Effective Problem Solving and Decision Making
Problem solving and decision making is the mental process that an individual goes through to discover, analyze and solve the problem. It includes all the stages right from discovering the problem, understanding it, organizing information, forming a strategy and allocating resources to solve the problem and finally evaluate the solution to identify whether it is the best possible solution for the given scenario.
In order to completely utilize the problem-solving skill, an individual requires a few fundamental attributes and competencies such as initiative, creativity, resourcefulness, analytical thinking, results-orientation and determination.
There are three types of problem-solving questions
1) Analytical problem solving
Analytical problem-solving questions require the individual to be objective during the process of finding the solution. It starts from formulating a hypothesis and reasoning out the hypotheses to find the solution. It does require one to separate emotions from the problem since objectivity and the use of logic is of prime importance.
2) Technical problem solving
Technical problem solving involves understanding every facet of the problem in order to follow a series of established steps or a process in order to arrive at the solution. Technical problem-solving questions will be specific to the area of expertise of the individual or the ore area that the role requires knowledge about.
3) Situational/Behavioral problem solving
Situational problem-solving involves assessing all the factors in a scenario that contribute to the problem and finding a solution that handles all the factors.
Situational problem-solving questions are usually like tell me a situation where you used your problem-solving skills to find an appropriate solution, tell me about a problem that you solved with a unique approach, tell me a time when you found a need and went out of your way to find a solution, tell me about a time when you anticipated an issue and devised preventative methods to avoid it.
Importance of Problem-Solving in the Workplace
The way in which the question to the problem is phrased highly influences the way it is received, perceived and solved. Organizations need to keep this mind when they use problem solving questions to assess the problem-solving ability of an individual. There have been instances when there is low clarity in the problem statement, due to which interviewers assume that the candidate does not have good enough comprehension, which is one of the foundational requirements for problem-solving. It is a missed opportunity to hold onto talent if that occurred during the make-or-break question.
Problem solving and decision making questions asses an individual’s ability to contribute to problem-solving processes that occur at the workplace. This can be applied at the technical level or even at a behavioral level. Even members of the HR team must be efficient problem solvers if they are to accurately identify the issues that the employees face at the workplace and devise solutions that address them within the organizational context.
If an individual shows an inclination towards problem-solving, it indicates that they could be developed into leaders within the organization since problem solving is the essence of what leaders or managers do in the business. Hence, problem solving is an attribute that is important to be measured for any role or field of work in the corporate environment.
