Using the 80:20 Rule to Prioritize
You have been promoted to director of a healthcare department within a hospital. But, you replaced a person who left you a mess of problems that need your immediate attention.
Some of these problems need an immediate fix and other problems can wait. How do you decide which problems need an immediate fix and what do you do to solve these problems?
A Pareto Analysis is a technique in prioritizing problems that need an immediate fix. The Pareto Analysis is based on the “80/20 Rule”. Meaning 20% of the causes generate 80% of results. We will try to find the 20% of work that will generate 80% of the results.
How to Use the Tool
Step 1: Identify and List Problems
Make a list of all of the problems.
Step 2: Identify the Root Cause of Each Problem
Identify its major cause. Use the 5 whys.
5 Whys
Quickly Getting to the Root of a Problem
In the 1970s, the Toyota Company made the 5 Whys very popular. The 5 Whys helps you to get to the root of a problem. This strategy continues to ask “Why” and “What caused the problem at hand?”
The process is first asking “why” something occurred. The answer to this first “why” will prompt another “why” and the answer to the second “why” will prompt another and so on until the last “why” is answered.
An Example on How to Use the Tool:
In this example, the problem is that your client, ABC Corp., is unhappy. Using the 5 Whys, you go through the following steps to get to the cause of the problem:
1. Why is our client, ABC Corp., unhappy? Because we didn't
meet the agreed-upon timeline or schedule for delivery.
2. Why were we unable to
meet the agreed-upon timeline or schedule for delivery
?
The job took much longer than we thought it would.
3. Why did
the job take much longer than we thought it would
? Because
we underestimated the complexity of the job.
4. Why did
we underestimate the complexity of the job?
Because
we made a quick estimate of the time needed to complete the job.
5. Why did
we make a quick estimate of the time needed to complete the job?
Because we were running behind on other projects. We clearly need to review our time estimation and specification procedures.
Copyright: Mind Tools