This problem has existed since claims processing was moved to Kansas City in March 2012. For example, a specific improvement that would make a product more competitive on the market. . Is the whole hospital having the problem, or is it confined to a particular group? {"appState":{"pageLoadApiCallsStatus":true},"articleState":{"article":{"headers":{"creationTime":"2016-03-26T15:43:27+00:00","modifiedTime":"2016-03-26T15:43:27+00:00","timestamp":"2022-09-14T18:05:59+00:00"},"data":{"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Business, Careers, & Money","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/34224"},"slug":"business-careers-money","categoryId":34224},{"name":"Business","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/34225"},"slug":"business","categoryId":34225},{"name":"Project Management","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/34249"},"slug":"project-management","categoryId":34249}],"title":"How to Write a Problem Statement for Six Sigma","strippedTitle":"how to write a problem statement for six sigma","slug":"how-to-write-a-problem-statement-for-six-sigma","canonicalUrl":"","seo":{"metaDescription":"The problem statement serves several purposes in a Six Sigma project. Define the business need and the expected outcome of the project. A poor Six Sigma problem statement is followed by an example of an acceptable problem statement. Yes, having high inventory levels is a problem, but a problem statement containing so little information significantly reduces your ability to take specific action, enlist support, and obtain improvement.\nThe problem statement must not include any indication or speculation about the cause of the problem or what actions will be taken to solve the problem. Bruce Williams is Vice President of Pegasystems, the world leader in business process management. Identify constraints that limit a project team's options for developing a solution. Neil DeCarlo was President of DeCarlo Communications. 3 steps to create a design thinking problem statement. The process can also help you take a more proactive than reactive approach to problem-solving. Plus, discover how to use it to transform your organization and check out 4 examples. Simply thinking through these questions as they relate to the problem can help you create a strong problem statement. We must frame the problem appropriately, setting the context for the audience that might not be familiar with the problem. Given one hour to work on a problem, hed spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes finding solutions. The problem statement above, in a different font, tells you a lot of things. Why is it important to solve this problem? The best examples of problem statements stick to a clear and obvious structure. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(9253440, '18bbac98-d8f0-4f4f-a151-74e23b6c5002', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); The best time to create a problem statement is before you start thinking of solutions. There may be no single best solution. See how innovative companies use BetterUp to build a thriving workforce. Keep it short. Nobody thinks that having claim forms with errors is good. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9791"}},{"authorId":9792,"name":"Bruce Williams","slug":"bruce-williams","description":"
Craig Gygi is Executive VP of Operations at MasterControl, a leading company providing software and services for best practices in automating and connecting every stage of quality/regulatory compliance, through the entire product life cycle. Bruce Williams is Vice President of Pegasystems, the world leader in business process management. It helps you, team members, and other stakeholders to focus on the problem, why its important, and who it impacts. But if the goal is to stimulate fresh ideas, its better not to suggest a solution within the problem statement. What Are We Solving For? With access to virtual coaching, your people can get personalized support to help solve tough problems of the future. Problem statements such as the following are effective at enlisting peoples attention, energy, and support:
\nBetter Problem Statement 1: Inventory levels at the West Metro inventory storage process in Scottsdale are consuming space, taking up asset management time, and creating cash flow issues. He is a leading speaker and presenter on business and technology trends, and is co-author of Six Sigma Workbook for Dummies, Process Intelligence for Dummies, BPM Basics for Dummies and The Intelligent Guide to Enterprise BPM. Using the most objective lens possible to create a useful and actionable problem statement will not only prevent any targeted interpersonal grief but will also illuminate the road ahead and prepare fertile ground for problem-solving. Here are a few elements that make for an effective problem statement: Focused and Concise: A problem statement should be based on fact and should be just a few sentences. Or taking customer service calls to learn more about customer pain points and problems your employees may be grappling with. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9794"}}],"primaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":34249,"title":"Project Management","slug":"project-management","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/34249"}},"secondaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"tertiaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"trendingArticles":null,"inThisArticle":[],"relatedArticles":{"fromBook":[{"articleId":208300,"title":"Six Sigma For Dummies Cheat Sheet","slug":"six-sigma-for-dummies-cheat-sheet","categoryList":["business-careers-money","business","project-management"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/208300"}},{"articleId":204999,"title":"How to Create a Cause and Effect Analysis for a Six Sigma Initiative","slug":"how-to-create-a-cause-and-effect-analysis-for-a-six-sigma-initiative","categoryList":["business-careers-money","business","project-management"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/204999"}},{"articleId":175743,"title":"The Tools-Methods Landscape of Six Sigma","slug":"the-tools-methods-landscape-of-six-sigma","categoryList":["business-careers-money","business","project-management"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/175743"}},{"articleId":175736,"title":"The Six Sigma Scale","slug":"the-six-sigma-scale","categoryList":["business-careers-money","business","project-management"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/175736"}},{"articleId":175735,"title":"What Is Six Sigma? We're on a mission to help everyone live with clarity, purpose, and passion. He is an operations executive and internationally recognized Lean Six Sigma thought leader and practitioner. Read my take on developing a strategy. Maybe; maybe not. (Or so the story goes.). Go back and work on the statement of the problem to make sure everyone understands and agrees on what the real problem is. Define the boundaries of the project. Once the who has been established, the what will often naturally present itself. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9791"}},{"authorId":9792,"name":"Bruce Williams","slug":"bruce-williams","description":"Craig Gygi is Executive VP of Operations at MasterControl, a leading company providing software and services for best practices in automating and connecting every stage of quality/regulatory compliance, through the entire product life cycle. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9792"}},{"authorId":9793,"name":"Neil DeCarlo","slug":"neil-decarlo","description":"
Craig Gygi is Executive VP of Operations at MasterControl, a leading company providing software and services for best practices in automating and connecting every stage of quality/regulatory compliance, through the entire product life cycle. Since problem statements guide much of the problem solving of a project, it is important not to be too narrow or broad with the problem statement. Neil DeCarlo was President of DeCarlo Communications. 3. This strategy can be used to describe how a specific stakeholder group views the organization. Bring two to three strong options to the table so stakeholders can help you brainstorm more ideas, revisions, and perspectives. ADVANTAGE GROWTH, VALUE PROPOSITION PRODUCT SERVICE PRICING, GO TO MARKET DISTRIBUTION SALES MARKETING, ORGANIZATIONAL ORG DESIGN HR & CULTURE PROCESS PARTNER, TYPES OF VALUECOMPETITIVE DYNAMICSPROBLEM SOLVING, OPTION CREATION ANALYTICS DECISION MAKING PROCESS TOOLS, PLANNING & PROJECTSPEOPLE LEADERSHIPPERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, 168-PAGE COMPENDIUM OF STRATEGY FRAMEWORKS & TEMPLATES, 114-PAGE MARKET & COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS PRESENTATION. Writing the problem statement to the standards of Six Sigma provides the level of information needed to make an informed decision:
\nBetter Problem Statement 3: Insurance claim forms originating at the Fremont North Memorial emergency department are causing a loss of revenue, excessive rework costs, and delayed payment to the hospital. Heres another example of a problem statement with insufficient information, along with a rewritten Six Sigma alternative:\n\nPoor Problem Statement 2: Human resources is taking too long to fill personnel requests.\nBetter Problem Statement 2: Recruiting time for software engineers for the flight systems design department in San Jose is missing the goal of 70 days 91 percent of the time. The manufacturing and assembly process for Product X is as efficient as possible. This can be used to describe a current pain point within an organization that may need to be addressed. A project manager is first and foremost a team leader. Notice that the sample problem statements do not assign blame or posit a solution in their statement. Good job! He is an operations executive and internationally recognized Lean Six Sigma thought leader and practitioner. In her spare time, she's usually somewhere outside (preferably in the mountains) and enjoys poetry and fiction. A resource is something that can help you with managing projects. We know organizations everywhere are grappling with tough, complex challenges. When the doughnut shop (who) closes at 3 p.m., which is the end of its customer volume, it throws away 10 dozen units of product at the end of the day (where). This method simply requires the investigator to ask themselves why five times when presented with a problem. Find out 4 ways you can improve your organizational performance and unlock human potential. Are you planning to introduce a project management software solution to your employee? Then you'll be ready to take on more challenges large and small. Bruce Williams is Vice President of Pegasystems, the world leader in business process management. If you have embarked on a proposed solution, its also important to understand that solutions are malleable. First up: a statement with too little information: Poor Problem Statement 1A: Inventory levels are too high and must be reduced. Problem statements do not have to follow a specific formula. A problem statement is a clear description of the problem you are trying to solve and is typically most effectively stated as a question. A natural tendency is to write a problem statement too simplistically because youre already familiar with the problem. It also serves as a great communication tool, helping to get buy-in and support from others. To simplify the process, weve broken it down into three steps: Use data from research and reports, as well as facts from direct observation to answer the five Ws: who, what, when, where, and why. Although it sounds simple in theory, it can be a difficult and frustrating exercise in practice. This food waste costs the shop at least an hour of lost production time in the mornings (what). When problem statements are well written, people readily grasp and understand what youre trying to accomplish. He is a leading speaker and presenter on business and technology trends, and is co-author of Six Sigma Workbook for Dummies, Process Intelligence for Dummies, BPM Basics for Dummies and The Intelligent Guide to Enterprise BPM. Corporate research analysts include problem statements in their proposals for beginning a new research project. The average time to fill a request is 155 days in the human resources employee recruitment process over the past 15 months. Does the problem statement lack an obvious solution? Why? While the exact words may differ from example to example, the main parts of an effective problem statement are fundamentally the same. Lead with a strong statement and a powerful . This approach can be used to describe where an organization wants to be in the future. This is helpful in performing the root cause analysis and determining how this problem can be solved. You know where the problem is occurring, you know how long it has occurred, you know the magnitude of the problem, and you know how much its costing. The approach a project manager takes in understanding a fully-formed problem statement will lay the foundation of a project managers personal problem statement style. A common example of this is diagnosing a car that will not start. DE | Meet the leadership that's passionate about empowering your workforce. In our experience, an effective problem statement is brief, preferably one sentence. I have deep experience with this topic, strategic planning, career development, scaling up, workshops, leadership, presentation development & delivery, ramping up new roles, and much more. This delay is adding costs of $145,000 per month in overtime, contractor labor, and rework costs.\nAnd one more:
\nPoor Problem Statement 3: Our hospital has a problem with the number of insurance claim forms submitted with errors to the insurance company.\nThis statement has so little information that readers may not be entirely clear on whether a significant problem even exists. Transform your business, starting with your sales leaders. It also serves as a great communication tool, helping to get buy-in and support from others. Understand the client's or stakeholder's needs. First, it significantly clarifies the current situation by specifically identifying the problem and its severity, location, and financial impact. Step 5: Get feedback from stakeholders. Other problems may be giving you worse headaches than this one.
\nAt a minimum, some quantification of the magnitude of the problem would help readers make a better decision. Your team can use problem management to solve for repeating major incidents. This can help position you and your team to avoid getting stuck in constant fire-fighting mode. Try ClickUp's Dashboard Feature. You must be careful to avoid under-writing a problem statement. An effective problem statement needs to be actionable, concise, and thorough before it may be presented to a team in good faith. He is a leading speaker and presenter on business and technology trends, and is co-author of Six Sigma Workbook for Dummies, Process Intelligence for Dummies, BPM Basics for Dummies and The Intelligent Guide to Enterprise BPM. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(9253440, '8381199b-4f67-4ce4-b96c-c66eb44bfc0c', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); Madeline is a writer, communicator, and storyteller who is passionate about using words to help drive positive change. But considering his success in solving complex problems, we think he was on to something. A well-framed problem will help you avoid cognitive bias and open avenues for discussion. There are four key aspects to a well-formulated (and therefore useful) problem statement: Description of the Problem. Great! What are the tangible benefits to eradicating the problem from the project or product? Forty-five percent of the claim forms have errors, with an average of 2.3 defects per form.
This problem has existed since claims processing was moved to Kansas City in March 2012. Six Sigma Problem: At the New Jersey factory, 45% of the employees report to work within 15 minutes after the time that they were supposed to report to during the beginning of the shift causing a fall in daily productivity by 5%. I really enjoy coaching clients and they get a ton of value too. It also serves as a great communication tool, helping to get buy-in and support from others. Nobody thinks that having claim forms with errors is good. Keep the discussion going by asking why. Those who find themselves in a leadership position will know exactly what project management brings to the table. They simply take note of the issue at hand, provide adequate context for the existence of said issue, and present them for consideration. These two steps will help you uncover the root cause of a problem: People often perceive problems differently. If you catch yourself or your team rushing to the solution stage when youre first discussing a problem, hit the brakes. A natural tendency is to write a problem statement too simplistically because youre already familiar with the problem. Problem statements are subtly critical in effective problem solving. Writing the problem statement to the standards of Six Sigma provides the level of information needed to make an informed decision:\nBetter Problem Statement 3: Insurance claim forms originating at the Fremont North Memorial emergency department are causing a loss of revenue, excessive rework costs, and delayed payment to the hospital. I remember my first day on my first project at McKinsey, the partner got the team in a room for us to spend a few hours defining the problem statement. At first, I thought to myself, man, what a dumb ideathis client is paying us millions of dollars, and we dont even know what we are trying to solve? But, as we started to debate the context of the client, the issues they faced, and the reasons why they brought us on, I started to appreciate defining the problem statement and the ability for the right problem statement to frame and focus problem solving. A problem statement should be concise and include the following: A brief description of the problem and the metric used to describe the problem, Where the problem is occurring by process name and location, The time frame over which the problem has been occurring. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9794"}}],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/books/"}},"collections":[],"articleAds":{"footerAd":"","rightAd":""},"articleType":{"articleType":"Articles","articleList":null,"content":null,"videoInfo":{"videoId":null,"name":null,"accountId":null,"playerId":null,"thumbnailUrl":null,"description":null,"uploadDate":null}},"sponsorship":{"sponsorshipPage":false,"backgroundImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"brandingLine":"","brandingLink":"","brandingLogo":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"sponsorAd":"","sponsorEbookTitle":"","sponsorEbookLink":"","sponsorEbookImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0}},"primaryLearningPath":"Advance","lifeExpectancy":null,"lifeExpectancySetFrom":null,"dummiesForKids":"no","sponsoredContent":"no","adInfo":"","adPairKey":[]},"status":"publish","visibility":"public","articleId":170197},"articleLoadedStatus":"success"},"listState":{"list":{},"objectTitle":"","status":"initial","pageType":null,"objectId":null,"page":1,"sortField":"time","sortOrder":1,"categoriesIds":[],"articleTypes":[],"filterData":{},"filterDataLoadedStatus":"initial","pageSize":10},"adsState":{"pageScripts":{"headers":{"timestamp":"2023-04-10T10:50:01+00:00"},"adsId":0,"data":{"scripts":[{"pages":["all"],"location":"header","script":"\r\n","enabled":false},{"pages":["all"],"location":"header","script":"\r\n