Introduction

This chapter concerns the second step of the problem solving cycle: the analysis and diagnosis step. Our starting point in this chapter is that the first step, the problem definition step, has been finished. Thus, in one way or another, the problem has been defined, some of its potential causes and consequences identified, the assignment and the problem solving approach determined.

The purposes of the diagnosis are to validate the business problem, to explore and validate the causes and consequences of the problem and to develop preliminary ideas about alternative directions to solve the problem. At the end of the diagnostic step, students must be convinced and able to convince others (practitioners as well as academics) of the validity of the problem, its causes and its consequences. During the previous step of the problem solving cycle, students are relatively passive. In this diagnostic step the students need to be much more active: they must actively develop and execute strategies to explore and check the ideas of the organization members that came up during the definition of the problem.

Students who have little practical experience in field problem solving need more guidelines than more experienced consultants. However, compared to the previous step of problem definition, considerably more activities are situation-specific, which makes it more difficult to provide general guidelines. In our experience, the diagnostic step causes many problems for students. They often do not know how to start and tend to continue the explorative character of the previous step, while part of the analysis strategy should aim at validation, instead of exploration. Thus, valid conclusions must be drawn at the end of the diagnosis, and they have to be carefully prepared. The result of the diagnostic step is a problem-oriented or problem- and process-oriented theory on the analysis subject. The explanatory and/or descriptive theory pertains to one case, and so we refer to it as an N = 1 theory. Since it is a theory, it should meet the quality standards mentioned in Chapter 13.