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Formally defining the issue at hand is the next step in problem solving. The people tasked with tackling the problem and the people who supervise their work are negotiating this. In essence, the parties must settle on a specific vision of how the issue will be resolved. Are the supervisors looking for a manufacturing line that is completely functional, a plan for execution, a suggestion for capital investment, or a new product design? Which metrics—cycle time, material prices, market share, scrap rates, or warranty costs—are seen to be crucial?

In order to treat each component separately, complex issues can be divided into mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive components. The extent of the problem as specified in the negotiation should be acknowledged as dictating the resource needs of the problem solvers. Less resources are required to develop a solution the more narrowly defined the problem is.

The next stage for the issue solvers is to try to pinpoint the causes of the problem now that the problem has been officially described. Finding the problem's primary cause or causes is the ultimate objective. The situation or occurrence that, if fixed or avoided, would stop the issue from happening is known as the root cause. However, the person trying to fix the issue should concentrate on probable reasons that might be under potential control. For instance, discovering that a certain weight of motor oil is insufficient to prevent an engine from overheating easily results in an improvement strategy that can be put into practice. Finding that gravity is a problem's primary cause is not.

The cause-and-effect diagram, often known as the fishbone or Ishikawa diagram, is a popular method for identifying potential root causes. Problem solvers typically evaluate how the qualities or functioning of raw materials, labor inputs, equipment, the physical environment, and management policies could contribute to the identified problem while using the diagram as a brainstorming tool. Then, each branch of the diagram expresses a causal hypothesis. For instance, one branch of the picture might imply that low wages are causing a high rate of employee turnover, which then results in unskilled operators operating the equipment, which ultimately results in a high rate of scrap and higher material prices.

Last but not least, a deadline for problem analysis needs to be set. A quick or emergency response is necessary for many business issues. This could indicate that before thoroughly examining the root reasons of the problem, the problem solvers must first come up with a temporary or intermediate solution. The credibility of the issue solvers is maintained by ensuring that the over- seers are aware of the constraints present in an intermediate solution.

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B I B L I O G R A P H Y
‘‘ARDEC’s Transformation Role.’’ Armament Research Development
and Engineering Center. 2008. Available from: http://www.pica.
army.mil/PicatinnyPublic/organizations/ardec/t_role.asp.

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