Here’s an example to illustrate how Pareto’s law can be applied in prioritizing and ordering problems:
Let’s say you’re a manager in a software development company, and you want to improve the overall efficiency and productivity of your team. You have identified several potential issues that could be hindering their performance:
- Poor code documentation
- Inadequate communication between team members
- Outdated software development tools
- Insufficient training in new technologies
- Inconsistent task prioritization
To apply Pareto’s law, you would first evaluate the impact of each problem or cause. Let’s say you assess the impact on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest:
- Poor code documentation: Impact = 7
- Inadequate communication between team members: Impact = 8
- Outdated software development tools: Impact = 5
- Insufficient training in new technologies: Impact = 9
- Inconsistent task prioritization: Impact = 6
Next, you would rank the problems based on their impact:
- Insufficient training in new technologies (9)
- Inadequate communication between team members (8)
- Poor code documentation (7)
- Inconsistent task prioritization (6)
- Outdated software development tools (5)
According to Pareto’s law, the vital few causes would be the top 20%, which, in this case, would be the top problem or the top two problems. So, in this example, the vital few causes are:
- Insufficient training in new technologies
- Inadequate communication between team members
As a result, you would prioritize these two problems and allocate your resources and efforts to address them first. By focusing on the vital few, you can have a significant impact on improving the overall efficiency and productivity of your software development team.
Once you have effectively addressed the vital few causes, you can then move on to addressing the remaining problems in the list, which are the trivial many. Although they may still need attention, their impact is comparatively lower, and they can be tackled in a more efficient manner after the vital few have been resolved.
By applying Pareto’s law, you can ensure that you’re investing your time, energy, and resources where they will make the most substantial difference, leading to better outcomes in problem-solving and prioritization.
