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How to Diagnose and Solve Important Business Problems Using Systems Thinking: Introducing a New Approach for Consultants, Business Analysts, MBAs, and Professionals
Download your complimentary PDF copy How to Diagnose and Solve Important Business Problems Using Systems Thinking: Introducing a New Approach for Consultants, Business Analysts, MBAs, and Professionals
- Develop rare & valuable systems thinking skills,
- Gain recognition as an
- Insightful Systems Thinker, and
- Expert business problem-solver, and
Acclerate your career.
This USD$25 E-Book is yours as a professional courtesy with the author’s compliments and includes a Forever Free Analyst Membership in the Business Problem-Solvers Guild.
The Business Problem-Solving Systems’ A New Approach (1 in the BPSS Series) provides Management Consultants, Business Analysts, MBAs, and other professionals with a solution to the “Problem with Business Problem-Solving:” You are expected to solve business problems but were never taught how—a problem that is solved throughout the Business Problem-Solving System (BPSS).
The Business Problem-Solving System (BPSS) is a systematic approach used by Management Consultants, MBAs, and other professionals to gaining an unrivaled understanding of the actual and hidden causes of problems adversely affecting business behavior and performance, then designing causally-sound and effective solutions.
The BPSS includes the elements in the display cards below:
The Business Problem-Solving System BPSS
The Business Problem-Solving System (BPSS) is a structured methodology used to uncover and solve the actual, hidden sources of problems negatively affecting business behavior and performance. It empowers management consultants, business analysts, MBAs, and other professionals to craft effective, evidence-based solutions to improve business behavior and performance.
The Importance of Detecting and Understanding Non-Obvious Cycles
Applied Systems Thinking reveals not only the visible and obvious behavior and performance elements affecting a business or technology, but the (far more important) not-visible and non-obvious elements which tend to have outsized effects.
How to Understand & Explain Dynamic Behavior and Performance Based on Structure, Flows, Policies, Delays & Latencies, and Feedback…and much more.
The mental models and “language” of Systems Thinking is a powerfully expressive way to discern and communicate the complex causes of business & technology behavior & performance.
All Business & Technologies are Systems
Because all businesses and technologies are systems, the causes of their behavior and performance can be understood using systems principles, practices, and archetypes.
How to Gain Unmatched Insights with Powerful and Easy Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs)
One of the simplest, most powerful, and visually expressive ways to explain and communicate dynamic mechanisms is the Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) which provides unparalleled abilities to peer into and understand the complexities of business and technology behavior and performance,
Expert Diagnostic Process
BPSS’s Diagnosis (5 in the BPSS Series of Guides) is a systematic & repeatable “Ten Plus One” Stage approach used by experts to diagnose the hidden & actual causes of problems adversely affectig business behavior and performance.
All Effects Have Discoverable Causes
Every effect on a business’ or technology’s behavior and performance is attributable to one or more causes—which are discoverable and confirmable.
Why It’s Important to Avoid Event Thinking
Event Thinking is the mistaken perception that events occur in isolation; the erroneous belief that events are random and never predictable. Seemingly isolated—events are predictable results/ outcomes/ current state(s) of the dynamic behavior and performance of a business or technology.
Expert Solution Process
The companion to BPSS’s Diagnosis, BPSS’s Solutions (6 in the BPSS Series of Guides) is a systematic & repeatable “Ten Plus One” Stage approach to ideating, evaluating, and selecting the “Best Available” solution to the hidden & actual sources of business behavior and performance problems.
How to Create Compelling Arguments
Logical analysis is best conveyed via a logical communication structure. The “Toulmin Model of Argumentation” is one of the most powerful and easy-to-learn ways to craft compelling arguments.
Use the Business Problem-Solving System to masterfully apply innovative techniques to overcome obstacles while increasing your reputatation as an insightful systems thinker and
competent business problem-solver; including:
Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs)
Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) are used in Causal Inference to graphically model cause-and-effect relationships.
Ten Perspectives to Gain Unique Insights into Any Business or Technology
Deep insights into business/technology behavior and performance can be obtained by measuring ten types of elements common to all systems.
System Dynamics Stock and Flow (S&F) Models
System Dynamics Stock & Flow Models are powerful tools used to delve into the dynamic (over time) causes of business & technology performance & behavior by modeling accumulators, flows, rates, delays & latencies, and feedback.
Counterfactuals: Gaining Unique Insights by Evaluating What Did Not Happen
Business & technology behavior & performance insights can be enhanced by considering “counterfactuals,” decision paths not taken. (E.g., What would have happened if {ADVERTISING_CAMPAIGN} were not executed?)
Understanding Feedback in its Many Forms
There are two types of feedback present and operating in all systems all the time. One type is “destabilizing,” moving the system (business/technology) AWAY from equilibrium. The other type is “balancing,” moving the system TOWARD equilibrium.
Understanding Delays & Latencies
To understand business/technology behavior and performance, it is imperative to understand that there exist indeterminable latencies between a change in one (or more) causes and observing a change in one (or more) effects.
Early Praise for the Business Problem-Solving System…
“We at The Change Leader heartily endorse Rick Hubbard’s Business Problem-Solving System (BPSS).
This system and its books and training programs provide consultants with excellent tools for determining the systemic causes of problems with business behavior and performance prior to recommending appropriate interventions.
Consultants of all skill levels will benefit by adopting and adapting BPSS tools, approaches, and methods in their practices. As the saying goes, ‘prescription before diagnosis is malpractice!’ “
—Drumm McNaughton, Ph.D, CMC®, FIMC
CEO, The Change Leader and Past Chair of the Institute of Management Consultants USA
“Rick has done a great job with the Business Problem-Solving System (BPSS).
He makes clear the dangers of leaping to solutions while bypassing or skimming over the vital diagnosis stage. Leaders who may be reluctant, or too impatient, to get that diagnosis done will see that it’s not so big a challenge, provided they have the appropriate methods for the task.”
—Dr. Kim Warren
Owner/Director, Strategy Dynamics, Ltd.
Author, Strategic Management Dynamics
Past President of the System Dynamics Society
“I have known Dr. Hubbard professionally and personally for more than 25 years. It is no exaggeration to say that the greatest successes of my career would not have been possible without his thinking and approaches regarding complex business problems. He always starts with a strong academic foundation so that you understand the basis for the approach and can apply it fully in your context. This is followed by pragmatic implementation tools that make introducing new ideas into complicated consulting and business situations practical. Rick has been important to my professional success; with this book, he may be to yours as well.”
—Dave Leichner
“The Business Problem-Solving System lays out a ‘from the trenches’ approach to turn information into data into insights into results, empowering businesses to tackle challenges or exploit opportunities. It’s not so much Occam’s Razor, as it is Occam’s Chainsaw.”
—Mark Campbell
CEO, 3dot Insights
About the author
Dr. Rick Hubbard
Business Problem-Solving Guide
Dr. Rick Hubbard—Business Problem-Solving System (BPSS) Guide, author, and developer—is a lifelong student of systems science, computer science, software engineering, strategy, and financial analysis.
Rick’s five-decade career includes:
- Management consulting & business analysis;
- Enterprise software architecture & engineering; and
- Business & technology strategy & financial analysis.
He has also served as a collegiate professor; seminar leader, and author.
- Systems Science,
- Systems Thinking,
- GST (General Systems Theory),
- Cybernetics,
- System Dynamics,
- Causal Inference,
- Decision Science,
- Corporate Strategy, and
Based on decades of applying systems principles to these demanding challenges, Rick Hubbard developed, refined, and proved the Business Problem-Solving System by solving hundreds of complex, non-obvious business problems.
Today, Rick serves others as the Business Problem-Solving Guide—equipping Management Consultants, Business Analysts, MBAs, and other professionals to competently diagnose and solve problems adversely affecting business behavior and performance.
- Financial services,
- Telecommunications,
- Manufacturing,
- Distribution,
- Enterprise Software,
- Air Transportation,
- Consumer Marketing, and others.
*Under Non-Disclosure Agreements, which prohibit revealing the identities of client organizations.
In addition to providing independent management consulting and professional seminar services, Rick’s career includes employment with:
- KPMG (Los Angeles, CA and Phoenix, AZ),
- Business Sciences Corp. (Scottsdale, AZ),
- FDIC (Denver, CO),
- MCI Telecommunications (Colorado Springs, CO),
- BEA Systems, Inc. (San Jose, CA),
- FAST Search & Transfer (San Francisco, CA),
- Serena Software (Redwood Shores, CA),
- Webtrends (Portland, OR), and
- California State University System (Professor).
Tools to Transform Your Career
This is not what you think it is.
In this book—and each of the Business Problem-Solving System (BPSS) books—you will not find an easy read stuffed with simple yet glossy answers (that you already know) and over-promising a quick way to dispatch the real-life, messy, complex problems you encounter in the reality of your professional life.
Because diagnosing and solving business problems isn’t rocket science—it’s harder…much, much, much harder—what you will gain from the Business Problem-Solving System are authoritative guides to the effective use of proven and repeatable data-analytic-logico approaches to diagnose and intervene in business behavior and performance.
Throughout the BPSS, you will also gain knowledge and insights that can transform and accelerate your career with rare, valuable, and difficult-to-imitate skills, expertise, and abilities— —to authoritatively get it right; the first time…because:
“You can’t fix what you don’t understand. Without understanding cause—there is an unbounded risk that any intervention will fail.”
Do you want to:
- Apply your inquisitive mind to gain unmatchable understanding?
- Figure out how and why businesses and technologies behave and perform the way they do?
- Expertly use data, analysis, and reasoning to make sound, well-supported decisions?
Do you cringe when people around you:
- Make unsubstantiated and unverified claims?
- Rush to solution…without pausing to understand the problem?
- Ignore the reality of ‘what is’ because of politics?
Worse? How about when others deny what is because reality contradicts the politics of
what’s wanted?
If so—
—then, welcome, because:
This book is for and about you.
Chapters
Pages
Mastering Business Problem-Solving is the first book in the Business Problem-Solving System.
Other books in the BPSS Series
BPSS Six Key Questions (Book 2)
BPSS Diagnosis (Book 3)
