they dived in and did things like outsourcing the catering function, they did some analysis.

"Solve the Egg Problem and you Solve the Food Problem"

They asked the patients if the problem was with all of the food. The patients said that it wasn't all of the meals that were a problem, it was just the breakfasts.

"Solve the Egg Problem and you Solve the Food Problem"

When asked what the problem was with breakfasts the patients replied that the food arrived cold. They were then asked if all of the breakfast was cold. They said that it wasn't, it was the eggs that were cold.

"Solve the Egg Problem and you Solve the Food Problem"

As a result, the hospital ensured that breakfast-time eggs were kept warm and complaints about the hospital meals dropped significantly.