Jon Samsel

Developing a bug list can be a great way to uncover unmet needs that you may want to solve in your organization. Not only does it help document known issues, but the process of creating a bug list can also serve as a release valve for frustrated employees. Think of a bug list as a modern day suggestion box that’s a bit more open and interactive than the time-honored approach.

Ready to give it a try?

Spend a few minutes jotting down “things that bug you” in your daily work life. What annoys you? What could be fixed if people only knew it were a problem? How might productivity be boosted if a particular issue were revolved?

Here are a few ideas to get you started. These are some thing bugging me right now:

• Our e-commerce department takes too long to update website content
• We have to follow a cumbersome legal process to get content approved
• Visit to lead ratios on landing pages need improvement
• There is too much chatter and lollygaging around the copy machine

Now that you have your short list of bugs, it’s time to do some solution sketching to come up with ways to eliminate the bugs from your life. This type of brainstorming session may not solve all of the bugs on your list, but they will most certainly stimulate healthy debate (and possibly identify a few good solutions) if your team is asked to participate in a debugging session.

So what are you waiting for?  Click the image below to see a larger solution sketch template I created for some things that are bugging me right now.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 7:08 am and is filed under Creativity, E-Business, Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.