Business Analysis Notes

Systems thinking

Problems and Improving Interventions

4 min read · Updated

In short A problem is not a fact about the world but someone’s dissatisfaction with it. That shift gives you more ways to help, a test for whether a change really improves things, and Ackoff’s four ways of treating any problem, from doing nothing to redesigning the situation so the problem disappears.

Based on: F. P. Tarasenko, Applied Systems Analysis (in Russian), ch. 1, retelling and developing the ideas of R. L. Ackoff.

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Key ideas#

Problem situation vs. problem#

A problem situation is the real state of affairs someone is unhappy with. The problem is that person’s negative attitude toward it. Solving a problem therefore means removing or reducing the dissatisfaction, and there are two routes: change the situation, or work with the person by giving better information, changing how they see the situation, or ending their contact with it.

Whose interests count#

Tarasenko describes three stances: only the client matters; only “our” group matters; or everyone matters, all different but of equal worth. Applied systems analysis takes the third.

The improving intervention#

An improving intervention is a change that at least one participant, always including the client, judges positively and that nobody judges negatively. Tarasenko defines applied systems analysis as the practice of designing such interventions: solving problems without creating new ones.

Four ways to treat a problem#

Ackoff distinguishes:

  • Absolution — do nothing and expect the problem to settle by itself. Sometimes rational, when any action would make things worse.
  • Resolution — ease the problem without removing it, typical when resources are short (queues, lotteries, equal shares).
  • Solution — find the best option within the given conditions and constraints: the territory of optimization.
  • Dissolution — change the conditions so the problem disappears, including preventing it, for example moving from firefighting to fire inspection.

Ackoff’s bus-company case shows the difference. Drivers were judged on keeping time, conductors on checking fares, and at rush hour conductors held buses at stops to check complicated tickets. Ignoring the conflict failed; returning to the old fare system was blocked by the unions; asking the unions to divide a bonus fund failed too. The breakthrough was noticing that at rush hour there were more buses on the route than stops. Conductors moved from buses to stops and sold tickets before boarding, and the buses ran on time.

Four management orientations#

Ackoff links each treatment to a manager’s attitude to time:

  • Reactive managers want to restore the past and favor resolution.
  • Inactive managers are content with the present, fear change, and favor absolution.
  • Preactive managers expect a better future, try to predict it, and favor solution through optimization and risk analysis.
  • Interactive managers want to create the future and favor dissolution through idealized design.

What “optimal” requires#

“Optimal” means best under given conditions, so it needs an explicit criterion and explicit constraints. For “hard” problems you can express mathematically, optimization works. For “soft” problems, described in everyday or professional language, the optimum is an ideal you move toward. Tarasenko passes on Ackoff’s encouragement: an improving intervention is often hard to find but rarely impossible.

How to apply it#

  1. Name whose dissatisfaction you are dealing with: “X is unhappy that…”.
  2. Ask whether better information or a changed perception would be enough before changing reality.
  3. List everyone the change touches. Does anyone judge an option negatively? Then it is not yet an improving intervention.
  4. Generate at least one option of each type: absolve, resolve, solve, dissolve.
  5. For the dissolve option, list the constraints everyone takes for granted and ask which could change.
  6. Notice your sponsor’s orientation; it predicts which options they will favor.

Example#

At The Workshop, customers are unhappy that they never know when their bike will be ready, and front-desk staff are unhappy about constant “is it ready?” calls.

  • Absolve: wait; calls drop once the spring season ends.
  • Resolve: front desk calls customers back in batches twice a day.
  • Solve: optimize the call-back schedule against mechanics’ progress.
  • Dissolve: customers see job status online and get a message when the bike is ready, so the calls stop being needed.

Now test the dissolve option against every group. Mechanics must update the status of each job; if they see this as extra admin, they judge it negatively. So the design makes the update a by-product of something they already do, such as closing a job card.

Pitfalls#

  • Treating the stated problem as an objective fact → find whose dissatisfaction it is.
  • Calling a change that hurts some stakeholders an “improvement” → redesign until no one loses.
  • Optimizing only within given constraints → look for a constraint to change.
  • Claiming an optimum for a soft problem → say “better”, not “optimal”.

Sources and further reading#

  • F. P. Tarasenko. Applied Systems Analysis (in Russian). KnoRus, 2010, ch. 1.
  • R. L. Ackoff — originator of the four treatments of problems, the four management orientations and the bus-company case retold in Tarasenko’s ch. 1.