Problem investigation worksheet

A problem spanning departments often reaches leadership with a proposed solution: hire, replace a system or change incentives. This worksheet helps examine a specific incident, locate available evidence and compare explanations that would call for different interventions.

Implementations that stall after the sale

In this hypothetical case, a software company wins enterprise contracts, but customers reach renewal discussions without having put the main workflow into use. Sales requests more implementation capacity. Operations points to integration promises made without technical validation.

The incident under investigation is an activation suspended while departments debate responsibility for an integration. The analysis compares similar contracts that progressed and stalled, accounting for customer dependencies. Leadership needs to determine whether to address capacity, commercial approval or customer readiness before taking on additional expenses.

Read How to define a problem more clearly.

Start with an incident that records can reconstruct. Separate what happened from each department’s explanation. Compare cases with similar scope and dependencies, including successful ones. Choose an observation that could contradict the initial hypothesis and assign someone to gather evidence before the decision.

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