Thursday, December 29, 2011

Narrowing the Analysis


Questions during a consulting project:

What is the situation that has been described by the client? [I use the term "situation" because some clients never have problems; they have situations.] What are the rewards and attitudes that contribute to the situation? What are our assumptions? What are the goals? What is needed? What is desired? What is not wanted? How has the matter been handled to date? To what extent have the corrective actions improved or worsened the situation? Why is that the case? What is the unmentioned item that everyone talks around? Why don't they want to address it? Is that item the real problem? Is there a tendency to blame a person rather than a practice? Is there a single problem or has the situation been created by a combination of practices? To what extent is poor performance inadvertently rewarded? Why is it being rewarded? How do people perceive the matter? Is their mental picture keeping them from seeing reality? How are you regarding the matter? Is your own mental picture a blinder? Are we in the right room or has prior analysis taken us on a detour? What environment must be present to give recovery a chance? What are the time factors? Do they want a serious fix or a quick fix? Is a solution really wanted? What solutions would make matters worse? Is there the capacity for a cure? What is the ideal response? What is the best possible response? Given all of the above, what is reality and what is the solution?

Now, boil all of that down to a paragraph.

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