GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- The 17th Training Wing conducted its first Practical Problem-Solving Methodology, PPSM, class to 20 personnel and four observers with the help of Brian Marchitello, Headquarters Air Education and Training Command master process officer, at the Military Family Readiness Center, December 11.
The PPSM approach is an 8-step process for the Air Force to uniformly define what is and is not a problem while minimizing wasted time and resources in the workplace. Through this process, the 17th TRW can optimize its resources to better support its mission of training, transforming, and empowering joint and coalition warriors.
“Everybody in the Air Force is a problem solver, but if you don’t have a methodology on how to find solutions, all you’re doing is going after symptoms instead of the root cause,” stated Marchitello. “This methodology teaches folks how to go through the process and fix the problems the first and right way.”
Going forward, the PPSM class will be taught and implemented at Goodfellow to help Airmen get certified in identifying and tackling problems to achieve the overall mission more efficiently. The current class is designed to be more hands-on and engaging, ensuring the concepts are better understood and easier to apply in daily work.
“We can implement PPSM into Goodfellow’s mission by giving them more skill sets and resources to document their processes,” said Michelle Schwartz, 17th TRW continuous process improvement manager. “I think in many situations, PPSM can be used to get us out of the ‘don’t come to me with problems, come to me with solutions’ mentality so we can better address problems and accurately solve them.”