V . Need analysis and problem solving

Why should I develop a plan for assessing local needs and resources?

Who should be involved in developing a plan for assessing local needs and resources?

When should needs and assets be identified?

How do you develop a plan for assessing local needs and resources?

Needs can be defined as the gap between what is and what should be. A need can be felt by an individual, a group, or an entire community.

 Resources, or assets, can include individuals, organizations and institutions, buildings, landscapes, equipment — anything that can be used to improve the quality of life.

 A needs assessment is a process for figuring out if people require the service you want to provide and if it will appropriately address their needs. It lays the foundation for planning and implementing the new initiative by aligning resources with strategy and clarifying any potential opportunities or issues.

 Community Needs Assessments seek to gather accurate information representative of the needs of a community. Assessments are performed prior to acting and are used to determine current situations and identify issues for action, establishing the essential foundation for vital planning. The process is an invaluable tool for involving the public in solving problems and developing goals. A needs assessment can be an excellent way for the public to become involved and contribute to the outcome.

 Program Evaluation carefully collects information about a program or an aspect of a program to make necessary decisions about the program. Program evaluation can include any or a variety of at least 35 different types of evaluation, such as needs assessments, accreditation, cost/benefit analysis, effectiveness, efficiency, formative, goal-based, process, outcomes, etc. The type of evaluation you undertake to improve your programs depends on what you want to learn about the program” (McNamara 2019).

• It will help you gain a deeper understanding of the community. Each community has its own needs and assets, as well as its own culture and social structure — a unique web of relationships, history, strengths, and conflicts that defines it.
• An assessment will encourage community members to consider the community’s assets and how to use them, as well as the community’s needs and how to address them. 
• It will help your organization make decisions about priorities for program or system improvement.
• It goes a long way toward eliminating unpleasant surprises down the road.  Identifying needs and resources before starting a program or initiative means that you know from the beginning what you’re dealing with, and are less likely to be blindsided later by something you didn’t expect.

• It allows you to involve community members from the very beginning of the process. This encourages both trust in the process and community buy-in and support, not only of the assessment, but of whatever actions are taken as a result of it.
• An assessment is a great opportunity to use community-based participatory research, further involving community members and increasing community capacity.
• A good plan will provide an easy-to-follow road map for conducting an accurate assessment.  

A planning process will give community members the opportunity to voice their opinions, hopes, and fears about the community.

It would be wonderful to have the ability to solve all problems efficiently and in a timely fashion without difficulty. Unfortunately

though, there is no one way in which all problems can be solved.

Problem- solving skills are extremely important in life and more so in not-for-profit world.

5 Whys – You know what the problem is, but you cannot solve it? The 5 Whys technique will allow you to dissect the problem and reveal its underlying causes quickly. The root cause analysis process should include people with practical experience. Logically, they can give you the most valuable information regarding any problem that appears in their area of expertise.

When applying the 5 Whys technique, you want to get to the problem’s essence and then fix it. The 5 Whys may show you that the source of the problem is quite unexpected.

Often, issues that are considered a technical problem turn out to be human and process problems. Therefore, finding and eliminating the root cause is crucial if you want to avoid iteration of failures.

Step 1. Form a team

Try to assemble a team of people from different departments. Each representative must be familiar with the process that is going to be investigated. By forming a cross-functional team, you are going to receive unique points of view. This will help you collect enough information to make an informed decision. Be aware that this is not an individual task, and it needs to be executed by the team.

Step 2. Define the problem

Discuss the problem with the team and make a clear problem statement. It will help you define the scope of the issue you are going to investigate. This is important because investigating a wide scope problem may be a time-consuming exercise with blurred boundaries. Try to be as focused as possible to find an effective solution in the end.

Step 3. Ask Why

Empower one person to facilitate the whole process. This team leader will ask the questions and try to keep the team focused. The answers should be based on facts and real data, rather than on emotional opinions.

The facilitator should ask “Why” as many times as needed until the team can identify the root cause of the initial problem.

Advice 1. Don’t ask too many Whys. If you keep going, you may end up receiving tons of unreasonable suggestions and complaints, which is not the purpose. Focus on finding the root cause.

Advice 2. Sometimes there could be more than one root cause. In these cases, the 5 Whys analysis will look more like a matrix with different branches. This may even help you detect and eliminate organizational issues that have permanent negative effects on the overall performance.

After the team detects the root cause(s), it is time to take corrective actions. All members should be involved in a discussion to find and apply the best solution that will protect your process from recurring problems.

Results Chain – a simple, but powerful, management tool that is a visual representation of how a particular project works. It maps out the sequence of events leading to the achievement of the project’s objectives

Fishbone Diagram is a great tool to identify possible causes for a problem. It is known as well as Ishikawa diagram.

The steps to complete a fishbone diagram are the following:

• Step1. Agree on a problem statement (effect). Write it at the center right of the flipchart or whiteboard. Draw a box around it and draw a horizontal arrow running to it.
• Step 2. Brainstorm the major categories of causes of the problem. If this is difficult use generic headings such as methods, people, environment, policies
• Step 3. Write the categories of causes as branches from the main arrow.
• Step 4. Brainstorm all the possible causes of the problem. Ask “Why does this happen?” As each idea is given, the facilitator writes it as a branch from the appropriate category. Causes can be written in several places if they relate to several categories.
• Again ask “Why does this happen?” about each cause. Write sub-causes branching off the causes. Continue to ask “Why?” and generate deeper levels of causes. Layers of branches indicate causal relationships. When the group runs out of ideas, focus attention to places on the chart where ideas are few.

•  Highly visual brainstorming tool which can spark further examples of root causes
•  Quickly identify if the root cause is found multiple times in the same or different causal tree
• Allows one to see all causes simultaneously
• Good visualization for presenting issues to stakeholders

• Complex defects might yield a lot of causes which might become visually cluttering
• Interrelationships between causes are not easily identifiable

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