Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything

This book is more about ROI analysis methods, Future Scenario analysis and Data analysis but not Problem Solving. The book uses examples that are not really problems but questions. Whether you should put Solar Panels on your roof is not a problem but a question that would be answered by an ROI (Return on Investment) analysis. The Challenger Disaster was a serious problem but the analysis showed that NASA was seriously negligent for launching under conditions for which it had not reliable performance data!Overall the book does not show how to solve problems such as your plant is producing significant amounts of scrap, what do I do? Or your engines are failing well before the warranty expires, how do we solve that problem? Or one light bulb out of 240 keeps burning out in 1/100th the time of all the other bulbs, how do we fix that problem? Or one production line keeps shutting down due to motor failures, how do we analyze and solve that problem?If those were the kinds or problems you were looking for help with, the book will not be of any help.If however, you are looking for help in doing ROI analysis or future needs analysis, then the book will be of help.

"Bullet Proof Problem Solving" is concise and truly helpful. It is an important book for right now. Charles Conn did incredible work with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation targeting wild salmon habitat rehabilitation. Then he went on to shepherd Rhodes Trust (of the acclaimed Rhodes Scholarships) into it's 21st century form - which dramatically improved and expanded RT's scope and inclusivity. His intellectual reach and comprehensive understanding of our world, including both lucid understanding of the challenges, and clear methods to reach solutions, is awe inspiring. Working with Robert McLean, "Bullet Proof Problem Solving" encapsulates a vital education. This reader is smarter for it, and grateful. Thank you Charles and Robert. Highly recommended.

This book should be read by students who consider working in management consultancy, describing the "McKinsey approved" 7-Step process of problem solving. Additionally, it will also be useful for readers who want to make an impact on complex organisations without getting distracted or caught in reiterative, philosophical loops.To escape such loops, I personally favour the Design Thinking process, because it puts more emphasis on innovations, therefore more in line with model building in science. However, I agree with the authors about both approaches being somewhat complementary in solving difficult problems systematically, perhaps not in quantum physics...Certainly the 7-Step process is quite in sync with my personal professional experience in trading and investments, even if followed intuitively and without drawings. Was it for traders' lack of communication that computers were quicker to be accepted as replacements in this programmable profession?Top managers and politicians increase their leverage, their efficiency by communicating, by mapping their decision-making, by sketching a line of progress and also by adding sometimes less modest attributes like "bulletproof" or claims like "changes everything".This problem solving and communication skill becomes essential in large organisations when addressing various stakeholders. You need to know what people expect to hear or to see before they respect your new proposals, your key decisions. This book offers a robust problem solving process though you still want to read a book on public relations.Influencing requires linguistically simple, sometimes sign language. Thanks to this book it won't be a secret anymore how to become successful without going deeply into details and you get an idea about McKinsey. Several pages left blank, for personal exercises of course, may in fact speak volumes.

This is a really distinctive take on the critical issue of how to solve problems, big and small. Although I have spent much of my career in management consulting, I learned a great deal from the book, which is rooted in the author's own professional and personal experience.I was struck by a number of distinctive features of the book. First, it lays out a very clear and robust 7-stage process to solve almost any kind of problem. Second, it applies this approach both to big business problems like whether or not to make an acquisition or launch a new product; as well as to recognizable personal issues, like whether to have surgery - to fix "Rob's bad knee" - or what kind of diet to go on.Oh, and along the way, it addresses co-called "wicked problems" like climate change and obesity. The common theme is that problem-solving requires a rigorous and well-structured process, and a can-do mindset to go with it.All of this is contained in a beautifully presented book with compelling graphics, which convey the structured and sequential approach, which is the hall-mark of this book. I read it quickly to get the essence of the approach, and then re-read it for detail and nuance.Rob McLean and Charles Conn bring a ton of experience to this topic - and their shared wisdom and insight shine through. I've spent a lot of my own life in consulting, but I still learned a great deal from this book - indeed I only wish it had been available earlier in my own career.

Many of us have difficulty with making difficult decisions. This manual helps one to keep track of what's important and what is less important to consider. Using easy to follow graphs and decision trees the very experienced authors take us through typical life and lifestyle choice examples. So anyone can feel more comfortable with their decision making process. I recommend it to my adult children, my students, my clients and to business and coaching professionals. Quite the toolbox!

Not the best book. Surprised considering how good the reviews were, which swayed me. I can see it being of great use to reference but cover to cover, it is too scattered to fully take in.

El libro te entrena para encontrar la solución a cualquier problema de forma sistemática y metódica. Los siete pasos que propone son puro sentido común pero muchas veces (80% de las veces) los pasamos por alto. El método desarma problemas muy complejos de forma tal que permite entenderlos de forma sencilla.

This is a great book, I ended up buying another 30 copies for my staff and network. Easy to read, makes complicated steps very simple. Provides all the 'tricks of the trade' in problem-solving. Great addition to every business library.

I liked very much the methodology for systematic problem solving and the practical, real-life examples that clarify and support it.

What a fantastic read with brilliant insights and some great case studies to make the methods practical. This is one of the best books I have read in a very long time.

Gifted another one to my best friend, you'll love it!

The idea of this book sounded really useful, since problem solving is a part of everyday life now.The book itself keeps discussing how the techniques can be used for everything, from the business world to deciding where to live, whether to put up solar panels etc. It also mentions several times how problem solving is such an important skill to have to improve your prospects of getting a job and how schools just aren't doing enough to teach the skill.Despite all this, the book itself is clearly aimed at people already in, or wanting to get into the business industry. It seemed to have little relatable to every day people and whilst a wide range of examples were given, they all seemed to require a far more in-depth knowledge of the subjects in question even at the earliest stages (before you got as far as research) than the average person is likely to have.It was well written, but used a lot of either buzz words of industry specific phrases which I'd often never heard of, even though it was written well enough you could still understand the meaning, it didn't exactly simplify it or help make it any more enjoyable to read. If anything it made me more likely to glaze over and not take any of it in.If you're wanting to work in a business where problem solving is essential this book might be of use, I don't see it being of great benefit to your average person in their day to day lives.

Charles Conn is a former partner of McKinsey & Company and former CEO of the Rhodes Trust. Rob McLean is Director Emeritus of McKinsey & Company and a former Dean of the Australian Graduate School of Management. This book aims to set out a 7-step programme for complex problem solving but while there’s some useful information here it presupposes a familiarity with some of the logic tree techniques, which makes it difficult to use for beginners.The book breaks down 7 basic steps to problem solving:- Define the problem- Disaggregate it- Prioritise- Workplan- Analyse- Synthesise- Communicate.Each chapter takes one of the steps and the authors then use real case studies from Conn and McLean’s careers to illustrate each one. For a number of chapters I found the case studies more useful than the explanation of the technique because Conn and McLean presuppose a familiarity with the underlying principles that I just didn’t have, which made it quite difficult for me to get into. That said, there were things that I was able to take away from this, e.g. the logic trees offer a useful way of breaking down a problem into consequences and options, which I can see myself using in my day job. I also liked the emphasis on communication of results of the problem solving exercise, including making it into a story so that people can track the process and understand the conclusions.I wasn’t wholly convinced by the authors’ claim that the techniques could be applied to complex social problems, not least because of their emphasis on being cost-efficient, which frankly isn’t the best way of dealing with problems such as HIV, while the categorisation of obesity on economic lines seemed to me to ignore a whole host of societal debating points about body image and health. The authors are also a little dismissive about experts, which I find a little daft - the idea that management consultants can solve problems using these techniques stretches credibility given they need experts to feed into their analysis. It would have also been useful had the authors given examples where their techniques didn’t work or had to be redone as new information came to light following implementation because I think the case studies give a misleading view of a one-size roll out that gives good results from the get-go.Ultimately, this is a useful text and it is worth taking a look if you’re looking at improving your problem solving skill set and I will be taking some of the steps on board for my own work, but this isn’t a great book for those new to the subject.

Despite its pretensions towards being a general solution to most of life's problems, this is actually a very business-oriented book. It is a very well planned and laid out book - just the problem solving technique is carefully planned and laid out. It would be ideal for large projects with big teams working on a 'problem' - which is really project management with a different focus. And it is a very valuable skill to master as it can mean the difference between success and disaster. It is not rocket science and, for anyone with a logical mind, the process is obvious. That said, not everyone has a logical mind and, when you are working as a team, it is important that everyone is on board and understands exactly what needs to be done, by whom, and when. This is a very good process to make that happen. But when it comes to the domestic stuff, it is a little bit over the top, unless you are a hard of thinking - or hung over.

A wonderful, dense, effort-demanding gift for all of us struggling with problems in the real world. What this book offers is a template to enable you to break down the complexity of your problem, whatever it may be, to reach a level of understanding previously not available to you and get you to the stage of problem solving and communicating. It offers seven steps in this process and is a how-to with many examples given. It is profusely illustrated with helpful examples of each of the steps and real life examples. So for contents I cannot rate this too highly, its simply wonderful and will reward the persevering reader. that brings me to my one gripe- the book is well bound, isn't going to fall apart, but quite honestly, you are going to need a magnifying glass to get to grips with some of the diagrams and the use of a small thin red type face on a white page is just making problems for the reader. That aside, this is a book I wish I had read thirty years ago, it would have made a real difference to my managerial skill set not just in business but in personal life as well.

Edward de Bono has for many years been offering thinking frameworks of this type, and by and large they are very useful. Like the do Bono approaches, this is very simple and easy to apply. Where it is a little more sophisticated is the use of data to focus the approach in the most high impact areas. The fact that it comes with the McKinsey "badge" gives it additional credibility.The book is well structured and sets out the key principles with good, clear examples that are not just the usual business book set of tired examples. It's written in an engaging, accessible way with clear diagrams and also offers suggested problems for the reader to consider in order to apply the principles. It has just the right amount of depth - it neither over-labours points or glosses over them.While this approach (like many of de Bono's) has wide application and would be well taught at school, the output of this approach would likely be best received in the business world. This is a good book and I believe that application of the concepts will make the reader more effective at problem solving.

In most places I have worked, I have rarely seen a proper Problem solving methodology employed. It is likely that other units of the companies employed some Problem-solving Frameworks. I think it is much easier when following some kind of Framework to problem-solving. Now I often find myself and the people I work within our SME wrestling with various problems that is why I am excited to have this book. I found the examples helpful like the Pacific Salmon problem and how they fleshed out Problem Statements and seeing how it evolved.It is packed with illustrations and diagrams that really help make the points being made clearer. Interesting case studies like the one on page 208, Will my Retirement Savings last, that really got me busy trying to makee the calculations.

With so many organisations facing rapid change, the issue of problem solving is at the core of success, or failure. This book looks at the challenges facing businesses, and managers, and attempts to offer solutions and teach ways to analyse and solve problems.I have found this a really useful read, both in terms of ideas for work and for teaching students on business courses. There are lots of case studies, practical ideas and suggestions of how to discover what you should do when faced with a problem. I really do think you can teach problem solving and this offers excellent ideas for how to cope, and have strategies, to deal with issues that crop up. A very interesting, and practical, book.

Decision-making is one of the few business skills (and indeed personal skills) that I believe can be taught rather than being simply part of one’s nature, and this book is one of the best I’ve seen at dealing with the logic and reasoning behind decision-making.The book lays out a seven-step decision-tree approach driven by data and pure logic and, helpfully, works through many examples to emphasise this. It’s well-written, clearly laid-out (despite the fact that the small size of some diagrams makes them a bit tricky to read), and I believe actually works. It’s already proving of use to me at work - and it’s not often that I say that about a book such as this.

This is a book that will teach you a seven-step approach to problem-solving. It is definitely very useful if you have never really thought about how to problem solve and are therefore not approaching problem-solving in an efficient manner. The book contains lots of useful examples, although like many business books it does tend to waffle on and repeat itself quite a bit. I did find it useful but, like a lot of business books, it does tend to assume the readers are working in certain kinds of corporate environments. I definitely found I had to adapt the advice for my working situation.