Strides Interactive

Problem Solving : PrioritizationFiled Under: Discussion

This article is an continuation from Problem Solving : Elimination.

What’s priorization? Basically, that is to define and allocate priority or urgency to 1 or more sub-problems. In order to prioritize, we first need to establish the root cause of the problem.

Sometimes, putting problems on an equation do help providing high level visibility. I’m not talking abt emotional quotient related problems here.

So let’s take an example:

Problem: I need to build a house, I only have $100,000 budget. The house is 100×90 brick squares. That means it requires 9000 bricks to complete and each brick costs $10. Paint costs about $50 per bucket and requires 100 buckets to paint the whole house.

Therefore:
Cost of bricks : 9000 x 10 = $90,000
Cost of paint: 500 x 100 = $50, 000

Either 9,000 bricks or 500 cans of paint can be purchased but not both or a bit of both.

Now let’s prioritize by asking the right questions. How to define if a question is correct depends on what the house is meant for.

Objective of building a house:  Having a roof over our heads, avoid getting wet during rainy days.

In that case, bricks will be the priority since it’s meant to withstand stormy weathers. Paint alone, while it might be waterproof, can’t withstand stormy or rainy weather!

This is just a very simple example of prioritization and even so, many people are still incapable of implementing it.

To know more, see my next article:

Problem Solving : Look Near Before Looking Far