Then-Capt. Elwood R. Quesada, assigned to intelligence in the Office of the Chief of Air Corps in October 1940. He became commanding general of the 9th Fighter Command, where he established advanced Headquarters on the Normandy beachhead on D-Day plus one, and directed his planes in aerial cover and air support for the Allied invasion of the continent. His innovativeness was essential in producing the success of Allied forces in their progress across Western Europe following D-Day. It provided a clear demonstration of the importance of close air support at a time when the Allied high command was embroiled in debate as a result of long-standing tension between advocates of close air support and advocates of interdiction and strategic bombing. These positional debates can be interpreted as exhibiting the politics of leader choice. Although the debates were mostly resolved in favor of the importance of close air support, the consensus flipped back to the strategic side following the war, until Korea raised the issue once more. Modern doctrine has since settled on the importance of close air support. U.S. Air Force photo courtesy Wikimedia.
When groups solve problems collaboratively, discussions sometimes develop chaotic patterns of considering what the solution must do, when it must be completed, how much it will cost, who will lead the work, what additional information is required, and on and on.
Chaotic wandering through this tangle can set in almost before the group realizes it. And once the chaos comes to their attention, disagreements about how to manage it become the next obstacles. Here are some suggestions for dealing with the tangles.
- Focus first on options for "what"
- The "what" of a candidate solution is its essential concept — the strategy it embodies. For each candidate solution, devise a few words or phrases that capture its essence. Then without evaluating the solution's merits, without considering costs, schedule, or any of its other attributes, move on to the next candidate.
- The effort of crafting concept statements for candidate solutions has a high and immediate return. It creates consensus about what each candidate is, it stimulates thinking about new candidates, and it brings clarity and definition to the next steps of the discussion.
- Consider the politics of leader choice
- Sometimes people contend for the leadership role for a solution; sometimes they run from it. Ownership of the solution effort can generate analogous responses. In either case, the opinions about solution attributes voiced by candidates for leader or owner might be more closely related to their agendas with respect Using rough estimates to
rank order candidate solutions
is probably not sensibleto leadership or ownership, than they are related to the attributes under discussion. - Examine the contributions of leader or owner candidates and their advocates very closely. Accepting their comments at face value might be unwise.
- Use budget and schedule considerations as screens
- The costs and timelines of candidate solutions are usually difficult to project with any accuracy at this stage of the discussion. Estimation errors generally don't allow for comparison of different solutions, except when the differences are very dramatic.
- Using rough estimates to eliminate candidate solutions can be an effective way to focus the field of candidate solutions. Using these same estimates to rank order the surviving candidate solutions is probably less sensible.
- Consider the politics of bottlenecks
- Shortages of particular skills are the usual cause of bottlenecks. If a candidate solution requires contributions from people who are required elsewhere, selecting that solution likely will place the effort in direct contention with other efforts.
- Sometimes the people with rare skills enjoy or seek the contention; sometimes they abhor it. Any discussion of solutions requiring rare resources is therefore fundamentally political. Unless you have what's needed to entice, enlist, secure, and defend your claim to the people with rare skills, pursuing solutions that need them might be risky.
When addressing the problem of effective group problem solving, some of these same tangles arise, but the place to begin is still "what." 
Top 
Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? Send me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and
found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Problem Solving and Creativity:
Help for Asking for Help- When we ask for help, from peers or from those with organizational power, we have some choices. How
we go about it can determine whether we get the help we need, in time for the help to help.
Design Errors and Groupthink- Design errors cause losses, lost opportunities, accidents, and injuries. Not all design errors are one-offs,
because their causes can be fundamental. Here's a first installment of an exploration of some fundamental
causes of design errors.
Disjoint Concept Vocabularies- In disputes or in problem-solving sessions, when we can't come to agreement, we often attribute the
difficulty to miscommunication, histories of disagreements, hidden agendas, or "personality clashes."
Sometimes the cause is much simpler. Sometimes the concept vocabularies of the parties have too little
in common.
Cost Concerns: Scale- When we consider the costs of problem solutions too early in the problem-solving process, the results
of comparing alternatives might be unreliable. Deferring cost concerns until we fully understand the
problem can yield more options and better decisions.
What Keeps Things the Way They Are- Changing processes can be challenging. Sometimes the difficulty arises from our tendency to overlook
other processes that work to keep things the way they are. If we begin by changing those "regulator
processes" the difficulty can sometimes vanish.
See also Problem Solving and Creativity and Problem Solving and Creativity for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming May 21: Mismanaging Project Managers: Mechanics- Most organizations hold project managers accountable for project performance. But they don?t grant those project managers control of needed resources. Nor do they hold Project Sponsors or other Senior Managers accountable for the consequences of their actions when they interfere with project work. Here?s a catalog of behaviors worth looking at. Available here and by RSS on May 21.
And on May 28: Mismanaging Project Managers: Leadership- Most organizations hold project managers accountable for project performance. But they don't hold Project Sponsors or other Senior Managers accountable for the consequences of their actions when they interfere with the project manager's ability to lead the project team. Available here and by RSS on May 28.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenner@ChacoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, USD 28.99)
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
My blog, Technical Debt for Policymakers, offers
resources, insights, and conversations of interest to policymakers who are concerned with managing
technical debt within their organizations. Get the millstone of technical debt off the neck of your
organization!
Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? Learn what we can do when we
love the work but not the job.Learn how to make your virtual global team sing.Are you managing a change effort that faces rampant cynicism, passive non-cooperation, or
maybe even outright revolt?Learn how to make meetings more productive — and more rare.