Page 282 - Effective group discussion theory and practice by Adams, Katherine H. Brilhart, John K. Galanes, Gloria J

Problem Solving and Decision Making in Groups 265

TABLE 10.3
What does this problem question mean to us? Questions to guide
What are our charge and area of freedom? problem analysis
What is unsatisfactory at present?
Who (or what) is affected?
When, where, and how?
How serious do we judge the problem to be?
How long has the problem existed?
Do we need to gather any additional information to assess the nature and extent
of the problem adequately?
What conditions have contributed to the problem?
What appear to be causative conditions?
What precipitated the crisis leading to our discussion?
What exactly do we hope to accomplish (the goal, desired situation)?
What obstacles to achieving the desired goal exist?
What information do we need before we can find a satisfactory solution?
What additional subquestions must we answer?
How might we find answers to these subquestions?
What are the answers to these subquestions?
How can we summarize our understanding of the problem to include the present
and desired situation and causal conditions?

TABLE 10.4 Solution
Solution Questions Problem Questions versus problem
questions
How can I transfer a man who is popular How can I increase the work output of
in his work group but slows down the the group?
work of other employees in the group?
How can we increase the publicity for What can we do to increase attendance
our club’s activities so that at our club’s activities?
attendance will be increased?

minimize the potential problem of hidden profiles (see chapter 9), encouraging mem-
bers to pool their information, as is demonstrated in Figure A.1 in the Appendix A.

Step 2 of P-MOPS: Generating and Elaborating on Possible Solutions
The question we ask here is, What might be done to solve the problem? Our use of
“might” not “should” is intentional; at this stage, you don’t want to squash members’
creative ideas by getting too focused on trying to decide something. You want good
ideas to choose from. Ultimately, you will need to evaluate all the ideas you identify to
assess how good they are, but for now, try to capture as many ideas as possible so you
have plenty to choose from. This process may be lengthy, but members should guard
against adopting the first solution that seems to solve the problem.

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