STRUCTURING THE ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM

Problem analysis generally proceeds in a standard way:

But to generate the conclusions and actions most efficiently, the analyst must deliberately structure his initial fact-gathering effort so that it will yield logically coherent findings. That is not the general practice. More likely is for people to go out and gather ·whatever data are available in an area, and postpone any real thought mil they have the facts and figures all in one place.

One can do that, of course, but invariably it makes for extra work. A better approach is to generate diagnostic frameworks and logic trees to guide your analysis and direct your thinking. Not only will your problem solving be more efficient, structuring the results into a pyramid will be a much simpler task.

Since the general habit is so often to go after the data first, let me trace the reason for the prevalence of this approach and then explain the alternative.