Category Archives: Articles

These are articles or other print pieces that contain information I deem very important to independent restaurant owners and other food service operators. They may be written by myself or others.

Do’s and don’ts for startup restaurants – vol. 3

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Do:
Make vendors compete for your business. If you chose a vendor without making them outbid other vendors, you didn’t get their best price. Competition is the most effective tool you have to keep your purchase costs down. When choosing a vendor, make a list of the top 20-50 items that make up the bulk of your dollar purchases. Send a list of these items to all the vendors in your area that deliver those items, along with a cover letter informing them that you are taking bids from all local vendors that provide these items. The cover letter should also let them know approximately how much dollar sales volume you do, and any issues pertaining to the supply of those products that you have. This bidding process needs to happen every year so whoever you choose to go with has to continue to compete on price to get your business. You should also require them to verify their prices on your inventory every 3-4 months.

Don’t:
Depreciate all build out costs at 30 years. Some capital purchases in your buildout, like wiring, finishes and equipment can be amoratized to depreciate at 5, 7 or 10 years. A faster depreciation schedule means better cash flow for your business.

Do:
Investigate buying groups. Through group purchasing organizations (GPO’s), a smaller chain or individual restaurant may be able to receive discounts on purchases of all types, such as food, paper goods, chemicals, linen, uniforms, equipment, maintenance supplies and more. Two of the larger buying groups out there are Avendra, Marriott’s buying group, and Foodbuy, the buying group for Compass. While a well negotiated individual purchasing contract can yield just as good, or better, prices than a buying group, many operators don’t have the experience to successfully negotiate such a contract.

Don’t:
Blame a particular advertising medium for the failure of an ad campaign. In most cases, advertising mediums don’t fail restaurants, restaurants fail their ad campaign. I’ll explain. The success of an ad campaign doesn’t depend on a particular marketing medium. Saying that “Radio/TV/billboards/direct mail/internet doesn’t work for us” is a cop out. Marketing mediums don’t fail. Marketing messages fail. While radio, for example, isn’t the ideal medium for every ad campaign, it does work for certain promotions if the message is formed right. All the advertising dollars in the world aren’t going to make a bad message effective on any medium. You can’t just pay to have your business’ name plastered on a TV ad every 10 minutes and expect it to bring people in. That’s not how advertising works.

Do:
Take a physical inventory weekly. Knowing your cost of goods sold on a weekly basis allows you to catch major problems sooner. It doesn’t do you any good to find out you had a cost control problem 4 weeks earlier. By then, there’s nothing you can do about it. The steps to figuring your cost of goods sold include; (1) create an inventory spreadsheet with all your current purchase prices for your inventory items, (2) count all your inventory items after the end of business on Sunday, and before the beginning of business on Monday, (3) enter your counts into your inventory spreadsheet to calculate how many dollars of each inventory item you have on hand, (4) add your purchases for the week in review to the beginning inventory for that week, which is the count you took the prior week, (5) subtract your ending inventory, which is the count you took this week, from this amount. The remaining number is your cost of goods sold.

Don’t:
Operate under the assumption that fired employees qualify for unemployment benefits. This is a common misnomer in every industry of business, perpetuated by uninformed employees and managers. If you keep accurate records of disciplinary actions taken against an employee, give that employee an opportunity to correct that action, then accurately record their failure to do so, you have enough evidence to avoid having your unemployment insurance being charged for that employee’s unemployment benefits. In most states, a terminated employee will not qualify for unemployment benefits, but the business has to show accurate records for this to happen.

Do:
Find some way to reward employees. Playing games with staff, and making them compete against each other is not only fun for the employees, but also profitable for your business. Have selling competitions with service staff. Have speed competitions with kitchen staff. Any issue your restaurant or food service is experience can be improved through the implementation of some sort of game or competition to improve that situation. 

Don’t:
Underestimate the impact of a clean bathroom. Your bathroom in your business is a reflection of the overall cleanliness of your business. A clean bathroom will make your guests confident that your kitchen, and the rest of your restaurant, is also clean and sanitary.

Do’s and don’ts for startup restaurants – vol. 2

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Do:
Concentrate your marketing efforts and dollars on people who already know you.

Don’t:
Try to be all things to all people. Find your niche.

Do:
Incorporate a few “signature” items into your menu. Having items that your competitors don’t have gives your customers a reason to come to you instead of them.

Don’t:
Depend solely on word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing only works AFTER a lot of people know who you are.

Do:
Update your prices at least 3 times per year. Small, incremental price increases are likely to go unseen by your customers. Wait too long, and you’ll have to significantly increase all your prices at once, which WILL be noticed. Those frequent small increases are better for cash flow than occasional big increases.

Do’s and don’ts for startup restaurants – vol. 1

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Do:
Know your target market. Your target market is not the people you WANT to buy your food, but rather the ones MOST LIKELY to buy your food. A big red flag in any marketing plan is an assumption that your concept appeals to everyone.Don’t:
Have a large menu. Large menus confuse your concept, increase ticket times, decrease table turns, increase waste, make server training harder, and overall just make you lose money. You can’t be all things to all people. If you try, you’ll be very little to very few.Do:
Have an exit strategy. Knowing how you’re getting out of this venture if things don’t go right is more important than knowing how to get into it. What happens with your lease if your concept fails? Do you have provisions that protect you in case of road construction, building construction, or other cicumstances beyond your control?

Don’t:
Think if you “build it they will come”. Every new restaurateur thinks their food and product is so interesting and unique that people will flock to their restaurant just because they opened it.

Do:
Have a marketing plan. Word of mouth marketing only works if a lot of people already know about your business. You can’t depend on word of mouth for a startup. Marketing a startup takes money and a plan on how best to utilize that money to get people in your door, so you can build relationships and earn their referrals to their friends.

Don’t:
Sign a contract without having it reviewed by legal counsel, whether it’s for a lease, a partnership, or a vendor.

Do:
Create a unique selling point. Form an emotional bond with your customers by promising to make them FEEL something, then delivering on that promise. The memory of how you made someone feel with your restaurant will last long after they forget who served them and what they ate. “Good/great food and service” are NOT unique selling points. Every restaurant claims to have these. The emotion that you promise and deliver to your customers IS a unique selling point. Other restaurants will not have this.

Implementing a slip and fall prevention program

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Controlling Losses – Implementing a Slip and Fall Prevention Program

                                                By Brandon O’Dell                                      

 

All over the country and the world, owners and managers are asking themselves, “What can we do better? What separates us from the really profitable companies?” Operators want to know what the most successful companies do different that makes them consistently profitable and spurs growth. The answer?  Profitable operators understand that success requires a plan for absolutely everything in their operation. They have effective programs to control losses and increase revenue in all areas. They don’t just concentrate on the “big two”, labor and product cost, there is a plan for everything. This article addresses an often overlooked area in many restaurants, slip prevention.

 

      According to the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), slip and fall accidents are the second leading cause of on-the-job deaths, second only to automobile accidents. The U.S. Department of Labor states that 15% of workplace deaths are caused by slips, trips and falls. The ASSE, whose building codes are adopted as law in most cities and states across the country, recently released a new American National Standard which focuses on reducing slip and fall accidents in the workplace. Up to 9 million disabling slip and fall accidents each year, that’s 25,000 per day, are attributed to slip and fall accidents by the National Safety Council. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) both mandate that walk surfaces should be slip resistant. With the high amount of expedient walking and ever changing and even wet conditions, restaurants become a high risk environment for slip and fall accidents. What should a restaurant owner or manager do to limit the restaurant’s liabilities?

 

      Implementing an effective slip and fall prevention program is a restaurants best defense against getting caught with high workers compensation insurance, liability insurance, ADA or OSHA fines, or a lawsuit. There are five key areas to an effective slip and fall prevention program. Though concentrating on any one area can reduce risks, using a complete program that addresses all the areas is the only way to ensure a successful program. Here are the five areas your program should address:

1.                  Flooring surface – This is the foundation to a slip prevention program. The more dangerous the environment around the surface, the more slip resistant the actual surface itself should be. Slip resistance is measured by a ratio called the coefficient of friction. There are numerous devices used to measure the coefficient of friction of a floor, though no one device is recognized by the ADA, OSHA or court system to be the correct device. Slip resistant flooring surfaces and treatments to change existing flooring surfaces are available to correct a low friction surface situation. The presence and placement of floor drains in kitchen floors should be considered a major factor in evaluating the surface itself.

2.                  Proper cleaning methods – Without the use of proper cleaning methods, even the most slip resistant surface can become slippery. Food particles, dirt, grease and even cleaning agents all build up and fill in the tread patterns on a floor without the use of proper cleaning methods. Once the tread is filled in, there is nothing left to create friction against a shoe. The three biggest cleaning mistakes made by restaurants include 1) using a mop as the primary cleaning tool, 2) mixing a high concentration of soap or degreaser into the cleaning solution and 3) not having a rinsing cycle for the floor to remove soaps and degreasers. Ideally, restaurants should use the same type of cleaning method other high risk businesses, such as butcher shops, are required by law to use.

A proper floor cleaning starts with applying a correctly diluted degreaser or cleaner. A higher degreaser ratio is needed for more contaminated floors, lower for less contaminated floors. Most systems that mix chemicals automatically dispense at a ratio only correct for the greasiest of floors. Entry ways, for example, require a low concentration of cleaner while kitchens require a higher concentration. By applying cleaners with a pump sprayer, instead of a mop and bucket, and properly mixing cleaners, operations can save a significant amount of money on chemicals by not wasting. The use of pump sprayers also reduces the spreading around of grease from one area to another.

Next, the floor should be scrubbed with a deck brush. Mops to not move into the pores and crevices of a floor to break out buildup, deck brushes do.

After scrubbing the floor, the contaminants and cleaner have to be removed. They are removed through squeegeeing into a drain, or into an area with a wet/dry vacuum if floor drains are not present. Mopping alone does not pick up the majority of the contaminants. Mops only push the contaminants around. They end up in the pores they were just removed from.

Lastly, a floor needs to be rinsed with hot, clean water. Ideally, the restaurant is equipped with floor drains and equipment and product is organized to allow for the used of a hose and squeegee rinsing. If this is not possible, using hot clean water in a clean mop bucket and a clean, uncontaminated mop head will suffice. Simply wetting, wringing often and mopping over the surface will provide for the best rinse possible without a hose.

Low traffic and low contamination areas may not be required to be cleaned in this method on a daily basis if a regular weekly proper cleaning is administered to avoid buildup.

Another cleaning option that should be considered in addition to the above proper cleaning method, or to help work around a restaurant with cleaning challenges, is monthly restoration cleanings. Very strong cleaners are available from restoration product companies or mainline suppliers that, when used once a month, can strip your floor of any buildup that may be effecting the surface.

A trend in chemical companies recently has been to offer floor cleaners that leave a polymer buildup on floors to create “tread”. While some may help less porous floors with a small amount of preexisting tread, they often serve to fill in pores and tread on more porous floors. In a dry condition, the slip resistance is slightly improved, but the polymer buildup over the pores may serve to make the floor more dangerous wet instead of safer. In any case, proper cleaning procedures and permanently changing the surface itself are much more effective and less expensive in the long run.

Proper cleaning procedures should be part of every employee’s training. Most employees come from one of the estimated 90% of operations that do not use proper cleaning methods.

3.                  Surface evaluation and documentation – Measuring the coefficient of friction of your walkways and keeping a record of the readings not only gives you a measuring stick to help you gauge the success of your slip and fall prevention program, it also provides up to date accurate data on the condition of floors and documents the operations efforts to comply with ADA and OSHA requirements in addition to court recognized minimum slip resistance. In the big picture, this step could possibly save the operation more money than all other steps combined.

4.                  Footwear – Slip resistant footwear has increasingly become a tool for slip prevention. Many shoe manufacturers now make slip resistant footwear specifically designed for wet or oily conditions. While requiring slip resistant shoes to be warn in an operation is a necessary step in slip and fall prevention, the use of shoes alone does not constitute an effective slip and fall prevention program.

5.                  Hazard Warnings – Proper signage and its’ correct use is the final ingredient to a slip and fall prevention program. The use of signage alone does not release an operation from liability in the event of an accident. Too often, operations do not remove signs after floors have dried. Employees and patrons become complacent when approaching areas with wet floor signs because, more often than not, they are no longer wet. Many operations buy two sided wet floor signs that cannot be read from the sides. Four sided wet floor signs should always be used. Improper use of signage and/or the use of ineffective signs could be the deciding factor of liability in a slip and fall lawsuit.

 

The benefits of implementing a good slip and fall prevention program are numerous. Some, such as the added protection against lawsuits are immeasurable. Evidence of compliance to ADA and OSHA requirements and court recognized minimum standards of slip resistance can help protect you from not only law suits, but also fines that can be levied by the ADA and OSHA. While neither organization recognizes a ratio of minimum slip resistance because they cannot agree on a method to measure it, both do require all walkways to be slip resistant. Without an absolute ratio to measure compliance, the determination of compliance is left to the opinion of the inspector.

Lowered worker compensation insurance and liability insurance are a definite benefit of a good slip and fall prevention program. Decreasing the likelihood of a fall helps to decrease the number of accidents, in turn helping to hold down or even reduce insurance premiums. The implementation of a solid plan alone may be enough for an insurance company to offer a discount.

Increased employee productivity is another benefit that is hard to measure, but absolutely present. Sure footing increases the speed of an employee’s gait. Employees work faster when they walk faster. They get more accomplished in a shorter period of time. The added confidence and reduced stress affecting employees with a safe surface to walk on can improve every aspect of their work, including their attitude.

Another hard to measure benefit of a good slip and fall prevention program is the psychological effect a safe walking surface and sure footing may have on your customers. Elderly customers often avoid restaurants with floors they consider slippery. A slip and fall accident to an elderly customer could mean surgery or even death. Not a good payoff for the risk of going to a restaurant that serves their favorite hamburger. Families with children just learning to walk may avoid restaurants with unsafe surfaces. Lack of sure footing and slip resistant surfaces are factors customers just can’t put their finger on when they attempt to explain why they do not eat at a certain establishment. Their decision is often made subconsciously as a protective reflex.

 

As a contributing factor to loss prevention and even increasing revenue, implementing a proper slip and fall safety program can help a restaurant take one step closer to the profitability owners and operators see in other restaurants. Take one more step toward becoming a professionally organized and managed operation idolized by others. Have a plan for everything, including slip and fall prevention, and reap the benefits.

   

Brandon O’Dell

O’Dell Consulting

Instilling ownership in your employees?

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You’re not comfortable with the level of effort your staff is putting forth lately. You get the urge to give the “it’s your restaurant too” speech. Is it a good idea?

I don’t know if I’d want my staff thinking they owned my restaurant. While it’s nice to think we can motivate people to behave like they owned the place, without actually owning some place, they simply can’t know how to behave that way. Most employees see owners as lazy, and as someone whose job they could easily do, mainly because they have no clue what their job is.

If you are really looking to get something done that isn’t getting done, the way to do it is through your systems. Add it as someone’s job. That way you’ll never have the “It’s not my job!” excuse. When someone uses that line, the first thing to do to combat that attitude is to make whatever it is you are talking about part of their regular duties. That way, when they say “It’s not my job!”, you can come back with, “It is now.”. The next time they see something that needs done, but it isn’t their job, they’ll be that much more likely to take care of it that one time so it’s not made a permanent duty of theirs.

If you are looking to make your employees understand better what it means to be an owner, make them see the financial picture in your restaurant. Play the “restaurant game”.

Have a staff meeting and hand each of the employees $100, representing your sales. Tell them you are going to let them know what it is like to be in the restaurant business. Talk to them about each of your expenses one by one, and take away a portion of their $100 to signify what you pay for each of those expenses. By the time you take $35 to pay for food, $30 to pay for their wages, $12 to pay your rent and occupancy costs, then dollar after dollar for each of your other expenses and taxes until they are left with $4 or so, if anything, they’ll start to get the picture of what it is you go through. If you are losing money, this is even more effective because you can ask them to pay you after you take all their $100.

Getting your employees to empathize with you is a very powerful motivation tool, especially if they understand that the more money you make, the more money you have to pay them. Further explaining how seemingly little actions, like helping to make sure the restaurant’s appearance is up to par, directly or indirectly effect profitability will help to motivate them to consider things outside of their normal job descriptions to help you, and in turn them, become more profitable.

I don’t think I would want my employees thinking they owned my restaurant. That’s like letting the patients think they own the asylum.

Unique selling point – vol. 2

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See “Unique selling points – vol. 1
I hear all the time from owners and operators that companies like Applebee’s are successful because of their big advertising budgets. I say “bull”. Applebee’s, for example, is successful because of it’s branding. It’s the effectiveness of their marketing that gives them their competitive advantage, not the number of dollars they sink into it. Branding yourself is more than just employing millions of dollars worth of repetitive marketing. That is not why the marketing programs for chains work.

Branding yourself starts, the whole marketing program starts, with choosing a unique selling point, choosing that thing that makes you different. Here’s a clue for that thing; It’s NOT your food or service. If you’re running around telling everyone your food is better, you sound just like everyone else. That’s not unique, it’s the opposite of unique. No matter how much you tell everyone how great your food or service is, you’re not giving them any reason to come to you that all your competitors aren’t also giving them. Point of clarification: ALL YOUR COMPETITORS THINK THEY HAVE BETTER FOOD AND SERVICE THAN YOU, AND THEY TELL EVERYONE THEY CAN.

While there are people that will say a certain place has the best food, or the best service, these are only perceptions, and perceptions can be based as much on a businesses marketing as it can it’s product. Keep in mind, there are millions of people out there that think Applebee’s food is better than anyone’s, including yours. Is that an opinion based on any type of objective analysis or professional expertise? NO! It’s an opinion, most likely driven by emotion, the emotional bond Applebee’s has formed with that customer. Let’s face it, 9oz steaks and microwaved vegetables are NOT better than your food. No way. But…. to those people that go to Applebee’s religiously, it’s perceived as better, or at least a better value, and perception is reality.

So Applebee’s has millions of marketing dollars to brainwash their customers, and that’s why so many people think they’re the best, right? WRONG! It’s not the marketing dollars that create the perception, it’s the effectiveness of the message.

One thing Applebee’s did from the beginning, back in 1980 I think, they chose a unique selling point. They created a story or an image that separated them from their competition. Then they created a moniker to support it, and designed their store around that USP. Applebee’s markets themselves as “America’s favorite neighbor”. They sell their customers a sense of community, whether their customers recognize it or not. Notice the unpretentious design to the inside of an Applebees. The stained glass windows in the door. The fixtures that almost make you think of the nice old couple down the block. Notice how they make an effort to decorate their stores with photos and memorabilia from the city or region that the store is in, or when they can’t, other items you would expect to see in that nice old couples garage or house.

Applebee’s sells their customers a sense of community. They want to be viewed as that favorite neighbor on the block, that nice old couple down the street. By doing this, they attach themselves to an emotion present in everyone, the need for community, the comfort of being at a beloved neighbor’s house.

THAT is a USP. Notice, I didn’t once mention food or service anywhere. Food and service can also back up the USP, but it can’t BE the USP, because there is nothing unique about claiming you have better food or service than anyone. A USP separates you from your competition, it doesn’t lump you into the same group. Then, when you have built your concept effectively around a USP, you will begin to make that emotional connection to your customer that is stronger than any connection you can make with your food or service. If you’re really good at delivering on your USP, and you push it in all your marketing from your logo to your ads, you will effectively brand your restaurant as THE place to go when customers want to feel the way your USP claims you will make them feel.

Emotions are the primary reason for humans to make any buying decision. Big corporations know this, and they employ marketing companies that help them exploit this. Armed with emotion marketing, the quality of food and service becomes secondary, as people can be marketed into believing food and service is actually better than it is. As I’ve said many times, that doesn’t mean good food and service aren’t important, it just means they are a minimum requirement for being successful, not the primary reason for it.

Once again, it’s not the big ad budget that makes companies like Applebee’s strong. It’s the effectiveness of that marketing message.

You do have a customer database, don’t you?

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Communication. In one form or another, it may be the most important thing that happens within a restaurant. Just like your employees, your customers need to know what is going on in your business. How do you communicate with them?

If there is one thing I try to get across to every business owner, it’s that no matter how great your product is, if no one knows about it, it won’t sell. This fact makes marketing your most important job as a restaurant owner. You have an obligation to yourself to build relationships with your guests, and to let them know, with plenty of notice, every special thing that is going to happen in your business. The most effective way to do this is by collecting contact information from your customers and building a customer database.

A customer database is made up of key facts about every customer that comes into your restaurant. Your database should contain first and last names and addresses of your customers at a minimum. Email addresses, telephone numbers, birthdays, and anniversaries can help you make easier contact with customers and tailor special offers to them. You may also want to know favorite dishes, dislikes, and what day you collected the information.

The biggest benefit of a customer database is giving you the ability to spend your marketing dollars on those most likely to come into your restaurant… I’m talking about those who have already been there. To many owners, spending their marketing dollars on people who already know about their business seems like a waste of money, but the truth is that the greatest potential for increasing sales lies with those who already know where you are located, what you sell, and how great a value it is. These are the people who take the least convincing. You already have a relationship with these people.

Think about it, if you were giving away free booze to attract people to your house for a party, who are most likely to come, complete strangers or people who have been to your parties before? Your business is no different. Convincing people to come back more often than they had already planned is much easier that attracting new people, whether it’s a house party or a restaurant.

By collecting information from your customers, you give yourself the means to invite them back more frequently, to try and make them regular guests. You have the opportunity to get them to come back when YOU want them back, not just when the mood hits THEM.

There are several ways to collect customer information. You can simply ask for it, hand out comment cards with blanks to fill in with their information, offer a signup for a “VIP” club, or collect information for a prize giveaway. You may also want to think about contacting other merchants in your area to see if they have customer databases they may want to trade with you. Someone who visits another business close to you is also likely to give you a try since they make regular visits to the area.

Once you collect your customers’ information, you have many options on how to use it. With email addresses, you have an almost free way to communicate with your customers. Not all customers have email though, and some that do may not respond to email advertising. Direct mail newsletters are another option you have to contact customers. Newsletters can be used as more than advertising, you can offer stories about your restaurant, your employees, and your customers. You may even want to start a “Customer/Employee of the Month” contest and publish the winners in your newsletter. Another option is good ‘ol fashioned direct mail offers. You can print a postcard with your latest offer or invitation to come to a special event. Since the people you are sending these print pieces to are familiar with your business, they are more likely to respond to your direct mail than a recipient from a mailing list you bought.

No matter how you communicate with your customers now, if you don’t have a customer database, you’re leaving money on the table.

Steps to effective problem solving

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Effective problem solving is not a skill that comes to most people naturally. It is a taught skill that must be practiced to become effective, a structure in the way you approach every problem you tackle. The following problem solving system is derived from a version of the scientific method I was taught at a very young age. One factor that classic versions of the scientific method do not take into account is perceived problems. A few of the problems facing the foodservice industry today are problems not derived from ineffective systems or procedures. They are derived from incorrect perceptions from our target audience.

What is a perceived problem? A perceived problem is a conclusion that some or many of your target audience have come to that may or may not be correct. Sounds confusing, doesn’t it? Ever wondered why you can please all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but never all of the people all of the time? Every person that comes in contact with you or your business will take away a different perception of you no matter how identical you act to everyone who walks in the front door. Every person will have their own perception of you.

Is perception important? Your friends or customers perception is actually more important than the facts. If the service in your restaurant is fantastic, but 2 percent of your clients believe your service is horrible, who’s correct? In the case of that 2 percent, they are. Will you sway their opinion by simply stating that they are incorrect because 98% of your clientele believes you give great service? Probably not. Is there really an actual problem with your service if 98% of the people are satisfied? Once again, probably not. Most lump this hypothetical 2% of customers into the category of people that you cannot please. I say it’s not true. In this case, the 2%’s perception of bad service in your restaurant is their reality, which makes it your reality in relation to them. Perception is always more important than reality.

            Can you change people’s perception of you or your restaurant? Absolutely. Rather than ignoring the opinions of a minority of people who think a different way than everyone else, try to form a different solution of how to please them in comparison with everyone else. Most often the conflicting perception of the minority in relation to the majority is caused by a different set of values they have in relation to a certain subject. While the majority of people may consider great service to mean they receive every item they need to make their meal complete without having to ask for it, other people may simply judge service by how friendly the server was despite a few mistakes here and there. Others still may judge service exclusively on speed while some judge it on formality. The differences in perceptions are infinite, but the reality is; you can change people’s perception of your restaurant if you can identify the cause of their perception. This is where an effective problem solving technique comes in to play.

             Studying and repeating this technique could help you become a more efficient problem solver. You may also find you are able to solve some problems you previously thought unsolvable. These seven steps can be related to personal, professional and scientific problems alike. Keep an open mind.


The Seven Steps to Effective Problem Solving 

  1. Evaluate – Identify your problem first. A problem is an effect resulting from an unidentified cause in a particular scenario.

There are two types of problems

a.            actual – an actual problem is identified by observing a direct and provable correlation between a cause and an effect without variation; the cause always produces the same effect in a given scenario. Perceived problems can always be broken down into one or more actual problems.

b.            perceived – this is a problem identified by witnessing an effect that cannot be created by repeating a cause; a repeated cause creates a different effect in identical scenarios. A perceived problem can be identified but cannot be solved until one or more actual problems are identified that create the perceived problem.To form a correct solution we have to identify the actual problem/s.

  1. Investigate – Ask questions. Who, what, when where, why, how. Ask every one of these questions for each problem identified. Do not assume.
  2. Hypothesize – Form an educated guess based on questions asked. What do you think the cause is?
  3. Analyze – Take apart a problem into base components. What are the most basic parts of the problem? If a problem is too complex to understand, it should be broken into smaller problems that make up the whole problem. Solve all the smaller problems separately to solve the whole problem. Gather information by experimenting with controls and variables using your hypothesis.

a.            controls – perform different tests in an identical scenario to attempt to recreate the same cause and effect; record the results

b.            variables – perform one test in different scenarios to attempt to recreate the same cause and effect; record the resultsThe cause of the problem will be identified when a common cause and corresponding effect is discovered to repeat itself in a particular scenario.

  1. Reevaluate – Identify the problem again to make sure it was correctly evaluated. If it is determined that the problem is perceived, analyze it until the actual problems that make it up are identified and restate the problem. Repeat from step 1 with the restated actual problem. If multiple restated actual problems are identified, the process must be repeated with each actual problem to solve the perceived problem.
  2. Synthesize – Put all information back together in a logical order.

Cause + Scenario = Effect.

  1. Conclude – Test the information. If the problem was correctly identified, and the correct cause of the problem found, the same effect should result from the same cause in the same scenario every time. Include in your conclusion any perceived problems and incorrect causes that were identified before they were broken down into actual problems. Restate the actual problem by identifying the cause and effect in the particular scenario. Identify a solution by changing the cause of the problem in the particular scenario to create a desired effect. Use a formula that you know already works for you or someone else.

  Key Words

Problem – an effect resulting from an unidentified cause in a particular scenario 

Cause – the catalyst that begins a problem Scenario – the conditions necessary to make a particular cause create a particular effect 

Effect – the result of a problem 

Actual problem – an actual problem is identified by observing a direct and provable correlation between a cause and an effect without variation; the cause always produces the same effect in a given scenario. Perceived problems can always be broken down into one or more actual problems. 

Perceived problem – this is a problem identified by witnessing an effect that cannot be created by repeating a cause; a repeated cause creates a different effect in identical scenarios. A perceived problem can be identified but cannot be solved until one or more actual problems are identified that create the perceived problem. 

Control – particular scenario used to prove or disprove a hypothesis with different causes and effects 

Variables – different scenarios used to prove or disprove a hypothesis with the same cause and effect   Memorize these steps in order until they are a natural thought process when confronted with a problem. You will become a more efficient problem solver.

Evaluate

Investigate

Hypothesize

Analyze

Reevaluate

Synthesize

Conclude