Problem Solving And Decision Making Process - Benefits, Steps, & Skills

An international crisis, global pandemic or even adopting new technology all these occurrences may wreck the organizational structure a bit. That’s why it is important to improve decision-making and problem-solving skills in case we found ourselves before such challenging matters.  

Every member of the company, at some point, is asked to decide on something or maybe solve a problem. However, higher authority has a hard time trying to sort out humongous matters incorporation with HR management to make sure that the decisions are all aligned. 

Let us introduce you to some skills, steps, and the benefits of developing your decision-making and problem-solving strategy. 

What is the decision-making process? 

A decision-making process is a set of processes done by a person to choose the best alternative or course of decision-making activities for them.

It is a collection of measures conducted by managers in a firm to define the planned course for business initiatives and to put actions in motion.

What is the Problem-Solving process? 

The problem-solving process is the process of observing the organization’s atmosphere as a whole to spot any irritating matters and to figure out why such problems occurred in the first place, to examine the possibility of improvement or change, in order to develop alternatives of problem-solving activities which can help with the decision-making process. 

Benefits of Decision making & Problem-solving 

Problem-solving & decision-making are essential talents. They can assist you with several circumstances that may arise at work.

The talents may be used in conjunction with one another to tackle many of the same problems. Here are some benefits of using decision making and problem-solving skills in your organization: 

• Saving time and making better use of resources: 

Planning things ahead spare you so much trouble and make it easy for you to go back and spot the error and handle it. 

It is the same with the two skills in hand, they both require thorough planning to make sure time is used efficiently and resources are exploited perfectly. 

• Easy Delegation Process: 

If you approach decisions as a single jumbled step, your only options are to accomplish everything yourself or to chuck the assignment over the wall and pray for the best.

It is much easier to assign work and schedule check-ins at suitable stages if all stakeholders have shared process clarity on the phases of making choices. 

• People will accomplish things faster: 

it is easier to set clear goals, have flexible timelines, and prepare the resources needed. This way your people will only occupy themselves with work and try to finish things as well as possible. 

• Prevention of quarrels: 

When a manager is insufficiently forceful and leaves too many decisions to the workers, it can lead to workplace conflict.

A situation in which employees are unsure of the way they are being led might result in an overabundance of players attempting to take command.

Improve your decision-making abilities and show them the way to avoid your colleagues arguing over how to complete a project or which proposal is superior for your team!  

Sometimes you don’t even sense that your organization has experienced a downfall, and this is thanks to a clever implementation of detailed problem-solving followed by a decision-making process.

Decision-making Process: 

• Identify the problem: 

Whether you're tackling a complex problem or a relatively simple one, it's vital that you have a clear understanding of what it is that you're hoping to solve. 

If you're trying to tackle several problems (even if they're relatively simple) the task becomes much harder. 

• Do your research: 

You'll want to undertake some fact-finding and investigation once you've defined the problem you're trying to solve.

This might entail investigating the causes of previous problems that were successfully remedied. It may be necessary to create interview questions to ask persons engaged in the situation. 

• Look for possible solutions: 

It's time to start thinking about possible remedies after you've done your study on the issue. This step necessitates creativity and brainstorming as you come up with a few excellent ideas. 

As well as some backup plans in case the initial set fails. Creating contingency plans to prevent more difficulties is a common part of problem solving. 

• Make a decision: 

Once you've compiled a list of potential solutions, work your way down the list to the best option. If you're working in a group, attempt to make decisions collectively and come up with a solution that everyone agrees on. 

• Put that decision into action: 

Implement your selected solution in a methodical manner. Avoid acting too quickly, since this will almost always result in a shoddy solution that fails to accomplish the desired outcome. 

• Await results: 

Examine how well your solution is functioning and decide whether you need to take any more steps. Before you follow up and decide whether to adjust your strategy, it's ideal to set a time for observation. 

Even though Decision making and Problem-solving processes might be similar in some steps, it is important to know the steps of Problem solving process as well. 

Problem-Solving Step in the Process:

• Define the problem: 

you’ll have to identify the issue, understand how it came to existence, and see if there’s enough data to start working with. 

• Clarify the problem

Clarify the problem are you aware of everything related to it? Or do you need more information? You need to know if this was a priority to fix now, or it can simply wait while handling other more important issues. 

• Define the goals:

in this step, you’ll have a fixed goal that you aim to achieve after solving this problem. Fixing a clear timeline would encourage working faster and harder to solve the problem. 

• Identify the roots & the major causes of the inconvenience:

A problem doesn’t occur out of thin air, there must be a reason, and for you to get rid of this problem once and for all, you need to extract the reason. 

• Develop an action plan:

Make a list of the steps that must be taken to treat the core cause & prevent the problem from spreading to others. 

Each activity should have an owner and a deadline. Finally, actions should be tracked to verify that they are completed. 

• Execute action plan:

now that you’ve had your list of steps, put it into motion! Just make sure everything is crossed out of your action plan. 

• Evaluate the results:

Match the results you got with the goals you set in earlier steps. Check if there were any unpredictable consequences. If your goals weren’t achieved, then the problem isn’t solved yet, meaning you must start all over again.