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Problem formulation plays a crucial role in planning, problem solving, and decision making, potentially affecting all the succeeding phases, including idea generation, design, and implementation. Yet formulation is a very difficult process that often is rushed or taken for granted, particularly by new and unskilled team leaders/facilitators. With the advent of team-based organizations, more responsibility now falls on newly-appointed team leaders to manage the formulation process. This paper describes the role of a team leader or facilitator in managing the problem formulation process to reduce Type III errors (solving the "wrong" problem or a sub-optimal problem).
Keywords: Problem formulation, decision making, teambuilding, facilitation
1. Introduction
Despite efforts to turn decision making into a science, there still are many aspects of this process that truly are art forms. One such area is problem formulation.
All crises, threats, opportunities, and problems begin with a perception that something in the environment requires attention [22]. How that something is characterized (formulated) will determine how it is approached and solved. Labeling a situation a "human resources" problem means that it will be approached differently than a "computer systems" problem or a "market share" problem. Needless to say, solving the "wrong" problem or a sub-optional problem, sometimes referred to as a Type III error, is a costly, demoralizing and all-too-familiar phenomenon [26].
There are many reasons why the problem formulation process is so difficult to master. For complex problems, multiple sources of information must be evaluated and integrated within an uncertain and often changing environment. If the formulation process is rushed, in all likelihood important dimensions of the problem will go undetected and opportunities will be missed. Personalities and "turf" sometimes come into play. At times, the best that can be hoped for is to reduce the chances of committing a Type III error. The two factors over which a decision maker often has the most control in this situation are the people (participants) and the process.
Involving the "right" people in the problem formulation process is essential [4]. Collectively, the participants in a formulation session must have access to and be sensitive to the cues offered by their environments, and they must be capable of evaluating and synthesizing these data. Values (work, ethics), aptitudes (intellectual, creative), skills (analysis,...