The course, customized for maritime shore staff and conducted by the Wavelink Academy, Singapore – the training arm of the Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union (SMOU) – was an excellent opportunity for professionals from the shipping fraternity to equip themselves with a matrix of tools and techniques which will enable them to visualize a problem, identify possible solutions and test the effectiveness of the solutions, creating a structured thinking process to tackle any given situation.

The problem solving process comprises of a Six-stage process from Identifying & defining the problem to evaluating the results as an outcome of the process. The process as below includes various business tools and methodologies for innovative problem solving.

The Problem Solving Process

The course also included 22 different tools to work with and taught the attendees how to choose the appropriate tool at every stage that would best suit to solve a given problem.  Some of the tools that are most used in our day to day business and problem solving are as follows:

CATWOE (Customers, Actors, Transformation Process, World View, Owner, Environmental constraints): It is used when identifying the problem. Also helps in seeking to implement the solution, and helps consider the impact on the people.

Brain Storming: It is the best-known creative tool done in groups with the help of a facilitator who manages the process. The duration of the session would depend upon the problem and the motivation of the group.

HOW HOW Diagram: The tool is used as a practical way of exploring the details of the plan. By asking How at each stage.

Lotus Blossom: It is used to create innovative and seeds of ideas when trapped with a single mode of thinking. Thus from the many ideas listed the best idea is selected as part of the solution.

Mind Mapping: The tool is used to explore and develop ideas for a specific problem. The main problem/task is listed in the center of a page and is further mapped with further levels of solution to the problem/task known as branches to identify the main problem and further breaking it down with further sub branches.

Gantt Chart: Is also commonly known as a milestone chart, project bar chart or activity chart. The charts are used when scheduling and monitoring task within a project, communicating plans or status of the project and sequences and duration of the projects known.

Apart from the few examples mentioned, there are many other tools used by professionals across different industries for innovative solutions but all culminate to the main objective of the course, which is moving from Analytical to Creative Thinking – taking out some valuable time from our day-to-day affairs and putting on our thinking hats.

Managers and teams need to discuss problems faced within an organization and the industry as a whole and work towards bringing a change in the process in order to stay competitive and within agreed results. The course educates us to learn from our experiences the problems at micro and macro level of the organization and to work on various processes and systems that would best suit the organization to minimize any given problem.

The process and system that we adopt would be based on the tools involved in describing the problem, finding a solution, implementing the process/system and finally evaluating the process adopted and changes required, if any, to the new system. It was indeed a learning experience with new knowledge and a different perspective to dealing with our daily issues.

Article by Mr. Richie Kotwal
Asst. Fleet Personnel Superintendent
ESM, Singapore