PSDM Assignment

ANUSHA UMAIR - 17040020
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PROBLEM SOLVING & DECESION MAKING
FIRE FIGHTING
Usually, when people are working in teams, they came across a lot more issues than
they have the time and resources to deal with. As individuals working in
organization, we need to focus our resources and vigor to focus short term goals as
well as long term goals and avoid firefighting as much as possible. Usually in
firefighting, we allow a problem to grow until it becomes a crisis, and then we use
our energy and resources to fix it. Fire fighting consumes an organization's
resources and damages productivity. Teams put their problem-solving efforts for a
quick-and-dirty patching. They are constantly juggling and deciding whether to
allocate overworked people with more work and which activity should be
compromised to handle the immediate crisis.
Fire fighting is one of the most serious problems facing many managers of complex,
change-driven processes. There are several ways to remove fire fighting. They can
be divided into three classes as shown below:
Tactical
As new problems arose,

look for temporary
assistance as short-term
strategy
Shut down operations till
all are solved. Allow new
problem one at a time only
when the previous ones
are removed.
Perform triage i.e. admit
that some problems will
not be solved.
Strategic
Clutural
Strategic methods take more

time to implement but they
pay off across a range of
projects and over long periods.
Few ways are:
Outsource some parts of

design
Solve classes of problems,

not individual problems.
Use learning lines.
Develop more problem

solvers.
Requires changes in the

mind-set of the whole
organization as well as the
behavior
of
senior
managers.
Dont tolerate patching.
Be
flexible
about
deadlines.
Measure
development
tasks by the number of
remaining difficulties
Practice
long-term
prevention and systematic
problem solving.
Curing the fire-fighting syndrome is not easy. A fire-fighting organization

needs to transform itself into a problem-solving organization by recognizing that the
self-perpetuating fire-fighting syndrome is a set of rules, behaviors and logical
practices that must be avoided to build a problem-solving organization. The
research suggests that it may be the absence of a vision and plan that cause an
organization to be so reactive, and spend a lot of time fire-fighting rather than
proactively meeting the needs of their customers. The management need to use
standard work practices, create a corrective and preventive action process based on
root cause analysis, conduct follow-ups to ensure effectiveness and share lessons
from past opportunities so that they are not repeated. If one is able to get things
right the first time, there's usually not much fire-fighting later.
Cheetah Team

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A cheetah team is a small, elite unit, that is mobalized to solve problem quickly.
These teams are always ad hoc in nature only initiated to solve a specific mission
and dissolved as soon as that mission is done. The members are committed fulltime, and they are fully sponsored by top management. Cheetah teams improves
the overall efficiency solving critical problems at the right time in the right fashion.
Fast and effective problem solving can save a project from disaster, avoiding costly
delays, customer satisfaction problems, and dips in employee morale. But like its
namesakethe fastest of all land animals over short distancesthe cheetah team is
most effective as a short-term strategy.
Cheetah teams can generate more difficulties when used extensively. Key technical
experts or other critical resources allocated to cheetah teams become unreachable
to the rest of the group, which can delay corresponding assignments.
The Hidden Traps in Decision Making:
Bad decisions can often be traced back to the way the decisions were made when
less time was spend exploring alternatives, finding the right information and not
weighing the costs and benefits against the resources available. But sometimes the
fault lies not in the decision-making process but rather in the mind of the decision
maker: The way the human brain works can sabotage the choices we make.
In this article, following eight psychological traps are discussed:
1. The anchoring trap leads us to give disproportionate weight to the initial
impressions or estimates and therefore it adds bias and make subsequent
thoughts and judgments very shaky.
2. The status-quo trap biases us toward maintaining the current situation-even when better alternatives exist. Always identify other options and use
them as counter balances carefully evaluating all the pluses and minuses.
3. The sunk-cost trap inclines us to make choices in a way that justifies past
choices even when past selections are no longer valid.
4. The confirming-evidence trap leads us to seek out information supporting
your existing point of view.
5. The framing trap occurs when we misstate a problem, undermining the
entire decision-making process.
6. The estimating & forecasting trap makes us overrate the precision of our
predictions.
7. The prudence trap leads us to be overcautious when we make assessments
about uncertain events.
8. The recallability trap prompts us to give undue weight to recent, dramatic
events.
The best way to avoid all the traps is awareness: forewarned is forearmed.
Your Managerial Intuition: How Much Should You Trust It? Can You Improve
It?
Today's managers are ever more forced to make decisions at a pace that allows too
little time for analysis, and managers are unsure how much importance to give their
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intuition in making important decisions. Intuition is defined as an inability to

articulate the thought process that led to a decision. Intuition is a necessary tool for
leaders to be successful. The reading discuss different facets related to relevance,
importance, and reliability of using intuition in the decision-making process. Mastery
of the field removing distractions and building expertise, keeping a journal or diary,
and discussing options with an unbiased adviser or friend is the royal road to
reliable flashes of intuition. You ignore intuition at your peril and you follow it
blindly at your peril

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ANUSHA UMAIR - 17040020

As new problems arose,

Strategic methods take more

Outsource some parts of

Solve classes of problems,

Use learning lines.

Develop more problem

Requires changes in the

Curing the fire-fighting syndrome is not easy. A fire-fighting organization

ANUSHA UMAIR - 17040020

ANUSHA UMAIR - 17040020

intuition in making important decisions. Intuition is defined as an inability to

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