Creative Problem Solving

Creative Problem Solving

Recently our faculty Dr. Prasad took us to the teacher’s terrace where a strange looking assembly was hanging. And we were supposed to identify the problem and solve it. This was a million dollar question for us. In any organization, a manager is very important in such situation, to identify the problem and solve it. This assembly is shown below:

Problem: Here we are supposed to remove the ring from the toy.

Now to solve this problem we need to follow the following steps:

• Raise the ring as high as it would go and hold it there.
• Move one of the wooden squares to the other side by passing it through the slit in the top part.
• Bring both the squares together by moving the thread.
• One of the balls will still remain stuck after its square block is taken to other side.
• Lower the ring, tilt it and remove through the slit and the ball.

As mentioned above this solution looks very easy. But some people thought to remove the ropes around the wooden block, then to remove the block and thereby to remove the ring.

Now to put the ring back into the assembly, we need to follow the following steps:

• Pass the ball through the ring.
• Tilt the ring and pass it through the slit.
• Pull the ring up above the slit.
• Remove the wooden plank, hanging on the same side of the other one but not having a ball along with it, through the slit.
• Let go of the ring.

This will put the ring back into the assembly as it was at the start of exercise. So we can see that the solution of the problem is always simple. We just have to identify the simpler way to solve it. It’s we who can make it simpler or complicated. So we can conclude that, being a superb solver is not sufficient. You have to be an incredible identifier as well.

Organizational Structure

What is organizational structure?

By structure, we mean the framework around which the group is organized, the underpinnings which keep the coalition functioning. It's the operating manual that tells members how the organization is put together and how it works. More specifically, structure describes how members are accepted, how leadership is chosen, and how decisions are made.

Why should you develop a structure for your organization?

• Structure gives members clear guidelines for how to proceed. A clearly-established structure gives the group a means to maintain order and resolve disagreements.
• Structure binds members together. It gives meaning and identity to the people who join the group, as well as to the group itself.
• Structure in any organization is inevitable -- an organization, by definition, implies a structure. Your group is going to have some structure whether it chooses to or not. It might as well be the structure which best matches up with what kind of organization you have, what kind of people are in it, and what you see yourself doing.

When should you develop a structure for your organization?

It is important to deal with structure early in the organization's development. Structural development can occur in proportion to other work the organization is doing, so that it does not crowd out that work. And it can occur in parallel with, at the same time as, your organization's growing accomplishments, so they take place in tandem, side by side. This means that you should think about structure from the beginning of your organization's life. As your group grows and changes, so should your thinking on the group's structure.

Elements of Structure

While the need for structure is clear, the best structure for a particular coalition is harder to determine. The best structure for any organization will depend upon who its members are, what the setting is, and how far the organization has come in its development.

Regardless of what type of structure your organization decides upon, three elements will always be there. They are inherent in the very idea of an organizational structure.

They are:

1. Some kind of governance
2. Rules by which the organization operates
3. A distribution of work

Governance

The first element of structure is governance - some person or group has to make the decisions within the organization. 

Rules by which the organization operates

Another important part of structure is having rules by which the organization operates. Many of these rules may be explicitly stated, while others may be implicit and unstated, though not necessarily any less powerful.

Distribution of work

Inherent in any organizational structure also is a distribution of work. The distribution can be formal or informal, temporary or enduring, but every organization will have some type of division of labor.

There are four tasks that are key to any group:

• Envisioning desired changes. The group needs someone who looks at the world in a slightly different way and believes he or she can make others look at things from the same point of view.
• Transforming the community. The group needs people who will go out and do the work that has been envisioned.
• Planning for integration. Someone needs to take the vision and figure out how to accomplish it by breaking it up into strategies and goals.

• Supporting the efforts of those working to promote change. The group needs support from the community to raise money for the organization, champion the initiative in the state legislature, and ensure that they continue working towards their vision.

Common Roles

Every group is different, and so each will have slightly different terms for the roles individuals play in their organization, but below are some common terms, along with definitions and their typical functions.

1. An initial steering committee is the group of people who get things started. Often, this group will create plans for funding, and organizational and board development. It may also generate by-laws, and then dissolve. If they continue to meet after approximately the first six months, we might say they have metamorphosed into a coordinating council.

2. A coordinating council (also referred to as a coordinating committee, executive committee, and executive council), modifies broad, organization-wide objectives and strategies in response to input from individuals or committees.

3. Often, one person will take the place of the coordinating council, or may serve as its head. Such a person may be known as the Executive Director, Project Coordinator, Program Director, or President. He or she sometimes has a paid position, and may coordinate, manage, inspire, supervise, and support the work of other members of the organization.

4. Task forces are made up of members who work together around broad objectives. Task forces integrate the ideas set forward with the community work being done.

5. Action committees bring about specific changes in programs, policies, and practices in the sectors in which they work.

6. Support committees are groups that help ensure that action committees or other individuals will have the resources and opportunities necessary to realize their vision. Financial and media committees are examples of committees formed to help support or facilitate your work.

7. Community trustees, also known as the board of trustees or as the board of directors, provide overall support, advice, and resources to members of the action groups. They are often either people who are directly affected by the issue or have stature in the community. That way, they are able to make contacts, network with other community leaders, and generally remove or weaken barriers to meeting organizational objectives.

Choosing Your Organization's Structure

What type of structure should you choose?

First, decide upon the formality your organization will have. The following table, adapted from The Spirit of Coalition Building (see the Resources section below) can help you make this first decision.

Conditions favoring more or less formality in organizational structures
Condition	A looser, less formal, less rule bound structure would be favored when...	A tighter, more formal, more rule-bound structure would be favored when...
Stage of organization development	The organization is just starting	The organization is in later stages of development
Prior relationships among members	Many such relationships already exist	Few such relationships already exist
Prior member experience in working together	Many such experiences have occurred	Few such experiences have occurred
Member motivation to be part of the organization	Motivation is high	Motivation is low
Number of organization tasks or issues (broadness of purpose)	There is a single task or issue	There are multiple tasks or issues
Organization size	The organization is small	The organization is large
Organization leadership	The leadership is experienced	The leadership is inexperienced
Urgency for action	There is no particular urgency to take action now	There is strong urgency to take action now

 pic of the class during the Organizational Structure lecture :)

Three Idiots Crossing the Valley

Three Idiots Crossing the Valley

TeamWork??

The process of working together with a group of people in order to achieve a goal.

The team work is often a crucial part of a business as it is often necessary for colleagues to work well together, trying for the best in any circumstances. Team work often means people will try to cooperate, using their individual skills and providing constructive feedbacks, despite any personal conflicts between the individual.

What is teamwork?

There are several ways to define team work but for some color why not think as French do. The French have an excellent term for team work “espirt de corps ”. This means a sense of unity, of enthusiasm for common interest and responsibilities

Why Team work is important?

Well its one thing to create a team but quite an another to create teamwork in the workplace. Just its one thing to join a team, quite another to perform as a team member. To put it in simple words, teams doesn’t work without teamwork.

Explanation of valley crossing through this picture:

Learnings from this exercise:

1) Concept of Super Teams & Self Manager Teams: Super Teams or High performance teams is a concept which has been successfully adopted by many big corporations like GE, Krafts food, Boeing etc. It can be defined as a group of 3 to 30 workers drawn from different areas of a corporation to solve problems faced daily. The valley crossing exercise had many characteristics of a super team like:

• Participative leadership – different from the tradition approach of a authoritarian team leader.

• Open and clear communication – Communication is the key to crossing valley effectively.

• Mutual trust – Every person needed to trust each other completely especially when their feet was off the ground.

• Managing conflict – dealing with conflict openly and transparently and not allowing grudges to build up and destroy team morale

• Clear goals – The goals were clear, defined and each member in the team fully understood the gravity of the problem.

• Defined roles and responsibilities – each team member understands what they must do (and what they must not do) to demonstrate their commitment to the team and to support team success. Furthermore the roles and  responsibilities keep on changing depending on the situation. 

• Coordinative relationship – the bonds between the team members allow them to seamlessly coordinate their work to achieve both efficiency and effectiveness

• Positive atmosphere – an overall team culture that is open, transparent, positive, future-focused and able to deliver success.

2) Task Interdependence - It is the extent to which a group's work requires its members to interact with one another. We see that in the valley crossing exercise it is of utmost importance to be interdependent on each other so as to mitigate the risk and achieve the task at hand. This also has brings lot of perspectives to the Team performance in reality. What I have observed is that the interdependence increases as we go higher up the corporate ladder. As a worker or low level employee, we can usually get away with completing the task without much interdependence (even though effectively using the team's collective strength may increase productivity). But as we go to strategic level, it is almost impossible to go about a task without the expertise/skill/opinion of your team mates.  Thus Interdependence and its effective usage is crucial for a manager.

3) The Flip side: Quite often we come across people who get their tasks done by their team mates. One of the flip side of team work is that our efforts may go unrecognised or even worse credited to the wrong person. In a competitive and performance oriented environment like ours, it is important to see through these ploys. Some of the good work practises that I have found in good team players in my previous organization includes:

• Pro actively helping members in need.
• Properly communicating the work done to superiors.
• Pro actively using the teams strength for overcoming problems.
• Effective participation in meetings and team events etc.

These are some of the learnings from this exercise.

INFOSYS: COMPANY CULTURE

INFOSYS FOUNDERS

Infosys Ltd. - One of the most respected brands in the Indian IT space is in limelight for all the wrong reasons. A string of poor results, leadership changes in the helm, loss of top executives and fallout in brand ‘Infy’ has placed the company in what can only be described as a mid-life crisis. So what exactly happened to the company, which at least a few years ago, was piped as a major competitor for the ‘Largest IT player in India’ tag?

Trouble started with the global downturn. Clients in US and UK which formed the bulk of Infosys Client pie was facing severe pressure in terms of cost and IT spending. They naturally wanted more value from less cost. Infosys, a company which never negotiated on margin reacted to the situation by offering discounts and even free application development. The general strategy was thus not to compromise on the margin. Their hope was that the situation would return to normalcy once the economy recovers. The economy did recover but not the attitude of client towards cost. The problem was aggravated with Cognizant offering its IT services on a lesser margin. Infosys reasoned that if IT players started playing this price war, then the situation will become worse over time. Their reasoning does have a lot of merit but the refusal to play it out meant - less deals, less clients and now the news that Cognizant has beaten Infosys for the 2^nd spot. So is everything bad with Infosys? Not exactly!

The IT sector is seeing a big shift. Most of the traditional ADM (Application Development & Maintanance) is becoming commoditized (see definition below). For e.g. Infosys reasons that the billing rates of ADM in 2012 are same as in 2002 while the cost base has increased by 70%. Infosys as a company is keeping its productivity high because it gets 31% of its revenue from System Integration and consulting. Also the ADM work got through consulting have higher price points compared to traditional ADM. Thus Infosys wants to move away (or at least decrease its exposure) in a commoditized ADM market. Infosys which has always looked for high quality revenue base will find it tough to fight in a commoditized business solely by waging a price war.

The strategic decision made by Infosys to counter this shift was to move into PPS (Products, platforms and solutions). It means investing in products, solutions, intellectual properties, patents etc. By this Infosys can still keep its foot in high quality software development. This is strategic decision which has very little short term impact but is sure to help in the long run provided they can penetrate into the market. One of the success stories of PPS is the money wallet which it co-created with Airtel. It is an IP which allows customers to do financial transactions over mobile. It is a non-linear business because the company gets paid per transaction. Infosys is also heavily investing in developing platforms. A simple look at Infosys website has thrown information about 9 different platforms under the common name Infosys Edge. These include platforms for digital marketing, social media, credit servicing etc. Products and platforms are intellectual property-led businesses where unlike the time and material model being followed so far, revenue is drawn from licences or as a service.

Infosys Mysore campus Asia's largest corporate educational hub 

So if everything goes right, we are looking at a company which in the coming years will rebound right back on top because of the strategic advantage of its PPS portfolio. The other IT companies might be still fighting in the ADM space and competing for lesser and lesser revenue. Of course this is better said than done because Infosys has lot of challenges ahead of them on this rough journey. But that is another article.

P.S. Commoditization - The act of making a process, good or service easy to obtain by making it as uniform, plentiful and affordable as possible. Something becomes commoditized when one offering is nearly indistinguishable from another. As a result of technological innovation, broad-based education and frequent iteration, goods and services become commoditized and, therefore, widely accessible.