a problem and how i solved it business

Select a project that you have worked on before. Describe the problem and how you approached solving it.

Even before anyone said anything to me, I could sense the tension in the office when I walked in that day. Wrapped up in the work I was still completing for the Nestle account, I still kept my ears pricked for information. There is nothing I like more than solving a problem, and many of my employees already knew this. I believe some of them were deliberately not telling me what was going on just so that they could have an opportunity to tackle the issue themselves and prove they could handle it!

Then I felt the eyes on me. First it was just two of my colleagues, and then three, and finally our supervisor approached me. “Hey, Yu Chen!” I looked up with raised eyebrows. “Got a minute?” Our team held an impromptu meeting fifteen minutes hence, during which they informed me about their latest challenge. One of our accounts was having an issue: Mercedes-Benz Stadium. I was secretly thrilled but did not let on how much; I did not want them to think that I was trying to steal their thunder. So I casually listened to the issues at stake. Those issues mainly had to do with the fact that the stadium was way over budget. Everyone knew that already, so of course that was the main reason why our firm was hired for initial needs analysis and process review. As gorgeous as the finished product was, we needed to assess what the client could do to manage costs and we all knew that improved forecasting would be crucial.

I agreed to look over the details of the case, and returned to my work conducting the needs assessment for Nestle—which was a far more interesting project than I had imagined it to be. When conducting the needs assessment for Nestle, I realized that what companies often miss is right before their eyes. So I focused for a minute on the stadium and had a “eureka” moment. I scanned their processes and saw how many resources were being unnecessarily squandered, and how restructuring their project would reduce costs overall. During our next meeting, I mentioned this, and our team agreed to write up a report detailing the ways their processes were working and how they were creating unnecessary roadblocks in the ways they were dealing with city officials. Delays were being created due to some miscommunications and political issues, and we included these terms in our report as well. I also noticed some details that could potentially cause problems for the stadium in the future, such as an ineffective implementation of forecasting tools. They had not yet determined how they would model stadium attendance throughout the course of the season. Leaving this critical process to the last minute was not something I would recommend to any project of this scope, so I made sure to write my own section of the report about which specific forecasting tools they could use and how they could better manage stadium personnel and human resources without going over budget. I also came up with a creative solution for them to fill seats when the team was away: through more effective networking with concerts and events management companies. The firm had already spent too much on the design of the stadium, and it was our job to see to it that their costs were recuperated in as short a time as possible. Our comprehensive and creative problem-solving style proved to be exactly what they needed.

Because I am one of the number crunchers on the team, I ran the figures and we were pleased with the results. As a team, each of us contributed different sections to the report. We had the head writer in our company polish the prose and make it perfectly presentable to the reader. When we finally had our meeting with the client, it went even smoother than they thought, as we were able to effectively communicate to the project manager how to go about identifying their ongoing needs, and responding to fluctuations in their own inflow and outflow.